Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/157

 he hesitates to believe the baldest statement of fact.

I recall a letter written by a member of a chapter with which I was acquainted which began "After closing a remarkably successful college year," and continued with a page of similar enthusiasm. The "remarkably successful college year" for them had in reality been full of disaster. The commissary through mismanagement had left the fraternity nearly $1,000 in debt, one of their prominent upperclassmen had been dismissed for cribbing, the highest officer of the fraternity had neglected his duty throughout his entire term of office, and the freshmen had been allowed to run wild so that they had brought down the scholastic standing of the organization to the bottom of the fraternity list and yet it had been a "remarkably successful college year." I wondered what the correspondent would have said if they had accomplished something.

The following modest recital illustrates the sort of stuff which I have in mind, and which everyone discounts as he reads it. The only modification which I have made is to change the names. It looks as if Lyons was a hard worked man.

"Our annual reception was one, indeed, to be proud of, and pronounced the greatest fête of the Commencement season. At Commencement Lyons