Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/38

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of school. Mutual obligations are thereby created which have a deep and lasting influence upon character, if properly exercised. Not only is the novice bound to give to his new association the best that is in him, but the fraternity chapter is bound to reciprocate, or it fails in its organic purpose. If this be all true, as we believe it to be, colleges should encourage the establishment of more chapters, and more fraternities, to the end that all the students of companionable instincts and decent behavior may find the intimacy and the benefits of close association."

The problem which is before the young fellows who are at the head of a fraternity, and who undertake to establish and to maintain in the chapter house the conditions which surround healthy home life is not an easy one. The undergraduates in a fraternity house are usually inexperienced, they do not differ widely as to their ages, and their time is largely taken up with other things; they are young and do not always take life seriously, and so the responsibilities of managing the house either weigh on them heavily, or they are likely to neglect them. If they succeed it will be because they are closely united in sympathy and because each man does his part to bring about the desired result. Such a home life for them would be impossible if wrangling and jealousies and factions develop. It must be wrought out through diplo-