Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/45

 verges on imbecility for parents or teachers or college officials to treat any two young people alike in any situation where the conditions are affected by the personality of the individual. Even children can see this if it is put up to them intelligently.

There are those who argue that a member of a fraternity has more show than an independent, that he is given more consideration, that college officers discriminate in his favor. In point of fact, I feel that the opposite of this is true, barring the fact that organization is one of the first elements in attaining success, and that the fraternity man takes advantage of this favorable condition. I have sometimes felt that possibly a college man occasionally lost favor by being a part of an organization, because one has a tendency to blame him for the sins of his fellows. "Does Brown belong to a fraternity?" the chairman of a committee diliberating over a freshman's intellectual future, asked me over the telephone the other day. "I think so," I replied, "but that fact ought not to determine whether or not he is allowed to continue."

Usually I am convinced that the man in an organization is helped. We see it in business, in politics, in the church, in society—why not in college? The independent fights against odds