Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/222

 is ordinarily unwise for a fraternity to have a general regulation requiring a chapter to affiliate a transfer from another institution. I believe that the action taken should be determined by each chapter for itself. It is desirable that every chapter should have knowledge of the men who transfer from other institutions, and that they should be shown some courtesy and some attention. Whether they should be taken into the chapter, whether they should even eat at the chapter house table or visit the house often, should depend entirely upon the character of the men and the desire of the chapter. Usually I have found that the chapter has acted wisest that did not affiliate the men, and that had as little official connection with them as possible. When a chapter finds one man that will help and be of real service it will find a half dozen that will prove worthless or a real incubus. While I have been writing these paragraphs I have had a talk with a man whose fraternity requires that all transfers be affiliated, and I asked him to tell me frankly what the result in his fraternity had been.

"On the whole we have lost more by it than we have gained," was his reply, and that is the way I have come to feel about it. If a chapter establishes a custom of taking its transfers in, it will be impossible not to do so even when it is