The Fraternity and the College (collection)/Horse Play and Rough House at Initiations
"I must run along;" said a senior to me one evening not long ago when he was making an informal call at my house, "we are initiating this week, and we have to give our freshmen a little work out tonight." "Heaven help the freshmen," I replied as I recalled the procedure which was followed at the initiations with which I was familiar during the first few years of my fraternity life, and those other tales of getting the freshmen into shape to which I listened as they fell from the lips of willing undergraduates who had lived through the siege.
It was great sport to send prospective brothers out on a quiet stroll to the cemetery clad in empty flour barrels, to set them to wheeling doll baby carriages about the campus, to make them fish all day, with a pin hook in the dry "Boneyard," or to force them to beg for a hand out at the President's back door only to get into more public and embarrassing disgrace. Such stunts always brought the fraternity into deserved prominence and served to convince the general public that we were the fools they thought us. There were other sorts of goings-on of which I have been told, some of them devised with the keenest insight into the methods of human torture, mental and physical. There were personal insults and physical abuse, such as painting the body of the victim, torturing him with electrical horrors, feeding him with nauseating messes, and beating him up to see how much pain he could stand without flinching or crying out. The fake violation of the oath was a form of mental torture which when worked skillfully made the initiate writhe. I have known boys who broke down and sobbed and who were upset for days by the memory of the disgrace which they thought they were going to suffer. All this we agreed was to put the freshman into the proper frame of mind and prepare him for the better appreciation of the ritual.
Occasionally some steady and sensible-minded brother questioned the advisability of continuing the practice, but he was promptly sat upon by some one who had been through the ordeal the previous year and who had been possessing his soul in patience until he could square the account with another brother. The fact that we had "always done it" carried weight, and it was years before some one was wise enough to insist that it was an imbecile and inane custom for which there was no justification. We gave it up, and now no one could be induced to go back to it. Like many another unworthy custom, tradition was its only justification.
I think it is hardly fair, however, completely to condemn a practice so common as "horse play" and "rough house" without getting as far as it is possible to do so, the point of view of those most intimately engaged in it. For that purpose I recently talked very freely with a score or more of undergraduates with whom I am well acquainted, and in addition to this I wrote letters to the presidents of each of the men's social organizations of the University of Illinois asking them to give me in a few words their opinion of the effect of "rough house" or "horse play" preliminary to the initiation of pledges, with any good argument which they might have for or against it.
The replies to these letters were very interesting. Of the twenty-eight replies received sixteen were opposed to the practice and twelve favored it. In general local organizations whose rituals are probably pretty weak and inadequate were strongly in favor of the practice, and those national fraternities who thought it a mistake to omit the "rough stuff" from the initiation ceremonies were in general of recent organization with little or no traditions behind them, or the local chapters were without strong leaders. Such organizations have little else to depend upon to keep their men in line, excepting the "strong arm." Those who are most strongly against it were the organizations with definite traditions and dignified rituals or those whose leadership is vigorous and effective.
The beneficial effects of this rather coarse form of preliminary initiation, or the reasons it should be retained as a part of the ceremonies, are, according to the advocates of the custom, to keep up a worthy tradition, to teach the freshman his proper place, to discover if the initiate is is "yellow," and to apply to his character a adequate test. One man says:
"In my own experience in watching freshmen 'put through' in the manner with which I am familiar, I give my unqualified approbation to 'horse play'. The average freshman is young, untried, and usually fresh from high school triumphs; his ego is largely developed, he does not consider that the fraternity is conferring a favor on him, but that his presence is largely a condescension. This last attitude is partly due to rushing methods and largely due to imperfect rearing by parents. He is distinctly not a man, and the fraternity must take up the task of character shaping where the parents left off or never began. His exaggeration of his own omnipotence must be dissipated, and as one of our own freshman puts it, he usually cannot reason it out, so other methods must be used. If he could fully comprehend the significance of fraternity ties, 'horse play' would be unnecessary; but he cannot do this, and more material means are necessary. Furthermore, the so-called 'rough house' is a means of determining what a man possesses, whether he has a streak of 'yellow' or whether he has stamina."
Yet this man admits that even though this trying preliminary work shows the initiate both "yellow" and without stamina, the initiation goes on just the same, and the man whose character has been shown to be weak is received with quite as much enthusiasm as if he had stood the test like a martyr. Indeed this is always true; if we admit that "horse play" in initiations is simply a legitimate attempt to test a man's character, we must also admit that no matter what the result may be the man always passes the test. An initiate may take a beating without winking an eye lash or he may show himself craven by bursting into tears and imprecations; when it is all over no one knows the difference and whether the new man has shown himself brave or a booby he is welcomed as a worthy brother. The alleged test, therefore, is really no test.
One other man says:
"Horse play, to be administered properly and with justification, should be given as punishment for some offence. Certain duties are required of the freshman, and certain rules are laid down which he must not violate. Usually these rules are sensible, and are designed to assist him in keeping up his work. Other rules are designed with no other purpose than to keep the freshman in his proper place in the fraternity household, and work no direct harm against him. If the rules are at all sensible, therefore, I think it right that whenever the freshman fails in his duties, or when he does things which the fraternity forbids, he must take his spanking, or whatever other form of 'horse play' the fraternity uses."
If this man's logic were to be accepted then only those initiates who had been derelict should be subjected to the unpleasant experiences of the preliminary initiation. If there are ever differences made, however, they are so slight as not to be recognized. The boisterous fellow is put through the torture because he is fresh, and the shy bashful boy is beaten to wake him up and to put a little life into him. The theory reminds me vividly of the methods of a quack physician whom I once knew. He had only one remedy. He might vary the dose or the directions slightly to suit different conditions, but whoever came to him for treatment, no matter from what disease he might be suffering, got the same medicine. The patients sometimes died, of course, but that might have been true had they not gone to him.
I quote, also, from a third letter:
"The purpose of 'horse play,' as I see it, is to test the candidates for initiation for those desirable characteristics which should be present in every good man. If there are any undesirable characteristics, such as 'yellow streaks,' they are very sure to show when a candidate is undergoing a severe test of 'horse play.' There is no doubt, however, that the 'rough house' element in many initiations has degenerated into a selfish desire on the part of a few individuals to get even with the pledge; hence the wholesale beating-up which so frequently occurs. From my own experience, I can say that a minimum amount of the 'rough house' element rightly applied can no doubt be a benefit to every pledge." Following the theory, perhaps, advanced by Bill Nye that "A certain amount of fleas is good for a dog."
On the other hand those who oppose "horse play" and who contend that the simple ritual is most effective give equally strong reasons. From some of these letters I quote.
"In the first case, a fraternity initiation should away from the effectiveness and dignity of any initiation. Secondly, true men are sportsmen enough to do the stunts they are asked to perform without any paddling or beating. More effective methods of regulating and discipling an initiate can be devised. Thirdly, a 'rough house' initiation is not a great amount of fun for the men present, and, after one experience, a man's enthusiasm for such things generally palls.
"In the initiations I have been put through I think a great deal more of those that did not have the 'horse play,' and I have a higher respect for the organization that gave its initiation without the 'rough house.' 'Rough house' initiations are a dangerous sport, and serious accidents take place easily. I believe that it would be a good measure for fraternities as national bodies to forbid 'horse play' in their initiations."
Perhaps the strongest arguments against the practice are summed up in the following, quoted from the letter of a president of one of the fraternities and one of the best respected fellows in the Greek-letter organizations.
"A fraternity is supposed, by those who know, to be a men's organization with serious motives and purposes behind it, and the 'rough house' is mere child's play. It is said that the pledges expect it—but one does not always get what he expects in college. One of the worst features of the farce is that it cheapens the real ritual. The freshman is very likely to put one on a par with the other and to consider the pledges that he takes as a huge joke.
"I do not believe that there is a great deal of danger attached to the 'horse play.' True, those who go through it are stiff and sore for several days, but one very seldom receives any lasting injury. Occasionally, however, we hear of someone's being seriously injured. Then the Greek world gets some unpleasant notoriety.
"In my experience I have never seen an instance of anyone's being benefited by the farce. It is not true that the initiates are treated with less severity than they would be without it. It always gives a fine opportunity for the gratification of any personal grudge, and the fellow who has gone through one is the same fellow who wields the paddle most lustily.
"People not in college cannot understand it, and with the whole Greek-letter system undergoing an attack as it is at present, the 'rough house' simply furnishes material for the opposition, and I, for one, am firmly convinced that it should have no place in our initiations."
A third man, whose fraternity ritual, if one may guess from its origin, is one of the most dignified among college societies, says:
"It is my opinion that 'horse play' arises largely from the lack of a well defined ritual. The more complete and impressive the initiation service the less will be the tendency to start anything in the line of 'rough house.' This sort of thing has a place only in an organization without definite aim or purpose other than the amusement of the members."
Still another says:
"It is advanced that, when you subject a man to physical ordeals or cause him to make himself appear ridiculous, you probe his character. In my opinion, a man's conduct under initiation is not an index of his character. A man may allow indignities to be heaped upon him merely because he sees it to his advantage to do so and not because of any particular goodness of character. The man of coarse sensibilities will smile; the man of fine sensibilities will feel insulted—neither will be benefited, nor does the fraternity reap any benefit."
These opinions were to me interesting, and I present them for what they are worth. As for myself, as I look back over the experiences which I had, and as I have seen and heard the effects which these exhibitions or the reports of them have had upon the general public, I have come to see how common and vulgar the practice really is and how out of keeping with the real purposes of the fraternity. Anthing which brings the fraternity or fraternity men thus prominently before the people who are not in sympathy with such organizations is sure to do them damage. The public "horse play" seems to me now a display of crude advertising which will only bring the fraternity into disrepute.
When I was a small boy I remember that a merchant of the country town near which I lived offered a prize of twenty-five dollars and the minister's fee to any couple who would be married in his shop window at noon on the Fourth of July. Somebody accepted the offer and got the money, and to this day I never see a fraternity man capering about the campus engaged in some of the "horse play" incident to an initiation but that I think of that couple—crude, illiterate, without sensitiveness—standing in that public place before the laughing, jeering, unsympathetic crowd to have performed the most sacred and holy rite of marriage; and I always hang my head a little in shame.
As to the arguments in favor of "rough house," I do not believe that any man was ever permanently helped by it. Even though a man should prove himself to have a "streak of yellow" in him, that fact, as I have said never bars him. If he be too "fresh," the rough treatment may calm him for the time being, but he bobs up serenely at the next initiation, fresher than ever, and keen to beat up the defenseless brother who has come after him. If there are exceptions to this statement I do not now recall them. If the treatment were carried into the sophomore year, and the fresh or incorrigible sophomore were subject to discipline, the case might be different. The freshman knows, however, that the period of his probation is short and he usually breaks out worse than ever when it is ended.
As to "showing the freshman his true place," I have in another paper expressed myself on this topic. I believe that because of his somewhat wider experience the upperclassman should rule, but I have little sympathy with the feeling that it is to the advantage either of the freshman or of the fraternity that the initiate should be humiliated and insulted simply to establish the fact that the upperclassmen are in authority. I have always felt that it was pretty poor discipline even for parents and much less for fraternity men to be under the necessity to use force to show a child or a freshman his true place.
I think it is true, too, that such practices cheapen the ritual and center the thought of the initiate not on the seriousness of the ceremony through which he is going, but upon the probability of his getting a good crack across the pants as he is being led about by the fraternity officer. Even though the rough part of the initiation may be given on the day previous to the presenting of the real ritual, the initiate does not know this, and usually has his weather eye out for trouble. The seriousness of effect, therefore, I feel sure, is injured, and the real meaning of the ritual is lost.
Fraternities will justify themselves only as they can establish the fact that their purpose is a serious one; that their members are men rather than foolish, unruly boys; that in taking men into their organizations they are taking them into a brotherhood rather than an autocracy. If this is their purpose, there will be no need of "rough house" and no place for the public "horse play" of which we have seen too much.