Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/133

 It is the secrecy of the fraternity no doubt, that encourages such escapades. It is one of the privileges of club life, the boy thinks, to be able unmolested to attempt risque things, and being alone in his deliberations and free from the guiding hand or the warning voice of older men, he slips easily into temptation.

The high school fraternity is in little or no sense a real brotherhood. Its purpose is not to bring boys together for mutual self-help. It seldom inculcates high moral ideals or develops interest in good scholarship even if it does not actually discourage these things. The members are not selected because they show fitness for doing well the work of high school, but rather because they dress well, dance well, are popular with the girls, and are able to spend money freely upon social pleasure. The high school fraternity seldom if ever has for its purpose the improving of general social conditions in the school or the desire to be an aid to the school authorities in the intelligent and satisfactory control of school affairs. On the contrary it often pulls down scholastic standards, it is a hindrance rather than a help in school management, and it contributes to the pleasure of only a very limited and select number of students. Healthy social activity in the high school should be general, democratic, an activity into which every respectable and well-mannered member of the school may enter, and not limited to a few people who are possessed of money.

I have seldom known a high school fraternity which