text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/140

 rettes—the plays are cheap and easy of access.

In the end, however, the cost piles up higher than most boys will admit unless they keep a daily expense account, for very often there is the streetcar fare going and coming and soft drinks before starting home. Next to a student opera, there is no greater time waster than these same plays. If one goes in the day time the whole afternoon is wasted; if one goes at night the evening is gone, for if in the evening one selects the first show it is past ten before he can settle down to any real work, and if he goes to the second it is midnight before he can get himself into anything like a studious frame of mind, and then he is too sleepy to do anything and decides to get up early the next morning and do his studying. There is no need, to tell anyone who has ever been to college that the studying is not done at all.

The fraternity freshman perhaps more than freshmen in general is started off on a congested menu of picture plays and vaudeville. It is a daily part of the routine of rushing that after a couple of hours of rag time on the piano following dinner everyone starts for the "Princess" or the "Orpheum" or the "Park" or whatever the name of the particular show house may be. Started out in this way the freshman comes naturally to look upon vaudeville if not as a regular and required


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/141

 part of the college curriculum, at least as a very worthy adjunct to it. I think I did not visit a fraternity house during the rushing season last fall without finding that at one time or another during the evening most of the active chapter and all of the prospective pledges formed themselves into a party and raced off to a cheap show of some sort. What else could they do, they asked. It is because of this early start with vaudeville and the "movies" that the fraternity undergraduate is more addicted to these time and money wasters than are other college students.

Even after the rushing season was over when I have been at one or another of the houses for dinner, or when previous to show time I have been down town on the car, I could see crowds of undergraduates starting out for the "Orpheum." "Anyone going to the show?" is as familiar a cry at a fraternity or rooming house almost every evening as "rags and old iron" on a city street. Down town nearly every afternoon and evening when photo-play houses and vaudeville theatres disgorge, the streets are filled with undergraduates. One who gives any attention to it also is impressed with the fact that it is often the same undergraduates whom one can see in these show places every day.

I was speaking only a few days ago with a young

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/142

 fellow who for many months played the piano in one of the picture houses for all four performances each day, and he was saying that he used to break the monotony of his every day routine by looking for familiar faces in the crowd which gathered for each performance. He was constantly impressed, he said, with the frequency with which he could pick out the faces of the same undergraduates in the same places. How they could afford the time was more than he could see. As I have had a chance at the end of the semester to glance at their scholastic records, I was convinced that they could not afford to do it.

It is primarily as a time waster that I have objected to this variety of amusement, but the character of the shows themselves might well be objected to. Even viewed purely as recreation they do not rank high. The jokes and the pictures are often coarse, the comedy is often wretchedly low, and there is almost inevitably mixed up in each bill constantly recurring and objectionable sex complications. I do not myself very often attend these plays but get my impressions from what I hear the fellows say who are regular patrons of the show houses. During the last few weeks, however, I have seen two of what were advertised as the better class of picture plays. The leading rôle in each case was taken by a well-known


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/143

 actress, and I expected to see an excellent play. The setting of both was beautiful and the acting good, but in each play the heroine after a fierce hand-to-hand struggle with the heavy villain barely escaped public rape upon the stage.

The effect of such scenes upon growing boys and young men can not at best be very wholesome. The mother of one of our freshmen said to me only a few days ago that in company with her son she recently attended one of the so-called better class plays of this sort. "If these are the best," she said, "I shudder at the thought of what the worst is, for the whole thing was so vulgarly suggestive and so common that I wondered how boys of any refinement could sit through such a performance." And, sad to relate, the boys do not make an effort to choose the best, but the raciest.

The actual and ultimate effect upon the morals of those who frequent these plays is bad, but, perhaps, is not so great as one might at first think. A few, no doubt, fall under the baneful influences of the vulgar suggestions which are bandied about. We hear more often than we would wish of the irregular relations which are carried on or which are attempted to be carried on between undergraduates and the performers in the vaudeville cast, but these experiences are relatively infrequent, I am sure. The large influence upon


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/144

 character comes from the decreased sensitiveness of those who form the play going habit, the thickening, as it were, of the moral skin. Their ideals are lowered; they are coarsened and made more common by the experience. Even the thickest-skinned boy could scarcely help but have his point of view changed by a constant contact with such representations of life. It seems to me, also, that the forces of evil which are present in every town, or at least in every one in which I have lived, recognize the fact that vaudeville and coarse picture shows help to prepare those who frequent them for lower things, for, with us at least, these forces have gradually begun to gather near, so that the fellows making their exit from the vaudeville and picture shows may have an easier and more direct backdoor entrance to the houses where intoxicants and evil women are to be found. How widely this influence extends, I can only guess; and though I cannot believe that it is far reaching, it must at least be taken into account and reckoned with.

The effect of these dramatic influences on a young fellow's studies is not infrequently disastrous. The habit of attendance once begun grows. Each new bill as it is advertised must be discussed and analyzed, and seen. The bill at the vaudeville theatres and the plays that are being shown at the "movies" furnish a regular and time


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/145

 worn topic of conversation wherever the undergraduate loafers gather. It is like the talk about automobiles in a country town. The sum total of energy expended upon the various vaudeville bills that appear weekly in the average town if turned into intellectual directions would revolutionize scientific discoveries, and if converted into physical force might soon have ended the recent European war. Unless they have had their attention drawn specifically to this matter I am sure that few undergraduates realize how much of their time and thought are given to these trifling histrionic matters. The boy who comes under the spell of such an influence can with difficulty resist when the invitation comes to see the show; he finds it difficult or impossible to spend an evening or an afternoon in study, and as for reading a book for pleasure at one sitting as we used to do when I was a boy, that is unthinkable. He becomes restless, he lacks concentration, if he studies an hour and a half he is in such a state of mind and body that he grows desperate for the relaxation of the picture show. The call comes, and his studies are forgotten and his scholarship not strengthened.

With us the interest in vaudeville and moving pictures has gone so far that very few student gatherings are thought to show the finishing touch of refinement unless there is introduced some


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/146

 "cabaret stuff" or a few moving pictures. If a class party is planned in the armory some bright youth with an original mind at once suggests that the management brings over an act from the local vaudeville theatre to entertain the guests while they are eating. Class smokers and house dances and formal parties are not infrequently given a touch of spice by introducing, when interest wanes, a few snappy stunts from the local vaudeville stage or a reel of two of moving pictures. We are going vaudeville mad it seems to me and are growing to think only in moving pictures. The University of Illinois has recently tried in some small measure to inhibit this tendency by stipulating in a number of instances when a request for a student gathering or a class party is granted that such entertainment as might be furnished should come from the members of the class or organization giving the function and not from the local vaudeville stage.

"But what can a fellow do?" an undergraduate interrogated not long ago when I protested against this debauchery in vaudeville. "One must have some recreation; he can't study all the time." I grant this willingly; but there are good plays occasionally coming to town, and though they cost more than the commonplace and often vulgar stuff which is daily presented to the public, it is


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/147

 better in the long run to see a few good plays than to sit through all the worthless exhibitions which appear uninterruptedly throughout the four years of an undergraduate course. I can conceive of a young fellow seeing a few of the low comedies which for the most part hold the weekly boards of our vaudeville and photo-play theatres merely to satisfy his curiosity, but how an educated, refined man can develop a taste for such things, which can be satisfied only by daily indulgence, is to me more difficult to understand. But there are other sources of relaxation and amusement than comedy open to undergraduates. Men can go into athletic sports of which we are developing a constantly greater variety. No man is now so fat or thin or short or tall or light or heavy but that he can find some form of athletic activity to which he is adapted and in which, if he has persistence and develops interest, he may excel. This sort of recreation has the advantage over vaudeville in that, if it is not carried to excess, it really does recreate and so tend better to prepare the participant for the real work of college—that is, the pursuit of his studies.

The student is not unknown, though I am forced to admit that he is rare, who has found recreation in reading an interesting book. Nor do I mean by this the latest romantic novel, though some


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/148

 undergraduates do once in a while read such a book; I mean that the student who has been rightly trained, who has been made to like books as every student should, will find pleasure and recreation and delight in spending an evening with such old stand-bys as Dickens, and Thackeray, and Stevenson, and George Eliot. There is more romance and real life in an hour or two with one of these authors than in a whole cycle of the ordinary cheap photo-play and vaudeville. I was surprised though pleased not long ago to have a junior engineer tell me that he always kept an interesting book at hand to read when he was tired or had a little leisure. He has covered a range of literature from Arnold Bennett to Robert Burns and has developed a habit which will bring him pleasure and profit as long as he lives. Our college daily mentioned not long ago the case of a man who when wishing to withdraw regularly from college was directed to take his withdrawal permit to the library to have the official in charge of the loan desk certify that all books which he had drawn out had been properly returned. The student was confused for a moment, and then recovering himself said with a gleam of something akin to intelligence, "Oh, yes, that's the building across from the Arcade, isn't it?" He knew the


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/149

 bench where the loafers gather, but he did not know where the books are kept.

I am not so old fashioned nor so far removed from youth as to expect or desire that young people in college will give up these dramatic delights of which I have been speaking. All I wish to show is that they are becoming too absorbing, that they are exercising too great a domination over the lives of undergraduates. There are other relaxations and recreations which will better prepare students for their work and which are in themselves more helpful and more fully recreating. Vaudeville and photo-plays as they are in the great majority of cases presented today are suggestive of unhealthy relationships; they are often coarse, vulgar, and must tend to weaken morals and to lower ideals. Those undergraduates who make a habit of attending, waste time recklessly, squander more money than they think, and injure the real work for which they come to college. Few people whom I have seen come away from these shows happier, cleaner minded, or in any way better prepared to take up their daily work. Their scholarship and their ideals would be strengthened, I believe, if they saw fewer of such performances. The danger to the fraternity man is perhaps greater than to other men because his social relationships are closer, it is easier for him to find


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/150

 companionship, to pick up someone whom he likes who has the inclination and who thinks he has time to go to these plays. Recognizing the danger he should take the warning.


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/151

"We have the best bunch of freshmen this year we have ever had and the best bunch in college," an alumnus of one of our leading fraternities said to me early in the autumn.

"What do you think of Klein?" I asked with a desire to show interest and a willingness to reveal the fact that I knew some of his men.

"I don't know," he replied. "I have not seen any of them; but I read about them in the chapter letter in our quarterly."

A considerable number of fraternity publications come to my table during the year through the courtesy of editors and fraternity men with whom I am acquainted, and as I look them through there is no department of these journals which awakens in me more interest or gives me more pleasure than that one devoted to the letters from the various chapters of the fraternity. I do not think that the most unsophisticated ever believes what he reads in a chapter letter. It contains a variety of fiction which is unique. The facts are often drawm from the imagination, the pathos is generally quite ingenuous, and the humor is more often than otherwise entirely unconscious and unintentional. The following, quoted from a


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/152

 southern correspondent to one of the journals, and breathing of soft music and palm trees, has the tender sentimental touch:

"Haying given an unusual amount of smokers and dances, we drew the scholastic year to a glorious close with our annual Commencement Banquet. Were I to attempt to recount in detail all the pleasure and glory given to Alpha that night I would consume more than our space. Let it suffice to say that there were more than forty seated 'round our festive board' including ourselves and our ladies. The banquet hall was decorated with more than a hundred college pennants, Florida palms, and pitcher plants. Soft music drifted from behind the palms while we slowly, and with dignity, sacrificed eighteen delightful courses. Ever and anon the laughter of the girls and the 'speel' of the boys were silenced by the thundering oratory of the toastmaster and his toasters. So much for the banquet."

I recall that O. Henry has one of his characters say with reference to a bibulous young fellow who had kissed a plain-featured waitress and who afterwards apologized for his rudeness, "He wasn't no gentleman, or he'd never have apologized," which suggests to me that no one but a southerner ever takes a "lady" to his annual dance.

I have never gone into the history of these


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/153

 letters which are almost universally at present a part of fraternity journals, but I have no doubt that if it were possible to do so it would be found that the practice of requiring them grew up from a desire on the part of officers and members to become better acquainted with the entire membership of the organization, to know something of the personal lives of the individuals composing each chapter, and to bind the different chapters more closely together. It is no doubt something of the same purpose expressed in a broader way, perhaps, that the members of a family widely separated now have who write regularly to each other of the personal happenings in their own lives, or that personal friends have who through regular correspondence attempt to keep the fires of friendship brightly burning.

In the early history of Greek-letter fraternities there were few chapters of each organization, and these few were usually close together. It was possible for a wide-awake man in those days to know personally a large percentage of the men who made up the undergraduate ranks of his organization and through the quarterly letters to know something about every other man whom he did not know personally. As the fraternity roll was increased and the interests of the fraternity widened the need of something to bind the various


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/154

 chapters together, to strengthen unity, and to bring the undergraduates more fully into personal acquaintance with each other was more and more felt, and the regular chapter letter was made a requirement under penalty of a fine. There have been many attempts made in committees, and conferences, and congresses to repeal this requirement, but they have always been unsuccessful, as I suspect they are likely to continue to be. The letters do a work in the fraternity which I think is worth doing, and though I feel strongly that they do not accomplish it as well as it could be done or as well as it should be done, I should be sorry to have the custom discontinued.

I have never been a very willing correspondent, and having been called upon to write many and various sorts of letters, I can sincerely sympathize with the man who has laid upon him the unsolicited task of writing letters to an editor whom he never saw, at a time when he would much rather do something else, and upon a subject in which he is likely to find little personal interest. It is a task which in the fraternity is too frequently, I am sure, laid upon one of the younger members of the chapter, generally a sophomore if my reading of these letters is correct. Such a task might very much better be undertaken by an older man who has had more experience, who knows more of


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/155

 the history and traditions of the chapter about which he is writing. The older man, too, should have corrected or outgrown some of the sophomoric rhetoric with which these letters so much abound.

For some months I have been carrying on a weekly correspondence with a young boy at "prep" school whose guardian I am and in whose intellecual, physical, and moral progress I have no little interest. His letters to me are full of the results of football games, of parties, of "Bojack" parades, of escapades off campus. I am interested in these matters, of course, but the things I want most to know he is not likely to mention. I was reviewing his Latin with him at Christmas time and came to a chapter of Cæsar with which he was totally unfamiliar. "They had that while I was in the hospital," he explained to me. "When were you in the hopsital?" I asked, somewhat in surprise. "Oh, in November," he replied, "Didn't I write you about that?" And so incidentally it came out during his vacation that he was taking piano lessons, that there had been a fire in his dormitory, that his roommate had had scarlet fever, and that he had failed his mathematics. He was quite surprised to find that he had neglected to tell me any of these things in his letters, or that I should be interested in their recital. What to me was vital


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/156

 was to him only a passing and a trifling incident better forgotten than immortalized in print. His letters have not truthfully reflected his real life. I have felt as I have gone over these chapter letters that in many if not in most cases they told very little of what I should most like to know of the lives and accomplishments of the men in the active chapters.

The first thing that strikes me about these letters is their oppressive optimism. They reek with panygyrics; they express nothing short of superlatives; they are turgid with laudation. One who has had even a moderate amount of experience with imperfect human nature must have something of the feeling toward the writers of these letters that a friend of mine had toward a mutual acquaintance whom he characterized as "imaginative and expedient rather than rigidly and puritanically literal." The letters that are before me as I write these paragraphs are pregnant with "brightest prospects for the year," are full of "the most promising material," and "swell with pride" as they introduce "the best freshmen in college and the most brilliant that the fraternity has ever pledged." The semester that is closed is "the most successful in the history of the fraternity," and the one that is opening "bids fair to eclipse those of former years." As one reads them


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/157

 he hesitates to believe the baldest statement of fact.

I recall a letter written by a member of a chapter with which I was acquainted which began "After closing a remarkably successful college year," and continued with a page of similar enthusiasm. The "remarkably successful college year" for them had in reality been full of disaster. The commissary through mismanagement had left the fraternity nearly $1,000 in debt, one of their prominent upperclassmen had been dismissed for cribbing, the highest officer of the fraternity had neglected his duty throughout his entire term of office, and the freshmen had been allowed to run wild so that they had brought down the scholastic standing of the organization to the bottom of the fraternity list and yet it had been a "remarkably successful college year." I wondered what the correspondent would have said if they had accomplished something.

The following modest recital illustrates the sort of stuff which I have in mind, and which everyone discounts as he reads it. The only modification which I have made is to change the names. It looks as if Lyons was a hard worked man.

"Our annual reception was one, indeed, to be proud of, and pronounced the greatest fête of the Commencement season. At Commencement Lyons


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/158

 did honor to our noble fraternity by being awarded the medal given by the News, the college paper, for the best short story. Lyons, also, tied for the "Ready Writer's" medal.

"We are represented on the college paper, the News, by George as associate editor and Smith as circulation manager. On the Monthly by Weaver and Lyons as editor-in-chief and business manager. At the last meeting of the athletic association, Lyons was elected president and Smith, treasurer. While we have received these honors, we did not secure them by political schemes, but attained them through merit."

The estimate which the fraternity correspondent places upon his chapter and upon its accomplishments is very seldom a reasonable one, or one which is born out by the facts. I have known but one man who admitted that his own chapter was not the best in college, and I doubt very much if he would have done so had he been making a statement in the chapter letter. I have seldom known a man who could really look at his chapter in a cold-blooded and unemotional way and judge it fairly. Some years ago my office sent out to the various fraternities which have chapters at the University of Illinois a questionnaire asking, among other things, that the thirty or so chapters of Greek-letter fraternities then represented at Illinois be ranked in


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/159

 order of excellence or standing. The papers were to be returned without signature, so that it was not possible to tell what fraternity had filled out any one of the papers. It was interesting to note that practically every fraternity was given first place on at least one paper, and it was not hard to guess that most of the organizations had ranked themselves first. If the estimates of correspondents are to count for anything the men who write must be able to see their own faults and the weaknesses of the organizations which they represent, and they must be willing to admit some of these faults. An upperclassman is more likely to do this than is a freshman or a sophomore.

A third characteristic of these letters which seems to me to show a weakness of judgment is the fact that nothing is seized upon a fit subject for praise and dissemination with such eagerness and self-congratulation as is the fact that some one of the brothers has been elected to something or has joined some organization outside of the fraternity. There is verily more joy over the one or two lucky brothers who get into the most insignifiant organizations than over all the others who stay in the chapter house and do the real work of the fraternity. A few excerpts will suffice to illustrate my point.

"The coming year promises to be one of great


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/160

 prosperity. The chapter is better represented in all lines of activity than any other organization here. We have two varsity captains, manager of the musical clubs, an athletic manager, an inter-scholastic manager and an assistant manager, upper and lower class debaters, editor of the 1917 Sphinx with three men on the board, a class president, and other minor offices."

Bull' Dunne made Archone, junior law society, and 'Swats' Bartelme was appointed stage manager of the Comedy Club for next year. At the all-campus election held in May, 'Tim' Paisley was elected assistant track manager for 1915-16. With these honors to begin the year, and the prospect of having every active brother back again, we are confident that the ensuing year will prove an exceptionally successful one for us."

After reading such an item I am moved to ask in the language of the undergraduate, "What d'you mean successful?" The statements sound like the flattery printed in a country newspaper when the freshman goes home from college.

The next illustration is rather characteristic, and seems to indicate that the Kahle brothers might be the busy men at the picnic.

"For the coming year there are bright prospects. The candidates under consideration are very promising and much is expected from the


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/161

 older brothers. Rhoades is a member of the College Council and Rankin and H. B. Kahle members of the Interfraternity Conference. R. F. Kahle is associate editor of the Campus, the college weekly, and assistant editor of the Kaldron, an annual publication. He is also treasurer of the Modern Problems Club and on the debating team. Boyd is assistant football manager this year and succeeds to the managership next year.

"Moore, Baker, and H. B. Kahle have been initiated into Alpha Chi Sigma, the chemical fraternity. McKinney has been chosen leader of the Mandolin Club and H. B. Kahle is manager of the combined Glee and Mandolin Clubs.

"Moore is business manager of the Literary Monthly, and also secretary of the Athletic Association.

"McKinney, Wilber, and H. B. Kahle are out for the basketball team. R. F. Kahle is in charge of the cross-country running squads."

I do not wish to minimize such honors as are mentioned here. They are interesting, some of them are worth while, but they are after all only incidental to the real life and work of the chapter and should not have the emphatic position in the letter. It takes little genius in college when one has influence to get into things, but it often requires backbone and finesse to keep out.


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/162

 Scholastic success unless attended with some public praise or recognition is made little of in these letters, and if one did not know to the contrary, one might very well ask himself when he is reading whether or not the fraternity man ever attains any scholastic honors. The item quoted below touches the scholastic situation with a delicacy which deserves commendation.

"Illinois Beta is now enjoying its summer vacation after a most successful year. Most of the brothers passed their final examinations satisfactorily and from the outlook we should take a high place among the fraternities at Illinois.

"This year we lose three men by graduation. Three other brothers will not return next year having left college to go into business."

One can scarcely help wondering if the three brothers who have left college to go into business may not have been induced somewhat to take that step because they were not included in the fortunate list of those who passed their final examination. There is no mention either of any brother who might in passing have done himself and the chapter credit. It is considered a sufficient cause for congratulation that so large a number succeeded in getting by, and no questions are asked or information given as to the margin above a mere passing grade which the brothers attained. Since


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/163

 the doing of his college work is the main thing for which an undergraduate is supposed to go to college, the fellow who accomplishes this result with distinguished credit to himself is certainly entitled to some special mention even in the chapter letter.

One could wish sometimes that the writers had adopted a more direct and a simpler style. The following is the introductory sentence to a letter full of the most ridiculously exaggerated eulogium. One feels as he is reading it as if he were wallowing in a mire of oratorical slush.

"Fifty-six years of Iowa Zeta's existence have passed into the realm of history, and as Apollo casts his radiant gleams upon her fifty-seventh annus we wish first of all to introduce seven new brothers."

Each issue of one fraternity journal which comes to my table is full of such humor from the first letter to the last.

The effect of all this inflated style, exaggerated self-praise, and failure to realize the relative value of things, is bad. The letters seem artificial, insincere, conceited. They remind me often of the conversation of two imaginative small boys the one trying to outstrip the other in tales of personal accomplishment and adventure. They too often lack character, force, and real truthfulness, and


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/164

 they seldom give us any adequate idea of the actual condition of the chapter.

Having heaped so much criticism upon the chapter letters as I have found them, I ought at least to make a few suggestions as to their improvement, and this I shall attempt to do.

I have never seen any advantage to the local chapter or to the fraternity at large in fabricating the facts. Such a procedure seldom deceives anyone. When a pale, haggard-eyed undergraduate comes into my office and tells me that he is in riotous good health and that he never felt better in his life, I know that he is practicing the faith cure or lying, though I do not always go to the trouble of telling him so. So when a fraternity boasts of his chapter's having the best year in its history, of its having pledged seventeen of the most superb freshmen that ever came out of prep school, and of being on the whole the most inexpressibly successful and influential bunch ever tolerated by the college authorities, every one who has had any experience knows about where they stand. To blow one's horn mellifluously and modestly is a task so difficult that the ordinary correspondent might better not attempt it. Present the facts fairly and as they are. Tell the truth. If the fellows have succeeded, say so; but we have all learned that life is not entirely


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/165

 sunshine. If you have lost out, admit it; if things are wrong and you have made mistakes, face the facts honestly. It is unquestionably bad taste to air one's family troubles in public, but one ought not to be afraid to tell the truth and admit one's weaknesses to one's family. The man or chapter that is supremely self-satisfied will never improve. Optimism may be carried so far as to become a weakness. When you revise your letters, cut out ninety-five per cent of the self-satisfaction and all of the self-praise.

Try so far as is possible to give an adequate idea of the personality of the individual men composing the chapter. Single each man out and give a few details as to what each is like, where he came from, and what he has done, especially as to the new men, for you are presenting these brothers to a wide range of friends who do not know them but who would be glad to get better acquainted. Tell who recommended them, to whom they are related, and what work they are taking up. If King is the youngest brother of Elden's wife, and if Cross comes from Warren's town, these facts will help to introduce them, to individualize them. If Wallace was a high school orator, or Wright a cross-country star, these are good things to say. The correspondent has a fine chance to present the characteristics and personality of every man in


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/166

 the chapter, and in so doing he will help to carry out the original purpose of the chapter letters which was, as I have said, to bring each chapter and each man in the chapter into closer personal touch with all the other chapters.

We are all intensly interested, I am sure, in the growth and development of the institutions in which our various chapters are located, and as for myself I am most interested in the life, the customs, and the traditions of these institutions—the local environment and the conditions which so strongly influence undergraduate life and which differentiate the character of one institution from that of another. How little of this tremendous difference is revealed by the chapter letters is unbelievable until one has read them in an attempt to discover it. Have you ever tried to determine, for example, how different undergraduate life and traditions at Albion are from those at the University of Virginia or at Tulane from the University of Minnesota? Have you ever thought to what extent undergraduate practice at an institution of more than ten thousand students like the University of Michigan or the University of Illinois differs and must of necessity differ from that of a smaller college like Beloit or Muhlenburg? The chapter letters give us very little conception of these differences because the correspondent, per-


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/167

 haps, having in most cases been in but one class of institution, has taken for granted that matters are run in every institution as they are run in his own, and has not given the time or the thought necessary to make these differences clear. He does not realize how interesting and illuminating his letters would be if he would take such trouble. I have looked, for example, through many fraternity quarterlies in an attempt to get an adequate idea of the specific class scraps held in various institutions throughout this country, but though I find constant references to them, so little detail has been given that I have never been able to understand in what way one contest differs from another. The correspondent has simply taken for granted that we know all about it and lets the matter go at that. We read about the abolishment of the "tank scrap" at Purdue, or the "sack rush" at Illinois, but we get no idea as to what these contests were. The same thing is true of a thousand other details of undergraduate life.

I was very much interested, I can not say surprised, at a recent interfraternity conference when in conversation with a prominent fraternity man of New York, to find how little he knew of the University of Illinois. He was wholly unfamiliar with its history, its equipment, its endowment, its curriculum, and its attendance. He did not know


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/168

 whether it was located in Chicago or in Kankakee and the chapter letters he had read were calculated to give him very little information on these subjects. Before I commented too severely upon his ignorance I took time to ask myself how much I knew about the University of Oklahoma, or Rutgers, or Miami, and before anyone who reads this article grows conceited I should like to inquire how much he knows about Cincinnati University, or the College of Charleston, or the Agricultural College at Manhattan, Kansas, or Tufts, or Bowdoin, and how concrete an idea is it possible for him to get from the chapter letter in his fraternity magazine. All this suggests to me that the letters ought to tell every year something about the college—its aims, its extent, its growth, its accomplishments, and the atmosphere which surrounds it.

I should feel it unfortunate, too, if the letters did not contain considerable specific reference to undergraduate activities. Athletics, dramatics, social events, college publications form a large part of the life of most undergraduates and a larger part of their interest. College papers are often criticized because they devote so large an amount of their reading matter to the discussion of these undergraduate activities and so small a part to the more important things of college life. It will always be so so long as those who have


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/169

 charge of college publications are young and interested in youthful activities. I have frequently remarked that if a prominent professor should die on the day of an important football game, the college paper the next morning would very likely give the game the front page while the professor would be modestly stowed away somewhere on the inside of the sheet. Since this point of view is so common I should feel that the chapter letter would not adequately and truthfully represent the undergraduate point of view unless it devoted a considerable amount of the space allotted to it to college activities and not wholly to those activities in which some brother was starring.

There was a time, I suppose, when a fraternity man felt that his duty was done if he knew his own fraternity and showed interest in it. I have even heard fraternity men say that they did not care to form the acquaintance of men of other organizations, and that they had little or no interest in what other fraternities were doing. Such a feeling, fortunately, is about gone, and fraternity men all over the country are being drawn more closely together, are stimulating each other to mutual improvement, and are showing a real interest in each other's welfare. Anything that has to do with fraternity life, fraternity relationships, and fraternity improvement and advancement in your


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/170

 college ought to form an interesting part of the chapter letter. If fraternities come, as I think they will, into a higher place in our college life, it will be because they pull together, because they are willing to learn from each other, and because they are willing to recognize each other's merits. If they go down, they will go down together. What I have said of self-praise does not apply, I believe, to praise of one's neighbors, and the fraternity correspondent will have got a long way when he reaches the point of discussing interfraternity conditions and relations in his college and has judgment and generosity enough to recognize a rival fraternity's strong points.

An adequate judgment of the chapter's standing and worth, a personal estimate of each member's character, accomplishments, and personality, some details of college activities and college customs, and an interested review of what fraternities in general are doing at the institution from which he writes are among the things which a correspondent can use to make his chapter letters more interesting and more beneficial than some of them now are.

I was visiting one of the large institutions of the Middle West just this week, and by invitation called at one of its beautiful chapter houses. Who should meet me at the door but "Swats" Bartelme


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/171

 still giving the glad hand graciously, and still riotously interested, I have no doubt, in college dramatics. I had no idea when I began this paper that I should ever run onto him.


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/172

Some learn only through their own experience, by hard knocks and not by suggestion; others pick up an idea or a method as soon as it is presented to them. Now that it seems to be the style, and I think it a good one, for every fraternity chapter to have its own house whether it has any money or not, I thought it might be helpful to tell the story of how we got our house, in the hope that my tale might serve as an incentive to others to do as we did.

I don't remember who it was that first suggested the idea of building a chapter house. I presume it was Wes King, for Wes was a lawyer down town who had worked collections on the side and who had learned to wring money from the most reluctant debtors. He was a man who under difficulties got results. One of the brothers was responsible for the statement that Wes had stopped in front of a wooden Indian one day, and by flattery and cajolery had induced him to pay a bill which had been long owing by the proprietor within, so I feel sure it must have been Wes who first made the suggestion. Whoever it was, he had nerve.

When our chapter was first organized we did business, as the other chapters did at that time, in


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/173

 a suite of rooms down town over first one restaurant and then another. These rooms were reached by a dark and untidy box stair, and though they seemed to us at first quite elegant and palatial, they were, in point of fact, bare and barn-like and uninviting. They were too remote from the campus to serve as a convenient meeting place, and they did not furnish the slightest semblance of a home as a fraternity house is today supposed to do. The members of the chapter were scattered about the town, and there was little chance of their all getting together in the rooms excepting on Friday and Saturday nights, and even then there was little to be done excepting to pound the piano, which was usually out of tune, or to sit around on the stiff uncomfortable chairs and smoke, and smoking made some of the brothers sick. The rooms were rather scantily furnished, and as I look back at them now through the vista of twenty-five years, they were pretty close to impossible as a loafing place or a living place. It was only the companionship of congenial friends that made them seem something like an imitation of home.

We all had keys to these apartments, and we used to wander up to the rooms every day or two alone or with some pal and sit round and imagine we were enjoying ourselves. We held our initiations there—pretty rough some of them were with


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/174

 very little regalia and very much less paraphernalia; we invited our girl friends in sometimes, under proper chaperonage, but it was after all a poor substitute for real fraternity life.

We stuck to this sort of thing for three years, I believe it was, and then, following the example of some of the older fraternities, we rented a house near the campus, on Green Street, bought, borrowed, or stole a little furniture, and became from that time on a real part of the college community. I have often wondered just what form of mental aberration was afflicting the man who designed the house into which we moved and in which we lived for the next few* years. It was not particularly suitable for a dwelling house or a summer hotel or a hospital; it had rooms of the most curious shape, and of the most unheard-of arrangement; it had an unusable basement which we converted into a dining-room, this latter room approached by a dark unventilated passage way; there was no attic and few closets; but we disposed ourselves in it with a good deal of comfort and satisfaction and began soon to realize for the first time some of the possibilities of the right sort of fraternity life. If the house had been better and more convenient, perhaps we should not so soon have conceived the idea of having a house of our own. At any rate one might as well look with optimism upon the


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/175

 experiences of life, and derive some satisfaction and profit, if possible, from its discomforts.

It may have been when the plastering fell in the hallway and nearly killed one of the brothers, or when the furnace went out of business, or the plumbing threw a fit—I have forgotten. At any rate some domestic disaster caused us to get together and wonder why we could not have a house of our own. The Phi Delts were building, and though we were not so old as they and did not have a cent of money to our names, we could not see why we should not follow as advanced ideas as they. It was the optimism of youth and of inexperience.

It was in the spring of 1901 that we grew desperate and did something. A few of our local enthusiasts got together and worked out a system of chapter house notes. It was a simple system, and any optimist quick at figures and skillful at pushing a lead pencil could easily figure in a few minutes that it would take us only a short time to have the amount raised, the house built, and a reserve fund out at interest.

In brief, the plan was to induce each brother, active and alumni, to sign ten notes of ten dollars each, one note a year to be due for each of ten successive years. There was to be no objection raised if any brother insisted on paying the entire


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/176

 series of notes in advance. Wes King was elected general manager of the note signing business and was to take special care of the alumni, and I want to record my statement right here that in getting fellows to promise to pay sums of money, he has no equal this side of Los Angeles. In point of fact he induced a good many people to promise to pay who have not paid and who, I am now convinced, never had any intention of doing so. They simply signed the notes or wrote the letter to get rid of him. I have a collection of these notes and letters in the upper right hand drawer of my desk now that I often look at and read with the greatest interest, but with a somewhat weakened and waning faith in the promises of man. Some time if I become desperate I may publish these, if the writers continue to ignore their promises, but I still retain a few rags of hope that I may ultimately get real money from them. Hans Mueller had the job of running the members of the local chapter into the corral and getting them to sign, and he, too, proved a good solicitor.

I drew the job of treasurer and general custodian of the notes, because I was a guileless college professor who knew no better. In contemplating the job of treasurer from a distance I must confess that it has its attractions. It has all the symptoms of what the undergraduate calls a


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/177

 "pipe." I remember asking a six year old neighbor boy of mine whose father is a bank president just what the older man did for a living. "He just gives money away," was the reply, and this answer with slight verbal changes expressed my idea of the business of a treasurer. I thought that he simply received money that was sent him. In retrospect, however, such a position takes on a very different aspect. If anyone who reads these paragraphs has had in mind accepting the position of treasurer of a corporation organized not for profit and composed largely of undergraduates who propose to build a fraternity house, my advice to him would be the same as that offered by Mr. Douglas Jerrold to young men about to get married—"don't." It is a delusion and a snare. That simple innocent job of treasurer has caused me more pain, has caused my fraternity brothers more annoyance, and has required more letters to be written which have never been answered than I ever dreamed of. I have held it twenty years, because I did not dare to drop it, and there was no one else foolish enough to take it away from me.

We got twenty-three sets of notes at the first canvass, and though this seemed pretty good, many of the old fellows did not sign them and have not since shown any material interest in the house building scheme. A number of these brothers


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/178

 have been back to enjoy and to admire the house after it was built, but their appreciation has not gone further than laudatory words. In recent years it has been the policy of the chapter to require each one of the initiates to sign a series of these notes, though each man is allowed to set the date when his first note is to be paid. It was our hope when this scheme of house notes was devised that some of the brothers would pay them out quickly and that with the first money we accumulated we should invest in a suitable site for the house.

I remember with what delight I received the first payment. It came from one of the brothers who was getting well or working or enjoying himself at some German health resort, and who sent me a postal money order for fifty marks. I had never had any occasion previous to this, excepting when in the grades, I was working out my problems in compound numbers, to satisfy my curiosity as to how much real money one can get for a mark, but I find that the first entry I made in the ledger which I immediately started is $11.80. I guess I got the full worth of the order as marks go now.

The house notes as they came due were paid with reasonable promptness. Some fellows who had little money and who, therefore, had to manage their financial matters carefully, sent in the


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/179

 money before they received a notice, but for the most part it required one or two reminders before the response came. A few—not many—of these men have been receiving two or three notices a year for the past fifteen years without my getting a single response. I am an optimist so I keep hoping. By the spring of 1904 we had accumulated one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars, but long before this some of the other brothers had had their eyes on two good looking lots near the campus which we were sure would be just the place to build our house. In order that we might be able to hold property legally we realized the necessity of forming a corporation, and this we did in the spring of 1904. This corporation consists of nineteen members, eleven members of the active chapter elected by the chapter each spring, and eight life members elected from the alumni. The real business of the corporation is done by a Board of Directors, seven in number, four from the active chapter and three from the resident alumni. When all this preliminary organization had been accomplished Wes King went over and hypnotized the old German—or was it his wife—who owned the John Street lots and stole them from him; that is, he got a contract from him to sell them to us for three thousand dollars, we to pay down five hundred dollars and to have the


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/180

 privilege of reducing the remainder of the debt by the payment of such sums as we should be able to raise at any time we wished. We were able to clear the mortgage in less than two years largely with money collected from our house notes.

I said that the money was collected largely from the house notes. The rest of it came from the issuing of gold bonds, two thousand dollars of which were really disposed of. The original intention was to sell five thousand dollars worth to launch our enterprise, but the brothers did not fall for the gold bonds with the enthusiasm that we had anticipated; it struck them as a good deal like putting good money into mining stock. In point of fact, the gold bond idea had the least in it of any of the bright thoughts which came to us in working up the house scheme. We have found these bonds harder to handle than any other indebtedness, and I feel that they were perhaps a mistake. Some of them have been given to the corporation, by the holders; now and then one has been paid when we had made some lucky collection and had the money; and the rest still remain to be cancelled as we prosper sufficiently to take them up.

With our lots paid for we felt that we were in a position to begin to build our house. There was only one trifling handicap that held us back, and


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/181

 that was the lack of money. Some of the interested members of the Board of Directors had made investigations as to the possibility of our getting money from some of the Chicago houses which make a business of lending money to those in need, but the project of building a house for irresponsible undergraduates in college was a new one, and no one was willing at first to take the risk. Building and Loan Associations would not then consider the proposition for a moment, though now that the building of such houses has become common and has been shown to be a safe enterprise in which to invest capital, it is not especially difficult to persuade either private individuals or Building and Loan Associations to lend money for such a purpose.

It was one of our local members, abetted by two other wide-awake lawyers from our alumni, who finally presented the scheme to the Chicago Savings Bank with such a rosy aspect as to win their favor. They had it all worked out to a minute when we could pay it back and all planned to a I where the money was coming from. I was reading over the proposed schedule of payments just a few days ago, and it surely looked beautiful on paper. We have not done the business at all as he worked it out, but we have done it in quite as good a way if in a different one. As I intimated this Chicago


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/182

 firm agreed to lend us twelve thousand dollars for twelve years at five and one-half per cent on a first mortgage, and this amount made it seem possible for us to begin the house. We had hoped to get by with eighteen thousand dollars and since a local business man agreed to give us three thousand dollars on a second mortgage, we felt that the house was as good as built and began to save money for furniture.

As soon as the money was in sight a committee was appointed with full power to select an architect, approve of plans, and get things moving. This was in the spring of 1906. We had a number of sketches presented. It was thought at first that for the sake of sentiment and perhaps to save a little money, it would be desirable to have one of our brothers design the house; but I had learned long ago that no one is likely to save much money by letting his relatives work for him, or in fact, in working for them, and it was not long before we were all agreed that the wisest plan for us was to employ the best architect we could get, even if we had to go to Boston to find him. This we did, and he made us a plan which was simple and dignified and which still causes our house, although it is nearly the oldest one about the campus, to be admired and praised by visitors to the University for its beauty and convenient ar-


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/183

 rangement perhaps more than any other house which has been built. I have since advised all my friends to engage a good architect even if they contemplate building only a woodshed or a dog kennel.

We were not easily satisfied with our plans; like all builders with limited means, we wanted a large number of big rooms within a limited floor space, and we wanted everything on the first floor. When everything had been adjusted to our satisfaction so far as this was possible we submitted the plans to contractors for bids. If any architect has ever submitted plans to a contractor and had the bids come within the original estimate I should like to have the name and address of both. At any rate the bids on our house ran two thousand dollars beyond anything which we had in our wildest moments considered. We had to cut, and we did it generously, and then let the contract. In round numbers the total cost of the house including lighting fixtures, walks, and everything necessary to its completion was twenty-one thousand dollars. It will be remembered that the amount of money we had borrowed was fifteen thousand dollars and this left six thousand dollars unprovided for. We had during the interim since our house notes were first issued saved two thousand five hundred dollars from this source, and the re-


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/184

 maining three thousand five hundred dollars we borrowed from the contractor and from four of our alumni. When the house was done in the fall we had money enough to meet all of our outstanding obligations.

Even now when these scattered obligations have all been met I am convinced that we spent too much on the house. The paying of the extra three thousand five hundred dollars strained every nerve of the three or four fellows responsible for its collection. I don't know now how we ever secured it. We got some of it from the house notes, we saved a little from the rent; we insulted some of our well-to-do alumni until they gave it to us to get rid of us, but ultimately we paid it—in fact we paid it exactly when we agreed to do so. Our house was so large that it required a big chapter roll in order that it might be full and the rent be easily paid, and I have yet to be convinced that a chapter roll larger than twenty-five is likely to be the most efficiently managed. I think that most fraternities lack the courage to build a house well within their means and best suited to their needs. They are all afraid that if they do not build a house larger than their neighbors, people will think them poor; just as some men are afraid to buy a Ford for fear that some one will imagine they cannot get by with a Cadillac.


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/185

 When the time came for moving into the new house we had very little furniture. The old stuff we had had in the Green Street house had been hardly dealt with for nearly ten years. We gave it all a complete over-hauling, presented some of it to the Associated Charities, sent some to the repair shop to be gone over and refinished, and consigned the rest to the bedrooms. We had been gradually collecting a furniture fund, but it was entirely inadequate. Here again we fell back on the local chapter and the alumni. Some of the younger fellows were more than ordinarily skilful in handling tools and these agreed to make in the engineering shops some of the larger pieces of furniture for the living-room and library, such as the tables and the big lounging chairs. We found that by this method we could materially reduce the cost and in addition introduce a little element of sentiment. The fellows who had worked the hardest to raise the money for the house gave the most liberally toward buying the furniture or gave rugs, chairs, or curtains as they chose. The place looked mighty good to us when late in the fall of 1907 the curtains hung, the rugs down—I thought that the living-room rug was especially handsome because Frank Scott and I had paid for it—and the furniture placed, we moved in. No one knows so well how to appreciate an accom-


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/186

 plishment of this sort as when he has done his level best to bring it about.

But our troubles were not all over when we had moved into the house; in fact as treasurer of the corporation I was soon convinced that they had only just begun. The regular payments had to be made. The money for these was to come from the rent which we received for the house from the local chapter, and from the income from the house notes. The rent we set at one thousand five hundred dollars a year, and the notes should have brought us another thousand. We have always received the rent, but the notes have often brought us no more than two-thirds of what they were estimated to do.

The fellows often lose interest when they get away from college. Their duties multiply, their obligations increase, and they are likely to forget the chapter house. The best help to keep every one in touch with the house and the active chapter has been a chapter quarterly paper sent to every one who has ever been connected with the chapter, and containing personal items about all the brothers, and news of the college and the campus. It took us several years to find this out, and I think in consequence we have lost several thousands of dollars that we should have collected had we started the quarterly earlier. The main idea


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/187

 is not to let one forget or lose his hold upon the old life.

At the end of two years we saw that we should have to raise the rent to two thousand dollars a year if we were to meet our payments, for repairs became necessary almost at once, taxes and insurance were high and growing higher, and we had no sooner built than the city authorities passed ordinances to pave on four sides of our block. The improvement increased the value of our property, it is true, but it also increased the drain upon our exchequer. All this increase of expenditure made it the more necessary that the chapter roll be kept large. It was again in my mind an argument in support of the statement that we had built rather too generously.

It was in 1910, I believe, that we decided to increase the rent paid by the chapter. Our indebtedness had by this time been reduced to fifteen thousand dollars, all the loose bills and personal debts having been taken care of. At the same time, it seemed best to those who had looked most carefully into our financial affairs that if possible we should pay off our two mortgages and take out one loan of fifteen thousand dollars from a Building and Loan Association. After some negotiations we were able to do this, and our monthly payments in this association were for the next five


text: Index:Peterson's Magazine 1867 b.pdf

title: Index:Peterson's Magazine 1867 b.pdf


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/188

 years one hundred sixty-two dollars and fifty cents a month. This amount we were able to meet from the rent, and the income from the house notes took care of the taxes, improvements, and repairs. It is true that we sometimes ran pretty close to shore but whenever my bank account ran down near the five hundred dollar mark, I began to retrench or to put the pressure upon the delinquent brothers. I was forced to resort to all sorts of tactics to get the notes paid, but we were always able to pay the bills when they were presented. I do not believe the fellows out in the world and far away from college have realized in any sense what a responsibility it meant to carry the house. They have argued that it would be all right if they paid when it was convenient; they have been angry often when they have been "dunned"; they have thought me at times sarcastic and insistent, but they did not consider that there was the regular monthly assessment to be met, and the regular bills to be paid, and behind it all only the rent and the promises which they had made. The fact that I always kept in the bank this surplus of five hundred dollars has more than once saved the corporation from disaster.

Later we decided that it would be best again to refund the loan which had now, through our regular payments, been reduced to something less than


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/189

 nine thousand dollars. Without much trouble we were able to make this refund, and so to reduce our monthly payments to less than one hundred dollars a month. This reduction in our monthly payments made it possible to reduce the rent exacted from the local chapter to one hundred and fifty dollars a month for ten months, and later to one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, and so to relieve the chapter of a burden which for so many years it had been carrying without complaint. It has never seemed to me that we should quickly relieve the property of debt. The more people who have a part in helping to bear the burden, the more will these men after they become alumni appreciate the value of the house. Perhaps later it may seem desirable again to refund the loan in order that the rent may be reduced to one hundred dollars a month, an amount which the chapter could always easily pay.

There is no likelihood that we shall for many years at least abandon the house notes. There are constant improvements and repairs which need to be made on the house; as it grows, older these will proportionately increase. We realize that the best possible economy is to keep the house in first-class repair, and all this takes money and a good deal of it. Besides this, the house notes give every man an interest in the house and a sense of


text:
Page:Peterson's Magazine 1867 b.pdf/475

 472

FASHIONS

FOR DECEMBER.

Ham Toast.-Chop very fine two spoonfuls of lean ham that has been cooked, take two spoonfuls of veal-gravy, a few bread-crumbs, and a spoonful of cream. Put all together in a stewpan, and heat it. Have ready a toast buttered; spread the above upon it, strew a few crumbs over it, and brown it before the fire. Rumbled Eggs.- Beat up three eggs with two ounces of fresh butter, or well washed salt butter ; add a teaspoonful of cream or new milk. Put all in a saucepan, and keep stirring it over the fire for nearly five minutes, until it rises up like suffle, when it should be immediately dished on buttered toast.

FASHIONS FOR DECEMBER. FIG. 1.-WALKING DRESS OF PLUM-COLORED VELVETEEN.The under-skirt is quite plain, the upper-skirt without trimming, but made long to loop at the back. The paletot, which is longer at the sides (and cut in points there) than at the back or in front, has only a heavy cording of black satin above the narrow bias fold of velveteen. Small round hat and scarlet feather. FIG. 1.-EVENING DRESS OF MAUVE SILK, WITH TWO SKIRTS. -The lower-skirt has a long train, and both skirts are trimmed with white lace put on plain. The upper-skirt has a white lace flounce brought down each side of the front, scarf-wise. FIG. III.- DINNER DRESS OF GREEN AND WHITE STRIPED SILK -The waist is quite short, and cut square in front. FIG. IV.- BALL DRESS OF WHITE TULLE, trimmed with six narrow ruffles around the bottom. Above the ruffles are five rows of crimson and black silk, put on in large scallops. The square waist is trimmed to correspond with the skirt. A broad, black sash, embroidered in corn-flowers, and with a deep crimson fringe, completes this elegant costume. FIG. V.-CARRIAGE DRESS OF LAVENDER-COLORED SILK, embroidered in black. The under-skirt is quite plain, the upper-skirt is open at the seams and tied carelessly at the bottom; the paletot is square, with long Jewess sleeves. Lavender-colored, bonnet, with a lavender-colored tulle veil, ornamented with field-daisies. FIG. VI. CHILD'S DRESS OF PINK SILK, cut square in the neck. GENERAL REMARKS.-We have but little to add this month to the very full descriptions of the newest fashions which we gave in November. THE SHORT DRESS for walking or morning wear is fully established ; but long trains are equally fashionable for evening wear. For ordinary house dress the skirt is made long, but not of the exaggeration of an evening dress. The varieties in style of the short costumes is marvelous- no two dresses are just alike, and any amount of coquettish taste can be displayed if the wearer chooses. Then, too, the admixture of contrasting colors makes a pleasing change to the eye, which for years was only greeted by browns, grays, and fawns, those colors only being considered the mode by a fashionably-dressed woman. But now we will, probably, be condemned to the unbecoming "Bismark," an ugly shade of reddish brown, though it may be redeemed by rich black trimmings. There are two shades of this Bismark-brown, a light and a dark one. Another fashionable color, but only suitable for brunettes, is the capucine or nasturtium color, nearer an orange color than any other. A complete toilet or this, except an evening dress of silk or satin, would, of course, be in frightful taste-but as a trimming on black it is very stylish. A black silk dress, corded with gold, nasturtium -colored, or Bismark-colored silk, would be very elegant. " Vin de Bordeur," or a bright claret color, is again popular ; and this, too, is improved by a black trimming. This color has the

advantage of lighting up well at night, a thing which should always be taken in consideration in preparing a dress. Green, also, is a favorite for this reason, whilst some shades of blue, some pinks, and all mauves, violets, and purples, loose all life and brilliancy at night. GOLD ORNAMENTS AND TRIMMINGS, which for a time have been popular, and are still so to some extent, so soon become common, that though the rage for them returns frequently, it never lasts long. In Paris, ivory ornaments have superseded gilt ones ; and ivory and jet beads, buttons, clasps, etc., are for the present the popular ernaments with the fickle Paris belles. BROCADED MATERIALS, studded with flowers, are very fashionable. The most distinguished have only a single flower, such as periwinkles, marguerites, poppies, (poppies on black are very effective, ) or bunches, such as bunches of grapes, lilac, and acacias. A VERY PRETTY WALKING DRESS of black silk has been made with the petticoat trimmed with three bias bands of black, corded with golden-yellow silk. At the back the upper-skirt is not joined together, the breadth being fastened half way up with a black bow piped with yellow. The paletot, which is short at the back, and with long mantillalike ends in front, is trimmed like the petticoat. VANDYKES AND TONGUES, which have been so fashionable around the edges of skirts, are as much liked for the bottom of paletots, and for the long Jewess and Hungarian sleeves. PINKED OUT RUCHES, sewn in rows very close together, as well as the narrow flounces, are very popular for trimmings. SASHES are now made of the very widest ribbon which can be bought, but the ends are not as long as they were earlier in the season. Some are simply tied in a loose bow, and others are tied with a multiplicity of pendant joops. THE REDINGOTE style of walking dress is very popular. The dress can be worn rather short over a colored petticoat, or made sufficiently long to dispense with it. The body and skirt are cut in one, like the Gabrielle dress, and either buttons all the way down the front, or at the sides. In the latter case, the body buttons like a gentleman's double-breasted coat. Some are made with and some without revers. The dress or the petticoat should be made just long enough for the highly-ornamented boots to be seen. Another avenue for coquetry has been opened in these boots. Many persons wear them of the same color as their dresses-though black boots are really much the most becoming to the feet. The boots are stitched in various colors, and the heels are very high. MANTLES, PALETOTS, AND BONNETS, were so fully noticed last month, that we have nothing new on the subject.

CHILDREN'S FASHIONS. FIG. 1.- LITTLE GIRL'S DRESS OF GRAY CASHMERE, spotted with blue, looped up over a blue cashmere under-skirt. Jacket like the upper-skirt, trimmed with blue. FIG. II.- BOY'S COSTUME OF FAWN-COLORED CASSIMERE.The pantaloons are short, loose jacket oper ing over a white vest. FIG. III -INFANT'S DRESS OF THIN WHITE CAMBRIC, with pink trimmings. The skirt is tucked, and worn over a richly ornamented petticoat. FIG. IV. DRESS OF BLUE SILK, FOR A GIRL, with a white. alpaca over-dress, trimmed with blue. FIG. V.- DRESS FOR A LITTLE GIRL.-The under-skirt is of crimson cashmere, looped up with bands of cashmere, edged with black. The upper-skirt is of crimson and black cashmere, with crimson cashmere braces and waistband, edged with black.

title: Page:Peterson's Magazine 1867 b.pdf/475


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/190

 ownership. His regular payments for ten years recall to his mind his undergraduate days and bring him back to see the fellows and to live over again the details of his youth. I am sure the house notes are a good thing.

We now owe about eight thousand dollars on property which valued very conservatively is worth fifty thousand dollars; we have the payments arranged in such a way that we can meet them without putting an unreasonable burden upon any one. Our house is a real home, it is in good repair, and is one of which we may well be proud for many years to come. I shall be gone very likely before there is a new house built for the chapter, for though I am not yet a patriarch, I am still the oldest of the small group of men who worked to bring about the completion of this house. Those who come after me and who may have a part in building a new and a better house for the chapter, have my kindest wishes. In more ways than they think, their labor will be a labor of love; but I hope that they will feel as I have felt that the struggle is worth while, that the effort put forth is more than compensated for in the satisfaction of seeing the result. It has cost me some worry and not a few postage stamps, as it has cost a number of the other brothers. I have written thousands of letters and have had,


text:
Page:Peterson's Magazine 1867 b.pdf/474

 OUR NEW

COOK- BOOK.

A Baked Apple-Pudding.-Boil six apples well ; take out the cores, put in half a pint of milk thickened with three eggs, a little lemon-peel, and sugar to the taste ; put puffpaste round the dish, bake the pudding in a slow oven, grate sugar over it, and serve it hot. Another. Take the pulp of two large roasted apples, the peel and juice of one lemon, the yolks of six eggs, two Savoy biscuits, grated, quarter of a pound of butter melted, and sugar to taste. Beat the ingredients together, put a puff-paste round the dish, and bake half an hour. Lemon Mince-Pies.-Squeeze a large lemon, boil the outside till tender enough to beat to a mash; add to it three large apples chopped and four ounces of suet, half a pound of currants, four ounces of sugar; put the juice of the lemon and candied fruit as for other pies. CAKES. To Ice a Cake.- Having whipped up the whites of five eggs to a froth, add to them a pound of doubly-refined sifted sugar, and three spoonfuls of orange- flower water. Beat these all thoroughly together, and, when the cake is taken out of the oven, spread the iceing mixture all over it with a wooden spatula, like a paper-knife. When this is done, let it stand at the mouth of the oven to dry thoroughly; but it must on no account be allowed to get discolored. Lemon-juice instead of orange-flower water is rather an improvement, as it makes the iceing very white, and also gives it a pleasant flavor. Or beat the whites of three eggs to a strong froth ; beat a pound of almonds very fine with some rose-water, and mix the almonds and eggs lightly together, then, after beating a pound of loaf-sugar very fine, put it in by degrees. When the cake is baked enough, take it out, lay on the iceing, and place it at a proper distance before a clear fire, and keep turning it continually that it may not turn color. A cool oven is, however, best, where an hour will harden it. Pound-Cuke. Take half a pound of butter, half a pound of sugar, five eggs, and ten ounces of flour. Break the eggs into a pan, add the sugar, and beat for four or five minutes, put the butter into a basin or tin bowl, which is better for this purpose ; warm it by occasionally holding it over the fire and working it about with a wooden spoon until it becomes the substance of a very thick cream, but avoid making it so hot as to reduce it to oil ; then add about one half of the batter to the butter, mix it well with the spoon, add the remainder, and stir for a minute or so, then gently but thoroughly mix in the flour. It should not be stirred more than is sufficient to mix the flour. If currants are required, about six ounces may be mixed with the flour. Bake in a papered tin in a moderately heated oven. Cinnamon or Lemon- Cakes.-Rub six ounces of good butter in one pound offine, dry flour, and work it lightly into crumbs ; then add three-quarters of a pound of sifted sugar, a dessert-spoonful of pounded cinnamon, (or half as much when only a slight flavor is liked,) and make these ingredients into a firm paste with three eggs, or flour, if needed. Roll it, not very thin, and cut the cakes with a tin shape. Bake them in a very gentle oven from fifteen to twenty minutes, or longer, should they not be done quite through. As soon as they are cold, put them into a clean and dry tin canister, a precaution which should be observed with all small sugar cakes. Half Pound-Cake.-Take a quarter of a pound of butter, half a pound of sugar, five eggs, and half a pound of flour. Proceed in the same manner as for pound-cakes. If currants are required, add about six ounces with the flour. This furnishes a very superior cake. Rich Plum-Cake.-Three-quarters of a pound of flour, three-quarters of a pound of currants, half a pound of butter, half a pound of sugar, and six eggs. Bake one hour and a half.

471

Crumpets or Flannel-Cakes.-One pint of milk, one egg, a teaspoonful of butter, salt to taste, half a gill of yeast, as much wheat flour as will form a batter. Warm the milk and butter together; it should be lukewarm, but not hot. Beat up the egg and add to it with the salt ; then flour enough to form a batter; lastly, the yeast. Set it to rise, and when light, grease your bake-iron and bake them like 1 buckwheat-cakes. Cream-Biscuits.- Rub one pound of fresh butter into one pound of flour, make a hole in the center, into which put half a pound of powdered sugar upon which the rind of a lemon was rubbed previously to pounding, and three whole eggs; mix the eggs well with the sugar, and then mix all together, forming a flexible paste; cut it into round pieces, each nearly as large as a walnut, stamp them flat, and bake them in a slack oven. Sally Lunns.- Mix two dessert-spoonfuls of yeast and two pounds of fine flour with a little warm water; let it stand half an hour to rise. Put two ounces of butter and the yolk of an egg into as much milk as is wanted to make the dough of the required stiffness, and mix all well up together. Put it into cups or tins. When risen properly, bake the Sally Lunns in a rather quick oven. Butter-Cakes.- Beat a dish of butter like cream ; add two pounds of fine sugar, two pounds of flour, and mix the whole together. Take twenty-four eggs, leave out half the whites, and beat all together for an hour. Previous to putting the cake into the oven, flavor it with one quarter of an ounce of mace, a beaten nutmeg, a little brandy or sherry, and some currants or seeds to taste. Fruit-Biscuits.-Any fruit will do. Scald the fruit and rub it through a sieve ; to every pound of fruit put a pound of loaf-sugar, sifted very fine, and the white of one egg; beat it a long time until it is of a proper stiffness to drop on to wafer-paper, and bake them in a slow oven. The oven must be so slow as to dry rather than bake them. Sponge-Cake. Boil three-quarters of a pound of sugar in one teacupful of water; beat up seven eggs, leaving out the whites of four. When the sugared water boils, mix it with the eggs ; beat twenty minutes ; then add gradually half a pound of flour, previously dried. Beat up, and bake in a quick oven. Rusks. Take nineteen eggs ; first beat the whites, an then beat the yolks with one and a half pounds of loafsugar, in powder; mix the whole, adding one and a half pounds of flour, and a few caraway-seeds, if you like their flavor. Fill some buttered moulds, and bake them; cut in slices, and put them again in the oven to brown. Cheese-Biscuits.-Two ounces of butter, two ounces of flour, two ounces of grated cheese, a little Cayenne, and salt. To be made into a thin pasto and rolled out very thin ; then cut in pieces four inches long and one inch broad; bake a very light brown, and send to table as hot as possible. MISCELLANEOUS TABLE RECEIPTS. Bread Sauce for Boiled Poultry.- Pour, quite boiling, on half a pint of the finest bread-crumbs, an equal measure of new milk; 'cover them closely with a plate, and let the sauce remain for twenty or thirty minutes; put it then into a saucepan with a small salt spoonful of salt, half as much pounded mace, a little Cayenne, and about an ounce of fresh butter ; keep it stirred constantly over a clear firo for a few minutes, then mix it with two tablespoonfuls of cream ; give it a boil, and serve it immediately. French Toast.-Beat four eggs very light, and stir with them a pint of milk; slice some baker's bread, dip the pieces into the egg, then lay them in a pan of hot lard, and fry brown; sprinkle a little powdered-sugar and cinnamon on each piece, and serve, hot. If nicely prepared, this is an excellent dish for breakfast or tea.

title: Page:Peterson's Magazine 1867 b.pdf/474


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/191

 I have no doubt, scores of replies, but I never walk down the street in which the house is situated without feeling a glow of satisfaction that we did it.

There are others, who read this, who if they had the courage and nerve and persistence, might do even better than we have done.


text:
Page:Peterson's Magazine 1867 b.pdf/473

 470

COOK- BOOK.

OUR NEW ·

Veal- Cake. Have some slices of veal. Put a layer of hard eggs at the bottom of a pie-dish, then a layer of ham, tongue, or sausage-meat ; season with salt, Cayenne, and a little nutmeg: then a layer of veal, and so on until the dish is full. Bake it in the oven with a very little water at the bottom of the dish, keeping it covered while baking. When done, put a weight on it till cold; then turn it out. It makes a pretty dish for breakfast or supper. Stuffing for Turkeys, Fowls, and Veal.- Chop finely one quarter of a pound of suet, and with it mix double the quantity of bread-crumbs, a large spoonful of chopped parsley, nearly a teaspoonful of thyme and marjoram, mixed, one-eighth of a nutmeg, some grated lemon-peel, salt and pepper, and bind the whole with two eggs. A teaspoonful of finely-shred shalot or onion may be added at pleasure. VEGETABLES. Carolina Way of Boiling Rice.-Pick the rice carefully, and wash it through two or three cold waters till it is quite clean. Then (having drained off all the water through a colander) put the rice into a pot of boiling water, with a very little salt, allowing as much as a quart of water to half a pint of rice ; boil it twenty minutes or more. Then pour off the water, draining the rice as dry as possible. Lastly, set it on hot coals with the lid off, that the steam may not condense upon it and render the rice watery. Keep it dry thus for a quarter of an hour. Put it into a deep dish, and loosen and toss it up from the bottom with two forks, one in each hand, so that the grains may appear to stand alone. Haricots, or Small White Beans Plainly Boiled.—Boil a teacupful of haricots gently for three or five hours in plenty ofwater. If they are new, they will begin to crack in three hours, and if they are not very new they will take as much as five hours to make them soft. Turn them out ofthe saucepan, strain them, and dry the saucepan; return them to the saucepan, sprinkle salt over ,them, and let them get dry and hot, when they will eat floury. Eggs and Beet-Root.- Take some slices of dressed beetroot; toss them in some good fresh olive-oil made perfectly hot; arrange them in a dish ; place some poached and trimmed eggs on couronne (in a circle) round the beet-root ; add pepper; squeeze lemon-juice over, and serve directly. DESSERTS. Soyer's New Christmas Pudding.-This receipt, if closely followed, would, at this festive season of the year, save tons of fruit and other expensive ingredients, which are partly wasted for the want of knowing how to turn them to the best advantage. This pudding will be found sufficient for eight persons after a Christmas dinner. Carefully prepare the following, previous to mixing the pudding: Christmas Pudding-Four ounces of stoned raisins, four ounces of sultanas, half a pound of well-cleaned currants, half a pound of beef-suet, chopped fine, two ounces of powdered white sugar, two - ounces of flour, half a pound of bread-crumbs, twelve bitter-almonds blanched, chopped small, half a nutmeg, grated, two ounces of candied citron, the peel of half a small lemon, chopped fine, separately, put in a basin, break over four eggs, and add half a gill of brandy. Mix these all well the evening before wanted ; cover over till the morning; and when all is prepared, add half a gill of milk, again well stír your pudding; slightly butter a cloth, sprinkle a little flour over, put it in a basin, pour in the mixture, tie your cloth in the usual way, not too tight; put in half a gallon of boiling water; add more now and then if required ; let it simmer two hours and thirty minutes, turn out of cloth, and serve on a hot dish. Serve plain, if preferred, or with the sauce only. After which, when at the dining-room door, pour round a gill of either brandy or rum, which set on fire with a piece of

paper; place the dish on the table, let it burn half a minute, and pour the following sauce over from the sauce-boat. The best sauce with it is as follows :-Make half a pint of ordinary plain melted butter, rather thick, add to it two teaspoonfuls of sugar, the juice of half a lemon, and a pat of butter ; stir quick, pour over your pudding when very hot, or serve the sauce separate in a sauce-boat. Though the above pudding is not very expensive, it requires a little time and attention to do it properly; and well will be repaid the housewife who will take the trouble, as above described. Note.- In the event of some of the ingredients, such as almonds, candied orange or lemon-peel, not being obtainable in some country places, the pudding will still be good, although not so delicate in flavor. Arrow-Root Pudding.-Simmer a pint of milk with a few whole allspice, coriander-seed, and half a stick of cinnamon for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour; then sweeten it with sugar, and strain it through a hair-sieve into a basin to one ounce and a half of arrow-root (about a tablespoonful and a half) previously mixed with a little cold milk, stirring it all the time. When cold, or as soon as the scalding heat is gone, add three large or four small eggs, well beaten, and stir well until the whole is perfectly blended. It may then be boiled in a well-buttered mould or basin, or baked in a dish with a puff-paste crust round the edge, and grated nutmeg on the top. From half to three-quarters of an hour will be sufficient to boil or bake it. When boiled, serve it with wine-sauce. The flavor of the pudding may be occasionally varied by using a few blanched and finely-pounded or chopped sweet and bitter-almonds— about one ounce of sweet, and half an ounce of bitter-or with brandy, rum, orange-flower water, or vanilla. Best Mince-Pies.-One pound of jar raisins, stoned and chopped, one pound of currants, washed and dried ; one pound of beef-suet, mixed very fine and picked free from skin ; one pound of sifted sugar. Pare four lemons thin, and boil the rind in two different waters ; mince it small, and add to the above; strain the lemon-juice also over all, with two ounces of finely-minced candied peel, a pinch of salt, and ditto of powdered allspice. Mix all well up together and put into a stone jar covered up, putting over it half a pint of brandy or old rum. Let it stand a fortnight, and when wanted for use take out as much as may be required, and add to it a little chopped apple, and a little more rum or brandy to taste. What is kept in the jar should be stirred up occasionally. Orford Dumplings.-Mix well together the following ingredients: Two ounces of grated bread, four ounces of currants, four ounces of shred suet, a tablespoonful of sifted sugar, a little allspice, and plenty of grated lemon-peel. Beat up well two eggs, add a little milk, and divide the mixture into five dumplings. Fry them in butter a light brown color, and serve them with wine-sauce. Lemon-Pies.- The juice and grated rind of three lemons, three cups of sugar, six eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately, whites to be added last ; about two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch or arrow-root, mixed smooth and boiled a few moments in about one pint and a half of water; add a small piece of butter while hot ; bake with bottom crust, This receipt makes three pics. Egg Mince-Pics.-Boil six eggs hard, shred them small, shred double the quantity of suet; then put currants, washed and picked, one pound, or more, if the eggs are large ; the peel of one lemon, shred very fine, and the juice, six spoonfuls of sweet wine, mace, nutmeg, sugar, and a very little suot ; orange, lemon, and citron candied. Almond-Pudding-Beat half a pound of suet, and a few bitter-almonds, with a spoonful of water; then mix four ounces of butter, four eggs, two spoonfuls of cream, warm with the butter, one of brandy, a little nutmeg, and sugar to taste. Butter some cups, half fill, and bake the puddings. Serve with butter, wine, and sugar.

title: Page:Peterson's Magazine 1867 b.pdf/473


text:
Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/192

"I was never asked to join a fraternity when I was in college," a young fellow said to me not long ago, "though many of my intimate friends were, and I have always had a feeling of regret and loneliness when I have gone back to visit my Alma Mater. I have wondered if there might not have been something the matter with me, something about me not quite normal. I find it now often difficult to explain to people just why I was not a member, for it is as embarrassing for me to say that I never was asked as it must be for a maiden lady when explaining why she has never married."

The fact that a young man while in college does not join a fraternity or is not asked to join is not of necessity an argument against the man or against the fraternity. The number of fraternities in any institution with which I am familiar is too small to admit of everyone's being invited, and the reasons which induce men to stay out or which prevent them from being asked are as varied as the men themselves. Why have you not joined the Elks, or the Odd Fellows, or the Ancient Order of Hibernians, or the Christian Science Church? Why are you in the profession which you are now following? It is not at all likely that you can