Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/28

 himself that which neither his parents nor his friends had previously been able to do. It is some such service as this that the fraternity performs for the undergraduate.

"College has made a wonderful change in Fred Gates," one of his townsmen said to me not long ago. "Every one notices that he is quieter, more thoughtful, less selfish." "It was his fraternity that did it," I replied, and I knew how difficult a task it had been to accomplish.

In a peculiar way, I think, the fraternity teaches the undergraduate to respect the rights of others. If twenty-five or thirty men are to get on happily in a house there must be some regard on the part of everyone for "mine" and "thine." The carelessness or thoughtlessness of one man may annoy or injure all of the others. The man who sleeps late in the morning or comes noisy into the dormitory at night, who plays the piano when other men want to study, will not live long in a fraternity house before he is called by the umpire. In the use of other men's time, or dress shirts, or theme paper, or tobacco, the fraternity man ultimately learns that the fellow who does not respect the rights or prepertyproperty [sic] of others is not a good member of a fraternity household.

The fraternity teaches the undergraduate a good many things about social conventions which