Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/93

 worth quarreling over; they did not warrant the tarnishing of fraternity honor in order that they might be acquired.

And there is no doubt in the minds of serious thinking men today that the fraternity which lifts men or allows them to be lifted for any cause is lowering its dignity, is in doing this less entitled to respect that it would otherwise be, and cannot in the eyes of sensible people justify its action. Lifting clinchs one of the strongest arguments against fraternities and strikes a knockout blow at fraternity progress. The fraternity that has any standing does not need to do it, and the fraternity that has none should not be allowed to do it. The pledge who allows himself to be lifted has by that act shown a weakness of character which should bar him from initiation.

Fraternities will continue to make mistakes in pledging men, but in most cases these mistakes are possible of correction. Such men can be released in a dignified and orderly way. New men in college will, also, under even more favorable conditions than at most institutions exist at the present time, continue to pledge themselves to the wrong fraternity. There is a way open to any such to correct the error. No fraternity will hold a man if he is dissatisfied. If the fraternity to which you have pledged yourself is not what you thought it