Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/202

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loyal to these friends for them to break away so late in their college life. "If I had been asked in my freshman year," one of the boys said to me, "I should no doubt have been glad to accept. I have fought my way up alone, however, and have made for myself a satisfactory position in undergraduate affairs, and I feel without conceit that I should be doing the fraternity a greater honor in joining it now than it has done me by inviting me." I felt the same way as he did about the matter, and I have frequently felt so with reference to men who have been asked to join fraternities when they had gone beyond the sophomore year. A young friend of mine a few years ago was in about the same position, he said, as Thackeray was with the taffy. When as a child he very much wanted it, he did not have the shilling that it cost; later he had the shilling but he did not care for the taffy. When this boy friend of mine entered college, he very much wanted to join a fraternity but he did not have a chance; later in his college course he had the chance, but he had formed his friends and he did not have any desire to join.

It is interesting to see what becomes of these men who do not join. Those who do not wish to do so, of course, live their own lives, form their own small circle of intimate friends and have no quarrel with any one. They get out of college