Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/12

 come extant that at the State University atheism ran riot. In my junior year there was a gathering at the seat of the university of the state organization of one of the Protestant churches. A few of the more venturesome delegates, led by deviltry and curiosity, wandered over to visit the university. As they stood on the first floor of the main building awed and fearsomelike because of their surroundings, I heard one of them say, "One can simply feel the spirit of infidelity here as he enters the building." And yet up on the third floor an undergraduate prayer meeting was going on at that moment. Their ideas of the awful life students were living at the state university had about as much foundation and were entitled to about as much credence as what men write about fraternities who have not themselves had a reasonable experience as members. A large part of the opposition to fraternities is the result of jealousy and ignorance.

A young fellow was telling me recently that when he came to college it was with the idea that the Greek-letter fraternity was simply a breeding place for loafing, and extravagance, and immorality When he was asked later to join a fraternity he hesitated, but finally he consented. In his senior year his father came to visit him and found him as president of the Young Men's Chris-