Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/168

 whether it was located in Chicago or in Kankakee and the chapter letters he had read were calculated to give him very little information on these subjects. Before I commented too severely upon his ignorance I took time to ask myself how much I knew about the University of Oklahoma, or Rutgers, or Miami, and before anyone who reads this article grows conceited I should like to inquire how much he knows about Cincinnati University, or the College of Charleston, or the Agricultural College at Manhattan, Kansas, or Tufts, or Bowdoin, and how concrete an idea is it possible for him to get from the chapter letter in his fraternity magazine. All this suggests to me that the letters ought to tell every year something about the college—its aims, its extent, its growth, its accomplishments, and the atmosphere which surrounds it.

I should feel it unfortunate, too, if the letters did not contain considerable specific reference to undergraduate activities. Athletics, dramatics, social events, college publications form a large part of the life of most undergraduates and a larger part of their interest. College papers are often criticized because they devote so large an amount of their reading matter to the discussion of these undergraduate activities and so small a part to the more important things of college life. It will always be so so long as those who have