Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/30

 but these, in many cases, had had quite as little social experience as the others. There is a certain tradition about it all; it is a kind of ritual handed down from one generation to the next. The freshman learns from the upperclassman and then in turn passes the lesson on to succeeding undergraduates. However it is done, the man who goes into a fraternity of the right sort is sure to learn something of social form, of politeness and courtesy and good manners that will be to him in later life no mean asset.

It has been a criticism upon the fraternity, and it has not been an altogether unjust one, that it has led its members rather more actively into social activities than was good for many of them. If I were arguing on this side of the question, I should not be at a loss to find illustrations to prove my point, but I believe as I go back over my experience that the instances in which the social life and activities of fraternity men were a benefit to them are so far in excess of those in which they were a detriment, that it can safely be held that the social activities into which the modern Greek-letter fraternity introduces its members are, on the whole, an excellent thing. Most of the men who enter our Middle West educational institutions are from very modest homes in many of which the social life is unconventional and in not