Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/201

 what they were like and what they stood for. After I had done so as fairly as I could," he said, "Thank you for telling me so straightforwardly. I don't believe from what you say that they are the sort of men that I should like to have for my intimate friends in college, and I shall decline their invitation." It took pretty staunch principles for him to reach this conclusion, for he is a boy who would very much enjoy the sort of life he would find in a good fraternity, and he knew very well what it means at the end of the freshman year to decline an invitation to join. Such instances are not at all rare of men who rather than join the wrong fraternity elect to join none at all but try to make for themselves a happy independent life.

Not infrequently the opportunity to join a fraternity comes to a man too late. He would have liked the opportunity earlier in his college course; but if it comes to him in his junior year, he often prefers to stay with the coterie of friends whom he has gathered about him than to adjust himself thus late to a new set. Only this year two juniors at the University of Illinois were invited to join two different fraternities. They were decidedly among the most influential independents in college. They were strong politically, they were respected socially, and they had a wide circle of warm friends. They did not feel that it would be quite