Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/66

 chapter, and that they see the chapter at its best, should be upon every member. Often the responsibility is thrown upon two or three members only, they are given very little support, and when it comes to the time for making a decision, half the men are not ready to vote or vote without intelligence, because they have loafed on their duty, have not seen the new men enough to have any opinion of them, and so delay the decision or render it impossible, by having failed to do their part at the right time. Possibly this failure results from a lack of definiteness in planning the business—for it is a business as important as any which the fraternity does. I have seen a good deal of rushing, but for the most part it has seemed to me pretty purposeless and unorganized. Half the members of the chapter often do not meet the men, and the new men in these cases of course do not have a chance to form a definite opinion of even half the chapter. The whole process is largely a scramble. The men are invited to dinner, there is an hour or so of vigorous pounding of the piano, the crowd, or so much of it as has not sneaked away, is rounded up and rushed to the vaudeville or the movies, and following this a few soft drinks at a downtown refectory closes the session. The process is not one calculated to give either party to the pending agreement an intelligent knowledge of the other.