Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/123

 social conventionalities that frequently arise, and that require skill in solution; there are the wounded feelings of the local girls, caused by the presence of too many "imports," to be considered. In fact there are a considerable number of dangerous rocks to be avoided, so that I think, very wisely at times, a good many colleges, as I have said, do not permit the fraternities to give house parties. We shall, possibly, ere long come to this decision ourselves, but at present we have not done so.

Every year in my own fraternity, when on occasion I drop in on the boys, I hear the rumbling of this discussion as to whether or not the annual formal dance shall this year be in connection with a house party. The older fellows whose incomes are not unlimited and whose memories of the last function of this sort given by the chapter are still fresh, recall the fact that we are as yet scarcely free from the incubus of debt which was left us as a heritage by those who staged the last show of this sort, and that it would be a matter of wisdom and sound judgment to move with a little social conservatism. "We simply can't afford it," they say and gloomingly recall the past and the weeks of "oleo" and beans that the commissary department forced upon them in order to cut down expenses and save something to meet the extra bills that seemed to rain in for months after the party was