Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/248



There has been a good deal of discussion during the last few years, in college and out of it, by those who are members of fraternities and by those who are not with reference to the stability of the college fraternity and its probable future. A prominent physician said to me not long ago, "I believe it will not be many years until all of these college fraternities, either by the enactment of state laws or by the regulations of college authorities will be debarred from our educational institutions and will have to go out of business."

If the fraternity is not meeting a real need of the college, if it is not contributing to the betterment of the undergraduate and of the college community generally, I believe my friend is correct in his predictions, for the fraternity would then have no legitimate reason for continuing, but I believe that it is meeting such a need and that it does so contribute, and that in the future it will do more than it has done in the past.

The conditions under which students in college lived when the fraternity was organized and the character and training of the young men who entered college then as compared with the character and training of those who now enter were as