Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/225

 but very likely one of the strongest is that going to college was never so universally popular as it now is, and a large number of young people, therefore, enter college in the fall who find out before spring that they are not particularly fitted for the work or interested in it. These often do not return.

One of the most serious problems the fraternity has to solve is concerned with the men who do not graduate. There is a very large class of fellows who enter college, join a fraternity, and then at the end of the first semester, or the first year, or the first two years, give up their college work and go at something else. This class of men causes the fraternity a considerable amount of trouble from the fact that while they are in college they are often unstable, dissatisfied, and irresponsible, and after they leave college they are unlikely to meet their obligations to the fraternity or to show much interest in it. Fraternities are coming to see that when they are rushing men one of the first things to discover about them is whether or not they have serious intentions of remaining in college for the entire course. The student who does not, is more likely than not to be a poor asset for the organization.

A fraternity is strong or weak under the present system in accordance with which fraternities are