Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/134

 did not stir up trouble. The exclusiveness of it arouses envy in the minds of those who are not invited to join. It develops cliques and factions, and breaks down rather than strengthens high school spirit. It often makes a boy arrogant and something of a cad. For all these reasons I believe the high school fraternity is in a majority of cases not the healthiest and best medium for the social activities of the high school boy. It develops social selfishness, its members are likely to overestimate their own social importance, it encourages extravagance in money matters and a contempt for others who are outside of this social aristocracy. If I had a boy I should be sorry if he became a member of such an organization.

A few evenings ago I attended a dance to which one of these high school fraternity boys had been invited. He came in his own car and brought with him his "steady girl." He was dressed with extreme care in a decidedly extreme style. She was fifteen perhaps, and he a year older. She showed all the toilet artifices, all the shades of coloration, of the beauty parlor. They danced together continuously throughout the evening, they exhibited the most extreme contortions and gyrations of the "shimmy" they omitted the usual courtesy of speaking to the chaperones, and held themselves entirely aloof throughout the evening from contact with their conservative companions. They admitted by their actions that they were the social elect, the aristocracy who could not bring themselves to the vulgar level of the crowd.