Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/29

 he would be long in learning in the ordinary boarding house. Not every freshman who comes to college, and not every freshman who joins a fraternity has a perfect working knowledge of the conventionalities of life. I have seen the freshman even in a fraternity house reach for a slice of bread with his fork, pass the toothpicks, or fail to "ship his oars," but he did not do it often before some thoughtful brother called his attention to the error. A man may be good fraternity material without having polished manners, but if the fraternity is well organized and well managed, an undergraduate cannot be a member of it long without learning to show more respect for the proper social conventions, without cultivating self-possession and developing poise. I was not long ago with: a friend at dinner at a fraternity house. My friend was a woman of broad experience who had traveled widely all over the world and who had associated with cultivated people everywhere. The young men met her without embarrassment, they talked easily, and their dinner was served in the utmost good taste. She marveled to me at their finesse, and I, who am used to seeing fraternity men do these things so well, have scarcely ceased to marvel myself. They were country boys, many of them, or boys from country towns. Some of them, it is true, had been brought up in the city,