We should not expect our children to enjoy themselves quite as we did at their age. The pleasures in which I indulged as a boy are very different from those in which my young nephews take delight, though I can not see that mine were either saner or more restrained than theirs, and I try to remember this fact when I am tempted to criticise the social life of the young people of today. I should hardly be excusable, however, if I did not try to give them the benefit of my experience.
Men, young and old, are social animals. All of us like to join things. It is as difficult for me to refuse an invitation to become a member of a club or a fraternity or an organization as it is to resist the seductive talk of a book agent when he spreads his attractive wares before my eyes. I feel like a hero if I can summon the courage to turn him down. We joined church or the Democratic party, I have no doubt, not so much from any strong religious or political convictions as from the fact that we were asked; we found it difficult to resist a chance to join, and we yielded. I am not arguing, however, that there is always profit in joining. Boys feel very much about joining things as men do. When they go into a high school fraternity, they are but imitating their fathers or their older brothers in college each of whom, no doubt, has his club or his fraternity. Yet, on the whole, I am convinced that membership in a high school fraternity is not a good thing.
Such an organization might be beneficial if it were based upon more strictly democratic principles than it often is.
