Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/18

 time, lives under peculiar conditions. He wants friends, companionship, and the associations of home; he wants sympathy, encouragement, and direction, and it is these which the fraternity can give him. It is the most natural and normal thing that the young man in college should develop his own peculiar organization for the cultivation of such characteristics of the home as are in college possible. The Greek-letter fraternity is such an organization.

The criticisms that are made upon the fraternity by those who are not members of it or who know little or nothing about it, are that it is undemocratic, that it encouargesencourages [sic] extravagance and immorality. Men argue that in college, especially in an institution supported by the state, no organization should be allowed to exist which it is impossible for any student to belong to should he so desire. I read a letter not long ago from the father of two boys who had graduated from college protesting against fraternities on the ground that, though he did not want his sons to join and could not have afforded to have them do so even if he had desired it, it was unjustifiable that there should be any organization at a state university which was not open to his sons and to every other student. It seems to me as reasonable to argue that if I belong to the Presbyterian church or to