Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/37

 terian enough to believe, they sink in, they leave their impression, they have a greater or a less influence upon the moral life of every man who has taken the oath of the organization. One can not hear the ritual read or go through the ceremony of initiation without having a greater regard for truth and honesty and virtue and brotherly love, and this impression one unconsciously carries into the routine of the business of his every day life. As I came back from the biennial congress of my fraternity some time ago, I could not help noticing the impression which the meeting had made upon the undergraduates who were on the train with me. All of them were young, and some of them were careless, and a few were controlled by the passions of youth; but just then they were serious, thoughtful, impressed with the obligations which membership in the fraternity placed upon them, and determined, too, to go home and more conscientiously to live up to the principles for which the fraternity stands. The fraternity had done them all good.

And so I say, as I said at the beginning, if I were an undergraduate in college again, I think I should want to belong to a fraternity; and if I had a son in college, I should be quite contented to have him a member of such an organization.