Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/258

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embarrass a brother by forcing him to pay a debt before it is convenient."

"You are right in thinking that the fraternity is a brotherhood," the officer addressed wrote in reply, "but we are of the opinion that the kindest and most brotherly act which we can perform is to impress upon our members their obligations to pay their debts, to live within their income, and for each to do his part in carrying the financial obligations of the fraternity."

As time goes on the fraternity is going to impress these lessons of business integrity more and more strongly upon its members, and we shall hear less and less of financial extravagance, of bills unpaid, of debts incurred which cannot be met, for the fraternity man will learn that the fraternity is a business organization as well as a brotherhood, and that brotherly love is best expressed by one's first meeting his financial obligations.

The fraternity, as I said, is coming into a broader democracy. It is bound in the future to take men for what they themselves are, quite as much as for what their fathers have been. A fraternity officer came to the University of Illinois not long ago to look over a group of young fellows who were petitioning for a chapter of his fraternity. They were strong, healthy, wide-awake fellows with good manners and good morals and