Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/250

 ment and weaknesses in its organization as every other organization has with which I am acquainted. Originally the fraternity was a small club which met at intervals, which was composed of congenial spirits with similiarsimilar [sic] ideals, and which made as little stir in the college community as is now made by an honorary society or the dramatic club; now it is a home which shelters often far too many souls for easy management, it is a social force, a political unit, a group which stands out and which many fellows have a desire to become a part of. When it was organized the class of students going to college was very different from the class that now goes to college with different parentage and different ideals. The fraternity could be exclusive then without attracting attention to itself; it cannot do so now, and it is coming to recognize this fact. As conditions changed a certain lowering of standards crept in. Scholarship became a less necessary qualification for membership, moral standards were less rigid, social finesse was more generally demanded, the financial standing of a man's father came to count for more than the fellow's own personal character and worth; extravagance and dissipation were not uncommon. With all these conditions criticism was easy and criticism was just.

But this criticism, this opposition to the con-