Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/73

 wait, is more often than otherwise ignorant of the ways of college, and more completely ignorant still of the ways of the fraternity. He is most freqently in dire need of advice, though he may not be eager to accept it. He is often as completely confused as is the country boy who finds himself for the first time alone in a great city. Experienced undergraduates know all this and take advantage of it in the tactics they use in making an impression upon the man they are rushing. Every year I see dozens of boys who are taken off their feet by the suddenness with which all these new experiences come to them, and by their inability at once to decide just what they should do. I could wish that it were all a little more deliberate.

First of all I should say that the man who is being rushed, should not allow himself to be put, at the outset, under obligation to any fraternity. Fellows often ask the new men in whom they are interested to come to the fraternity house and live for the first few days while they are getting settled. The boy who accepts such an invitation is foolish, even though he hopes to become a member of the fraternity which has invited him. He makes it difficult for other fraternities who may want to get acquainted with him, and he makes it very embarrassing for himself, should he later decide that he does not care to become a member of the organiza-