Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/63

 in many cases these men under discussion are of such a character that it would be a credit to any fraternity to lose them.

I have been interested in studying rushing methods to see how strongly undergraduates are influenced by insignificant or trifling details. If a man talks too much or too little, if his ties or his shoes or the intonations of his voice are not just right, he is likely to be thrown into the discard. "Cole is an awfully good man," a senior said to me in speaking of a prominent junior who was not a member of any fraternity. "Yes," I answered; "you fellows rushed him pretty hard when he was a freshman; why did you never bid him?" "Well," was the senior's reply, "most of us were strong for him, and thought him a prince of a fellow, as he is, but Hill simply couldn't stand for the way in which he shakes hands, so we had to let him go." Here was a fraternity that had turned down one of the strongest and most influential men in college—forceful, aggressive, a real leader—just because he did not hold his arm at the approved angle when he was shaking hands. The fellow who confessed to the reason was ashamed of it, as he should have been.

"I am convinced," I heard a gray haired fraternity man say in a public address not long ago, "that fraternity men in rushing freshmen pay