Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/83

 wisest plan to have a definite understanding as to just what is involved. The freshman is not over curious who wants to see the rooms in which he is to live and to work, if he becomes a member of a fraternity. He is showing admirable good sense if he finds out what his living expenses are to be, and how many "extras," as they say in Europe, he will be called upon to stand for. Both he and his father have a right to know this, and they may calculate with complete assurance that it will not be less than the members of the fraternity allege.

There are a few things which it is safest to avoid. There is a possibility of being too wise, of knowing too much of fraternity conditions, of playing one organization against the other, and of finally losing out. The high school fraternity boy who comes to college is not infrequently this sort. He has had a fraternity experience, he thinks, and you cannot show him anything. He is in reality the greenest and the most transparent of them all. The wisest freshman is quiet, observant, dignified. He appreciates what courtesies are offered him, and says so, but he does not show himself boastful, or smart, or self-satisfied. He keeps himself in hand, and he knows his own mind. The man who vacillates is making a mistake, and laying up for himself a heritage of unhappiness. If on Monday morning he makes up his mind that the Phi Gam's