Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/203

 what they came for, and they seldom have any feeling of jealousy or envy for the man who gets something else. These men have the kindest feelings for the men in fraternities and see no reason why if these men have the time and the money and the desire for such things they should not go into them. The man who really has no interest in joining and who enjoys another sort of life is not mixed up in any fight against organizations. He likes his own life and is willing for the fraternity man to like his.

Some of the men who are disappointed in not being asked are too weak and too lacking in independence to adjust themselves to their surroundings and to form a group of friends of their own. A young boy came in to see me not long ago with some evident trouble weighing on his mind. I tried to get it out of him with little success for a time, but finally I asked, "What is worrying you, Fred?" "What I want to know," he burst out, "is how I can get a bid to join a fraternity." He was really pathetic, he would have taken anything offered him. All that he wanted was a pin. I tried to tell him frankly that his chances were not very great; he was not quite the sort of man to attract interest by fraternity men, he had no friends to push him. I tried to show him that happiness and success were very little, if at all, dependent upon his