Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/99

 "Which one," I asked, "will be at the head of the chapter when he is a senior?"

"Brockton," they all said at once, "because he gets into things, he takes hold, he has the spirit of the house already," and they were right, and Brockton today is making one of the best of officers we have ever had.

I remember as a graduate student in an eastern university of being admitted to a special class in English Composition.

"No one who is admitted to this class," the old instructor informed us at the first meeting, "need ever expect to have anything complimentary said of his literary composition. The fact that one is admitted at all is sufficient proof that he has shown more than average ability as a writer. Granted that, it will be my business in the future to discover to him his faults and weaknesses."

I have no doubt that the fraternity pledge often feels as discouraged as I did when I got back my first long theme mutilated and scarred, covered with red ink and scrawled over with vituperative criticisms. Nothing that I did seemed right or good. The new man in the house gets little praise; he is bawled out if he violates or evades rules; he is seldom commended if he does well. "Don't praise them," is the suggestion, "or you'll make them conceited." The freshman does not realize