Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/79

 They remind me of a student I once knew in mathematics whose instructor, in commenting upon his frequent absence from the class exercises, remarked that the boy had presented an excuse seventeen times, and that they were all good and all different. I have never seen a fraternity unable to give an excellent reason for its coming short of its possibilities in any detail—social, moral, or intellectual. I suppose their is nothing strange about such a situation, however. It is a characteristic of youth. As I remember being called up before father when a boy to explain my derelictions, I do not recall that I ever lacked a first rate excuse.

In view of this youthful genius for explaining, it is just as well for the freshman to take with a little seasoning the arguments which every fraternity bidding for his membership will lay before him to convince him of its superior claims to his favor. The first and the most frequently used of these arguments is "national standing." Which are the five fraternities having the best national standing in this country? I don't know, and I am not at all sure that you do. In order to answer such a question we should have to determine the various points to be taken into consideration. Are these age, or location, or number of chapters, or exclusiveness, or the number of prominent alumni, or what? I can not say. The question is about as easily