Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/153

 letters which are almost universally at present a part of fraternity journals, but I have no doubt that if it were possible to do so it would be found that the practice of requiring them grew up from a desire on the part of officers and members to become better acquainted with the entire membership of the organization, to know something of the personal lives of the individuals composing each chapter, and to bind the different chapters more closely together. It is no doubt something of the same purpose expressed in a broader way, perhaps, that the members of a family widely separated now have who write regularly to each other of the personal happenings in their own lives, or that personal friends have who through regular correspondence attempt to keep the fires of friendship brightly burning.

In the early history of Greek-letter fraternities there were few chapters of each organization, and these few were usually close together. It was possible for a wide-awake man in those days to know personally a large percentage of the men who made up the undergraduate ranks of his organization and through the quarterly letters to know something about every other man whom he did not know personally. As the fraternity roll was increased and the interests of the fraternity widened the need of something to bind the various