Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/32

of student activities. In the University of Illinois the extra-curriculum activities of students are fully three-fourths, I believe, in the hands of fraternity men. The fraternities urge their men to get out, keep after them constantly, and help them in every way possible. The man who does not belong to a fraternity has no organization behind him, no one to goad him if he gets lazy, so even when he has a good chance of winning, he often becomes discouraged and drops out. There again in this matter of outside activities there is often a difference of opinion. Some conservative college officers hold that the fewer extra-curriculum activities in which the student engages the better off he is. If the only object of a college education were to teach a man facts, to acquaint him with scientific principles, and to fill him with book knowledge, I should agree with this view fully. I am convinced, however, from my own experience as well as from a long period of observation, that I though study and books are the main thing, the value of a college training lies almost as much in what the undergraduate gets outside of the classroom as in what he gets within it. Association with men, the solving of the practical problems of life, independence, self-reliance, poise, finesse are all developed through outside activities. I believe that the number of activities into which