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 first one to see the necessity of regulations and the obligation he is under to be governed by them; but as I have said in another article, it is often the older men, and not infrequently the alumni who most willingly yield to a violation of house rules, and who justify themselves because, as they say, they are old enough to know what they are doing.

House rules should be sensible. They should be such as it is possible to keep, and excepting as regards study hours, perhaps, they should usually be applicable to all members of the organization. It should be the purpose of such rules to preserve the quiet and order of the house, for every fraternity home should be a place where men can live comfortably and where undisturbed they can do the serious work of college quietly. Such rules also should look out for the general welfare; it should not be possible for one man to annoy or disturb all the rest, or to do anything which will upset the regular routine of the house. They should enforce a certain respect for the good name and reputation of the house and should prohibit the doing of anything in the house at any time which would bring discredit upon it or upon its members. All these things should be matters of principle rather than matters of expediency or of diplomacy. I have no sympathy with the man who says that it is of course better not to violate house rules, but if one does do it he ought to do it


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 so skilfully as not to be found out. A fraternity man ought not to countenance the doing of anything in his chapter house that is out of keeping with the dignity of any home or that he would not approve of in the other home of which his mother and sister are members. Gambling, drinking, vulgar and profane talk, and immoral women have no place in a real home of any sort, and so should not be allowed to contaminate a fraternity home. If young fellows could be made to feel something of the sacredness of home and to apply this to their fraternity homes we should be able to banish easily from our fraternities some of the things which are now kept out only by exercising the greatest vigilance, if they are sometimes kept out at all.

It has been interesting to me to see how this idea of reverence for the home has been developed in many of our fraternity men by their going into their own houses. I presume it is less easy for the ordinary adult to look upon a rented house or a house in which he is living temporarily in anything like the same light as that in which he regards the dwelling which he has helped to plan, which he has himself built and furnished, and in which he has the pride of ownership. Be that as it may, the fraternities with us who now own their houses have with a few exceptions tightened up on their house rules and have become much more rigid in

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172 Thus 285 teachers receive in all rupees 585-12-6, which averages to each teacher rupees 2-0-10 per month.

For school-houses the teachers in this district have recourse to the various expedients adopted in the Bengal districts, and amongst others employ shops, sugar-houses, thresholds, and verandahs of private dwellings, and vacant spaces at the sides of the roads.

In 285 schools the total number of scholars is 3,090, giving to each school an average of 10.8. The average age of the scholars at the time when the different schools were visited was 9.3 years, their average age at the time when they entered school was 7.9 years, and the average age at the time when they would probably leave school was 15.7 years. The average period passed at school would thus appear to be between seven and eight years.

Of the scholars 172 are Musalmans, and 2,918 are Hindus, of whom 14 were absent at the time when the schools were visited. The following are the castes of the latter and the number of each:—

The small number of Kayastha scholars contrasts with the almost exclusive possession by that caste of the business of vernacular teaching; and we meet here also, for the first time, with three inferior castes, each of which furnishes a larger number of scholars than the brahman caste. The very low and degraded castes, as


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 their enforcement than was the case when they were living in quarters which they rented from year to year. "We are not going fo have nearly so much trouble in keeping the fellows straight, now that we are in our own house," is a remark which I frequently hear, and which I think is based upon the facts. This attitude comes largely, I am sure, from the increased feeling that the fraternity house has for them become a real home which they respect and protect.

My general objections to lunch counters and to the other unconventional opportunities which are offered about almost every campus for satisfying hunger are that they tend to develop bad manners. There is no restraint in such surroundings; there are no standards set, and no one to hold the student to them if there were such standards. Even the ordinary boarding house keeper may find it difficult at times to hold her boarders to anything like conventional manners. At home it is different, because violations of good manners may be noticed and the attention of the one guilty of such unconventions called to the fact. We expect mother or father or older sister to act as a sort of overseer of our manners even when we make open objection to what they may have criticized in us. It is their right, and in this regard as in others the fraternity may well emulate the home. Table talk and table dress, and table behavior will usually follow


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 the standards set by the older men. A good old lady I knew in my boyhood used to remark that her boys always behaved themselves better when they were dressed up, and I have frequently noticed that as fraternity men have held themselves to careful dressing and careful talk at table their general manners were improved. The more carelessly dressed a fraternity permits its men to come to the breakfast or the dinner table, the more slovenly and crude will their talk and their general behavior at table be. If there is no other way of stopping various bad practices at table a system of fines for violations of conventions may be imposed.

The fraternity cannot emulate the example of the home better than in the cultivation of friendly social relations with men in other fraternities and with men outside of any fraternity. If the home life of fraternity men is such as it should be they cannot put themselves in a better light before those who are somewhat skeptical about the influences of fraternities than to let this home life be seen. The practice followed by many fraternities of one evening a week inviting a certain number of men in to dinner is a good one especially if all the members enter into the spirit of the practice and do their part at entertaining the guests. My observation of such a custom has been that often much of the pleasure of the occasion is spoiled


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 because many of the fellows leave as soon as dinner is over, others show little or no interest in the invited guests, and the whole responsibility of their entertainment is thrown upon the man who invited them to dinner or at best upon two or three members of the fraternity.

If it is true that you can tell very little about the real character of an individual until you see him in his home, it is equally true that you can tell very little about a fraternity until you see how it entertains its guests. On the whole I have felt that the training in manners in the fraternity house is careful, and that the guest who goes to one of these houses is pretty sure of receiving the most courteous and thoughtful consideration. But even good manners are not always inborn, and there is much to be learned when we are young, both from precept and from example. That not all fraternity men have so learned a few illustrations will at least suggest. I have gone to fraternity houses to dinner only to find that the man who had invited me was dining somewhere else; I have been at other houses where only a small percentage of the members even took the trouble to speak to me. I was the guest of someone else they apparently thought, so why waste their time on me. At first such neglect was something of a shock to me, for I had been taught even as a child that the guest of any member of my family was


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 for the time being my guest, and was entitled to respect and consideration. I have not yet got to the point of feeling that this is not equally true of the guest invited to a fraternity house. Freshmen should be taught to speak to everyone who has been invited to the house or who is in any way the guest of the fraternity.

I have been at any number of fraternity parties within the last few years where few if any of the freshmen even spoke to the invited guests, and very frequently even the upperclassmen ignored them. I remember with distinctness a fraternity party which I attended a few years ago. It was being held in the chapter house and we arrived at the time indicated. The door bell had gone out of business and after vainly trying to announce our arrival from the outside we walked in. No one gave us any attention, but knowing the house well we found the dressing rooms and ultimately joined the other guests. Only two or three of the older members spoke to us, we were allowed to find the supper table ourselves, and during the entire evening we were not molested. We found our way about and entertained ourselves as best we could, and when we had had enough we came home.

Not long ago, being in a college town in another state, and being a grand officer of my fraternity I thought it would be a courteous act to call upon the members of the chapter which was located in


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 that town. Accordingly I did so. I explained who I was to the indifferent young man who came to the door of the house in response to my ring and was permitted to enter. It was Saturday afternoon and the house was full of men, but I was introduced to none of them, nor did any one excepting the man who met me at the door speak to me. I stood in the hallway a while and then, I think, I found a bench and sat. I did my best for a quarter of an hour to be cheerful and to show interest, but my host was helpless and did not know what to do with me. Since no one essayed to come to his rescue or mine, and since I still retained my overcoat and held my hat I found it not difficult to withdraw. These are, of course, extreme examples of the carelessness of fraternity men in recognizing the social obligations of their home life, but I meet similar situations every week. Sometimes the cause is ignorance of what is required, sometimes it is selfishness, but most often it is thoughtlessness. Here again the head of the house should take the responsibility or should see that someone else does, and no member of the household should be in doubt what to do with an expected or an unexpected guest. Every guest who is invited to one's house, whether it be the President of the University or the most insignificant freshman who has come in to see an old high school friend should be treated with courtesy and


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 thoughtfulness, and should at least be spoken to by every member of the organization. Even though the guest does not expect it, the members of the fraternity owe it to themselves to show this much good breeding.

In the relationships which exist between the individual members of the fraternity in the home itself lies the real and potent influence of the fraternity. There can be no actual brotherhood unless there is something more than a mere me chanical union between the men. The running of the house may be pretty completely a business proposition, but in the personal relations between the men there must be something of sentiment, some affection, some warm regard of the one man for the other and vital interest in his progress and welfare or the home life will lack much of being what it should be. "I never realized what these fraternity brothers of mine meant to me," I heard a man say only a few weeks ago, "until I bade good-bye to them when we parted in leaving college; and I did not fully realize what they meant until I came back after an absence of several years and renewed the old acquaintance. There was a unity of feeling which I know I shall never find anywhere else, a comradeship which has bound us as closely together as if we were real brothers. There is nothing else life it in the world." If the fraternity man feels this sentiment


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 he will have little difficulty in adjusting himself to the conditions within a fraternity house, and he will soon develop for his chapter house and the men within it a feeling that is very closely akin to the sentiment which he felt for the home of his childhood and for those who were within it. If he has this feeling he will respect the house and he will guard the good name of each member of the organization as he would defend the reputation of his own brother or sister.

The true fraternity man will hesitate before discussing with an outsider the differences of opinion or the unpleasant relationships which are likely to develop in any chapter. Every fraternity as every family has its skeleton, its blots on the escutcheon, but these should not be paraded before the public. Every year I am surprised and often shocked at the very private matters of fraternity life which become general campus gossip. It is a badly organized family the members of which air its private difficulties in club rooms and at card parties; so it is a badly organized fraternity that cannot keep its own unsavory affairs within its own chapter house walls. I am sometimes asked how it is that I am acquainted with so many of the private affairs of the various fraternities upon the campus, and I always reply that it is because fraternity men talk so much. If the fraternity is to have any home life worth while


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 its members should respect the private matters of home.

The perfect home life anywhere is not attained excepting through adherence to high ideals; it is not possible excepting through sacrifice and unselfishness and constant concessions. The selfish man will never have a happy home, though if every one yields to his wishes he may be satisfied with it. So in the fraternity. Its home life must be based upon ideals; it must be wrought out by unselfishness, by sacrifice, by daily concessions, and if it is so done the fraternity man can look back upon his life in college as a sweet memory where the home companionship and the home influences were as real and as enduring as any which he ever experienced.


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Rh the Dosad, Pashi, Luniar, &c., are comparatively numerous, and have begun here also to seek a participation in the benefits of vernacular instruction.

In Behar leaves are not in use as a material for writing on, in the second and third stages of instruction the wooden-board and brazen-plate are exclusively employed. The following is the distribution of the scholars into the four established grades:—

In 36 schools commercial accounts only, in 20 schools agricultural accounts only, in 229 schools both commercial and agricultural accounts are taught, and in only two schools vernacular works are employed. The works of this description are the Dan Lila and Dadhi Lila already described; Sudam Charitra, an account of, one of the juvenile companions of Krishna; Ram Janma, an account of the birth of Ram, translated from the by ; and the Sundar Kanda of the Ramayana, one of the books of that poem,—all in the Hindi language.

The 16 thanas of this district contain in all 80 Hindi schools, of which one village contains three, six villages contain two each, and sixty-five villages contain one each.

The number of teachers is also 80, and their average age is 34·8 years. They are all Hindus, and are thus divided in respect of caste:—

This sufficiently shows that here also the writer-caste is almost exclusively engaged in the business of teaching common schools.

There are no teachers who give gratuitous instruction, and the teachers are thus remunerated:—


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At the University of Illinois as at most other similar institutions, I presume, there is a tradition that freshmen, especially freshmen who belong to a fraternity, should be kept in the background, should be required to do most of the unpleasant or "dirty" work about the house, and should be denied many of the privileges which are open to other members. Occasionally a sophomore who has been especially negligent or derelict is put under freshman rules, but this is unusual, and ordinarily all a freshman need do to get out from under the ban is to live nine months after he has entered college. House rules for freshmen are often different from those laid down for other classmen and those rules which have to do with study hours are enforced against them with especial rigidness. The result is that the freshmen go to their rooms shortly after dinner is finished and study or make a bluff of doing so; freshmen stay in perhaps while other classmen may be enjoying themselves; and if there be any irregularities carried on by the older brothers the freshmen are put to bed or given a good book to read in the library which will help to stimulate their imaginations.


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 This enforced studiousness and regularity of life has two results. Being with their books a considerable number of hours a day and having no strenuous prejudices against carrying their work, it is impossible that they should not learn something; so fraternity freshmen come out at the end of each semester with grades that average somewhat higher than do those of freshmen outside of such organizations. So far the result is excellent.

The second result seems to me not so good. The freshman has not always liked the restrictions which have been placed upon him in the fraternity house. Released from them completely as he usually is at the end of the freshman year he feels often much as a man might who is allowed to break training or who has been let out of prison, and his tendency is frequently to go to the opposite extreme. Two very battered looking freshmen were brought to me a few weeks ago by a city policeman who had found them in a state of intoxication trying to make their way home from one of the disreputable districts down town. They were, on the whole, decent fellows of good reputation. One had in fact earlier in the year broken his pledge to a fraternity because, as he told me, some of the men drank more than he thought right or good for them. Their only reason for being in the condition in which they were found was, as they tried to explain it to me, because they had been kept in


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 so strictly that they felt they must have one experience to celebrate their release from the bondage of freshman life. It is this sort of revolt which I think is the second and the objectionable result of the ordinary way in which freshmen are controlled in fraternity houses. The average young fellow will submit for a time to a strict military régime, but later he is likely to revolt and go to the opposite extreme. The discipline that is best is that which is made to appeal to the reason or that which is self-imposed.

Another phase of this evil result of the rigidly imposed discipline is seen in the attitude which the sophomore just released from freshman discipline holds toward the incoming freshman. Having himself suffered, and done penance, and acted the part of a slave, he does not as one might suppose, feel kindly toward the men who are assuming his former humble place. On the contrary he usually takes the most cruel delight in continuing the practice which he so recently found objectionable. An illustration drawn from a slightly different experience will make my point clearer perhaps. For years, at the University of Illinois, at the opening of college we were annoyed and disturbed by the growing practice of hazing. From a few isolated cases the practice grew to an alarming extent and bade fair permanently to injure the institution. We tried in turn persuasion, suspension, dismissal


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 for a longer period without much avail. We came ultimately to expulsion as the only means of breaking up the practice which under this mode of discipline began gradually to decline until now it can be said to have disappeared from the institution. The continuance of the practice was based entirely upon the fact, I was convinced by investigation, that the man hazed this year felt under obligations to get even with some one else next. When there were few or nobody who had any cause to get even there was no incentive to continue the practice, and it lapsed.

I believe that if the practice of rigid discipline for freshmen has any defense it might very well be carried into if not through the sophomore year. It is not difficult to establish the fact that the sophomore year is the most critical year in the college course. Second year students are more knowing, they are harder to control, and notwithstanding the large number of unsuccessful freshmen who for one cause or another drop out at the end of the first year, the second year men will be shown to have a lower scholastic average than do the freshmen. Yet the fraternity men at the University of Illinois come from the best high schools and preparatory schools in the state and in the country. They have a better training than the average boy in college and have had opportunities


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 for cultivating their intellects which should make them in college superior students.

My experience for many years has led me to the conclusion that in the management and control of the freshmen and sophomore members of the fraternity may be found at least one cause for the lack of initiative and self-reliance of many fraternity men, and so a cause of weak character and of poor scholarship.

With us, as with many other institutions, I imagine, the control of each fraternity lies almost exclusively with the upperclassmen and not infrequently with the members of the senior class, or it may even be with one or two members of the senior class. Underclassmen are allowed little voice in the conduct of the chapter. Freshmen especially are not expected to take any initiative in fraternity affairs, and, although they are held pretty rigidly to their work, they are not expected or allowed to express an opinion upon the control or management of their own chapters. Sophomores work under few restrictions, but are allowed little voice in affairs and little initiative. Usually the man longest in the chapter, and this may quite likely be the weakest man, is elected as its ruling head. Members are usually given very little responsibility until they become seniors, and are quite often not expected to take any. If the man at the head of the chapter happens to be a strong


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 man who can marshall the support of the other upperclassmen and win the respect of the underclassmen, this method of senior control works reasonably well, but if the opposite is true the result is disastrous. I need not go far for illustration. In one fraternity last year, a fraternity which was well toward the bottom of the list in character and scholarship, there was at the head of the chapter a senior, good intentioned, but weak, inefficient, and without influence among the men. He had been elected simply because he was the oldest man in the chapter and not because he had fitness for the position. The fraternity went rapidly down; there was neither order nor control. When I discussed the situation with one of the junior members—a strong efficient fellow—he said, "We see the situation, and regret it very much; but what can we do? We are only juniors, and we have no right to interfere with the management of the seniors."

In two other cases I made the grave error recently of speaking to junior or sophomore members of fraternities concerning conditions in their chapters which I thought needed correction. I was later spoken to by the president of each organization who said to me that if I wished to make any criticism upon the chapter I should make it to him as president. And yet in each case the president was indifferent and interested mainly in


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 being at the head of his organization, and not in assuming the responsibilities and the duties of the office. I had selected the man whom I considered the strong, energetic leader of the group without taking the trouble to find out who was president.

I believe that in general the treatment of underclassmen and especially of freshmen is not such as to develop in them initiative, self-reliance, and the desire to bear responsibility. They are made to keep up their work; they are not taught to do so. They work under a military rule which is seldom helpful. They are given so little part in thinking and acting for themselves, they are treated so much as inferiors and as children, that many of them never get over it, and never come to the point of assuming responsibility for themselves or for the chapter as a whole. Freshmen are seldom expected to have opinions or to take any but the most menial part in bearing the responsibilities of chapter management. The most serious time is when the freshmen year being over, they are released from restraint and have not yet learned anything of independence.

Only last fall an upperclassman of one of the fraternities with which I am well acquainted came to me for advice as to the treatment of a freshman who seemed obstreperous. "What is the matter?" I asked. "Well, he's fresh. He talks to much," was the reply. "What about?" I asked.


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 "Why," the upperclassman said, "he is constantly offering suggestions and making criticisms of our methods; and the most annoying part of it is, he is usually right. But of course you can see that we can never allow a freshman to tell us what we ought to do, even if he is right." And yet, some way, I couldn't see it, and I cannot yet; for that freshman has proved himself most efficiently active in college affairs, and he has received the highest scholastic average so far this year of any student in the fraternity. I have the feeling that the chapter might very profitably allow him to express some opinions as to its conduct, and give him a little opportunity to develop independence.

The method of keeping freshmen under control by "tubbing" or "paddling," the ordering of freshmen about as if they were inferiors or without judgment, I believe in almost every case is bad and detrimental to the development of independence and self-reliance in the freshmen. I have never seen any permanent good come from regulations which prohibit underclassmen from smoking, or drinking, or going out, or from doing any objectionable thing which upperclassmen do with impunity.

"We send our freshmen to their rooms at half-past seven every night," an indifferent upperclassman virtuously declared to me not long ago. "And


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 what do you do?" I asked. I knew quite well that he spent much of his time smoking in front of the cheerful grate fire when he should himself have been studying, while upstairs the freshmen in their study rooms were enjoying themselves as best they could. It all reminded me of a senior who was very fond of "Pall Malls," but who thought it undesirable for his freshman brother to indulge in cigarettes. Every evening '09 sent young '12 up to his—room to study while he remained in the living room to enjoy his cigarette. Upstairs little brother was not engaged solving algebraic formulae as was supposed, but was quietly puffing away at his own cigarette. There was no training for either of them in the procedure excepting the training in deceit. Fraternities too often consider themselves quite beyond criticism if in their various irregularities they can say that they at least keep their freshmen out of them. It affects me about the same as it would to have a man arrested for drunkenness claim immunity on the ground that his children at least were sober.

I talked only yesterday to a capable fraternity sophomore who has drifted both intellectually and morally since he entered college. I was urging him to pull himself together, to try to be something more than commonplace. "Do you think you have ever been of any real good to your fraternity?" I asked him. "I don't suppose so," he replied.


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 "I'm only a sophomore, and I have not yet had a chance to do anything in the control and management of my fraternity." I think it will not be hard to see that the system is wrong which allows a student to be two years a member of an organization without making him feel that he has any voice of responsibility in controlling or in making it what it should be.

The system goes even farther than this. If perchance a sophomore or a junior is initiated into a fraternity, even though he be a man of judgment and experience, he is often made to submit to freshmen rules, and to come and go as he is directed by those who in many cases are far less fit to direct and give orders than is he himself. I have in mind now the case of a young fellow, sensitive, refined, and socially experienced, whose feelings were tortured, and whose college work was ruined by the corrections and criticisms of his manners and social conduct by a senior whose social experience has been very limited, and whose standards of social etiquette were at best crude. It might not be so bad, perhaps, if these infantile methods were practiced in private, but, on the contrary, upperclassmen too often seem to feel that the greatest benefit will come to the freshman from correcting him, as an irritable parent might correct a naughty child, without reserve, before his friends and the whole chapter. This sort of


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 public "bawling out" may silence the freshman, but it seldom appeals to his sense of justice, and it seldom permanently reforms him. It often rather confirms him in his errors and drives him secretly to practice the habit for which he has been openly corrected and humiliated. I have never really seen a freshman thus reformed by force who did not come back as a sophomore more boisterous and incorrigible than ever and ready to get even with the first freshman who should dare to call his soul his own. A private, quiet, brotherly talk as one man to another would usually result in a very different attitude. If the system is any good for the freshman it ought at least to be tried upon the sophomores who usually need it more.

My whole observation of the system which I have here been attempting to illustrate, is that its effect upon underclassmen is bad, and since underclassmen often finally develop into upperclassmen, the effect upon the whole fraternity is bad. If responsibility is not given to the man when he first enters the chapter, if his thinking is done for him, if he is treated as an inferior and a child, if he is not taught at first to think for himself and to develop his own principles, it will often later be difficult to put responsibility upon him and have him assume it. It will in many cases be impossible to do so. In the business of undergraduate college life more than in any other business that I am


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 familiar with, the habits of life, the conduct, the initiative which a student develops during the first year or two and usually during the first semester, are those which cling to him during the whole of his college course. He can be led but he can seldom be forced. He can not be free from responsibility for half or three-fourths of his college life, and then drop into it naturally and effectively. Because he is kept from it so long is, I believe, one of the main causes of our having so many weak, inefficient fraternity seniors who are willing to hold office or to be at the head of affairs, but who are not capable of real, strong, efficient leadership.

In the direction of underclassmen there is little in laying down precept that is not backed by example. I have heard a good many "straight" talks from upperclassmen to freshmen which "went in at one ear and out the other" because the freshman knew very well that it was pure talk he was listening to, and that his senior brother was not himself intending in anyway to follow the precepts he was laying down. "I want you to understand, Dean," a senior said to me recently when I was talking to him about a disgraceful escapade in which he had been engaged, "that we did not allow the freshmen to have any part in it." But the freshmen were quite well aware that something disreputable was going on, they were keen to be in


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 it, and their imaginations running riot had made the performance far worse than it really was. If the affair had to be it would have been better in its effects upon the character of the freshmen if they had been there.

I do not wish to be understood as advocating the theory that underclassmen should be on an equality with the upperclassmen in a fraternity. Other things being equal, the upperclassmen should rule; their two or three added years, and their greater experience give them the right to do so. My contention is that far too great a distinction is made between the freshman and the senior. If the freshman is to be developed as he should be, he should be treated as an intelligent adult and not as a child; he should become at once a real part of the fraternity and should be heard after the other members, perhaps, and his advice followed if it is good. He should be persuaded as a reasonable being, not coerced like a refractory truant child. If he is sent up stairs to study some one should go with him to show him how it may best be done. If there are habits of life which it is not well for him to form, then it is easily shown that it is not helpful for upperclassmen to indulge in them. The fraternity is to be a brotherhood, not an autocracy. There is at most too little difference between the ages and experiences of freshmen and seniors to make the distinctions that are usually made and


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 no one sees the injustice of these distinctions more than does the freshman, and no one breaks away from their military school domination sooner than he. The coerced freshman can almost invariably be recognized in the incorrigible sophomore.

A large per cent of the benefit which comes from a college training, I believe, is found in the opportunity which the student gets for independent action, for developing self-reliance, for taking personal responsibility, and for working out his own problem. I have in another place observed that the student who lives at home while going to college loses very much of this training in self-reliance, and is usually on this account a weaker student. The reason is, of course, that his parents oversee his actions; think for him, and rob him of initiative. As I observe fraternity life I am afraid it is often furnishing this weakening sort of home life for its underclassmen, and the result is showing in undeveloped character and poor scholastic standing. Because he is not allowed to be a leader in any form of fraternity management, he grows to expect to be directed—to be told when to study and when to go to bed; when to get up and when to go to class; what to do and what to refrain from doing. The result is that he remains an irresponsible, indifferent child, who feels that until he becomes a senior there is very little for him to


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 do either in college or in his fraternity; and when he becomes a senior he is quite likely to be confirmed in his lazy, shiftless ways.

I believe the remedy lies in throwing upon the underclassmen more responsibility, in holding them to a less military routine, and in leading rather than driving them to do the things that should be done. Fraternity men could do more with their freshmen if they worked with them rather than upon them; if they set for them moral and scholastic examples which are healthy and safe for them to follow and treated them as far as it is possible as if they were men.


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142

CHRISTIAN

roan’s

M~WI,MM

TROUBLES.

not bear her touch—she seemed to see the trace of his kisses upon those pale lips, the shadow of his caressing hand upon her streaming hair. When the girl was in bed, Christian sat by her until she fell into the deep slumber of exhaus- tion; then she went down stairs to seek counsel in reflection.

Late in the evening there was a knock at the door; Christian knew who stood there, but she rose up and opened it, looking out with her} white face as Robert Gray tottered into the room.

“Christian,” he groaned, ‘Christian!’

“I know,” she said, ‘‘ Lucy Dean is here.”

He sank into a chair and covered his face with  his hands, while she stood before him white and cold.

‘‘Curse me, Christian, reproach me; anything is better than this!”

“Of what avail now, Robert—it is too late.”

“It was all my mother’s doing! Oh, Chris- tian, I meant no wrong! I was mad, and that poor girl was so gentle and kind! It is all over now—I am a wretch—a lost, despairing man.”

Christian did not heed his words; she walked } up and down the room for many moments, and } then returned to him.

‘Are you willing to atone for this wrong?” she said. :

With my life! When I found that my mother had driven her away, I followed here, and some goo. angel sent me to you.”

Robert, you must marry Lucy to-night.”

“Oh, mercy, have mercy, Christian! And you——”’

‘Hush, you would not dare!”

“Forgive me, no! Do what you will, Chris- tian, I am ready to obey you.”

Wait for me here,” she said, and taking up a shawl that lay on the table, she left the room.

A heavy storm of sleet was falling, but through the night and the tempest Christian Ford has- tened on. Half way to the village she stopped before an old-fashioned house, went round to the side, from whence gleamed a light, and knocked softly at the door.

It was the parsonage, and the old minister was sitting alone in his study. He opened the door and saw Christian Ford standing there, white as  a ghost, but perfectly calm.

‘‘What has happened?” he exclaimed, in alarm; ‘‘are you ill, Christian?” :

‘*Well, very well,” she answered, in a hollow voice. ‘I have come for you to go to my house; there is no time to lose, and I will explain to you as we go.”

The minister prepared himself without a word, and followed her, for there was that in Christian Ford’s face which would have brought obedience to any command.

On their way she told the story in a few brief words, which fell with difficulty from her parched lips. When they reached the house, they found Robert Gray sitting there with his face bowed in his hands; and Christian left the old minister alone with him, while she went up stairs.

She entered the chamber where the girl was sleeping, and spoke her name; low as the voice was, it roused the sleeper.

“What is it?” she cried, wildly, raising her self on the pillow; ‘who spoke?”

“It is —Christian. Be quiet, Lucy; I have something to tell you—Robert Gray is below.”

‘“‘He has not deserted me,” she cried; “he will save me. Oh, Robert, Robert!”

For an instant Christian gave way; she stag- gered against the wall, and clasped her hand over her mouth to repress a groan.

“Christian!” Lucy called; ‘I can’t see you.”

“I am here. Get up, Lucy, and dress; you S are going to be married.”

The girl sprang to her feet, wild with the fever which had been consuming her for hours, repeating the words almost in a shriek.

“Be quiet!” Christian said, sternly. She brought a white wrapper, and put it on her, brushed out the tangled hair, and gathered it smoothly in its place, folded a shawl about the 3 tottering form, and seated her in a chair.

The minister was speaking words of encourage- ment to the wretched youth when Christian re- turned to the apartment.

‘All is ready,” she said; ‘‘follow me.”

The old pastor was forced to support Robert up the stairs, while Christian went in advance without once looking back. When the door { opened, and Lucy Dean saw the young man ‘ standing white and pale before her, she began to sob like a frightened child, moaning,

‘Forgive me, Robert, forgive me!”

Then his true nobility of character mastered the selfish agony he had felt. He went up to S her, took her hand gently, saying,

“Don’t cry, Lucy; don’t tremble so. I am here to make all the atonement in my power.”

The old pastor motioned them to rise, and Christian stood leaning against the wall, watching with her strained gaze, but uttering no sound. When the brief ceremony was concluded, the clergyman knelt 3 time Christian wept; those tears harmonized her again. Before that there had seemed a mental catalepsy upon her which turned her heart to stone.
 * down and offered up a prayer. For the first


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"I must run along;" said a senior to me one evening not long ago when he was making an informal call at my house, "we are initiating this week, and we have to give our freshmen a little work out tonight." "Heaven help the freshmen," I replied as I recalled the procedure which was followed at the initiations with which I was familiar during the first few years of my fraternity life, and those other tales of getting the freshmen into shape to which I listened as they fell from the lips of willing undergraduates who had lived through the siege.

It was great sport to send prospective brothers out on a quiet stroll to the cemetery clad in empty flour barrels, to set them to wheeling doll baby carriages about the campus, to make them fish all day, with a pin hook in the dry "Boneyard," or to force them to beg for a hand out at the President's back door only to get into more public and embarrassing disgrace. Such stunts always brought the fraternity into deserved prominence and served to convince the general public that we were the fools they thought us. There were other sorts of goings-on of which I have been told, some of them devised with the keenest insight into the methods of human torture, mental and physical. There


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 were personal insults and physical abuse, such as painting the body of the victim, torturing him with electrical horrors, feeding him with nauseating messes, and beating him up to see how much pain he could stand without flinching or crying out. The fake violation of the oath was a form of mental torture which when worked skillfully made the initiate writhe. I have known boys who broke down and sobbed and who were upset for days by the memory of the disgrace which they thought they were going to suffer. All this we agreed was to put the freshman into the proper frame of mind and prepare him for the better appreciation of the ritual.

Occasionally some steady and sensible-minded brother questioned the advisability of continuing the practice, but he was promptly sat upon by some one who had been through the ordeal the previous year and who had been possessing his soul in patience until he could square the account with another brother. The fact that we had "always done it" carried weight, and it was years before some one was wise enough to insist that it was an imbecile and inane custom for which there was no justification. We gave it up, and now no one could be induced to go back to it. Like many another unworthy custom, tradition was its only justification.


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 I think it is hardly fair, however, completely to condemn a practice so common as "horse play" and "rough house" without getting as far as it is possible to do so, the point of view of those most intimately engaged in it. For that purpose I recently talked very freely with a score or more of undergraduates with whom I am well acquainted, and in addition to this I wrote letters to the presidents of each of the men's social organizations of the University of Illinois asking them to give me in a few words their opinion of the effect of "rough house" or "horse play" preliminary to the initiation of pledges, with any good argument which they might have for or against it.

The replies to these letters were very interesting. Of the twenty-eight replies received sixteen were opposed to the practice and twelve favored it. In general local organizations whose rituals are probably pretty weak and inadequate were strongly in favor of the practice, and those national fraternities who thought it a mistake to omit the "rough stuff" from the initiation ceremonies were in general of recent organization with little or no traditions behind them, or the local chapters were without strong leaders. Such organizations have little else to depend upon to keep their men in line, excepting the "strong arm." Those who are most strongly against it were the organizations with definite traditions and dignified


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 rituals or those whose leadership is vigorous and effective.

The beneficial effects of this rather coarse form of preliminary initiation, or the reasons it should be retained as a part of the ceremonies, are, according to the advocates of the custom, to keep up a worthy tradition, to teach the freshman his proper place, to discover if the initiate is is "yellow," and to apply to his character a adequate test. One man says:

"In my own experience in watching freshmen 'put through' in the manner with which I am familiar, I give my unqualified approbation to 'horse play'. The average freshman is young, untried, and usually fresh from high school triumphs; his ego is largely developed, he does not consider that the fraternity is conferring a favor on him, but that his presence is largely a condescension. This last attitude is partly due to rushing methods and largely due to imperfect rearing by parents. He is distinctly not a man, and the fraternity must take up the task of character shaping where the parents left off or never began. His exaggeration of his own omnipotence must be dissipated, and as one of our own freshman puts it, he usually cannot reason it out, so other methods must be used. If he could fully comprehend the significance of fraternity ties, 'horse play' would be unnecessary; but he cannot do this, and more mater-


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 ial means are necessary. Furthermore, the so-called 'rough house' is a means of determining what a man possesses, whether he has a streak of 'yellow' or whether he has stamina."

Yet this man admits that even though this trying preliminary work shows the initiate both "yellow" and without stamina, the initiation goes on just the same, and the man whose character has been shown to be weak is received with quite as much enthusiasm as if he had stood the test like a martyr. Indeed this is always true; if we admit that "horse play" in initiations is simply a legitimate attempt to test a man's character, we must also admit that no matter what the result may be the man always passes the test. An initiate may take a beating without winking an eye lash or he may show himself craven by bursting into tears and imprecations; when it is all over no one knows the difference and whether the new man has shown himself brave or a booby he is welcomed as a worthy brother. The alleged test, therefore, is really no test.

One other man says:

"Horse play, to be administered properly and with justification, should be given as punishment for some offence. Certain duties are required of the freshman, and certain rules are laid down which he must not violate. Usually these rules are sensible, and are designed to assist him in keeping


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 up his work. Other rules are designed with no other purpose than to keep the freshman in his proper place in the fraternity household, and work no direct harm against him. If the rules are at all sensible, therefore, I think it right that whenever the freshman fails in his duties, or when he does things which the fraternity forbids, he must take his spanking, or whatever other form of 'horse play' the fraternity uses."

If this man's logic were to be accepted then only those initiates who had been derelict should be subjected to the unpleasant experiences of the preliminary initiation. If there are ever differences made, however, they are so slight as not to be recognized. The boisterous fellow is put through the torture because he is fresh, and the shy bashful boy is beaten to wake him up and to put a little life into him. The theory reminds me vividly of the methods of a quack physician whom I once knew. He had only one remedy. He might vary the dose or the directions slightly to suit different conditions, but whoever came to him for treatment, no matter from what disease he might be suffering, got the same medicine. The patients sometimes died, of course, but that might have been true had they not gone to him.

I quote, also, from a third letter:

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 characteristics which should be present in every good man. If there are any undesirable characteristics, such as 'yellow streaks,' they are very sure to show when a candidate is undergoing a severe test of 'horse play.' There is no doubt, however, that the 'rough house' element in many initiations has degenerated into a selfish desire on the part of a few individuals to get even with the pledge; hence the wholesale beating-up which so frequently occurs. From my own experience, I can say that a minimum amount of the 'rough house' element rightly applied can no doubt be a benefit to every pledge." Following the theory, perhaps, advanced by Bill Nye that "A certain amount of fleas is good for a dog."

On the other hand those who oppose "horse play" and who contend that the simple ritual is most effective give equally strong reasons. From some of these letters I quote.

"In the first case, a fraternity initiation should away from the effectiveness and dignity of any initiation. Secondly, true men are sportsmen enough to do the stunts they are asked to perform without any paddling or beating. More effective methods of regulating and discipling an initiate can be devised. Thirdly, a 'rough house' initiation is not a great amount of fun for the men present,


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 and, after one experience, a man's enthusiasm for such things generally palls.

"In the initiations I have been put through I think a great deal more of those that did not have the 'horse play,' and I have a higher respect for the organization that gave its initiation without the 'rough house.' 'Rough house' initiations are a dangerous sport, and serious accidents take place easily. I believe that it would be a good measure for fraternities as national bodies to forbid 'horse play' in their initiations."

Perhaps the strongest arguments against the practice are summed up in the following, quoted from the letter of a president of one of the fraternities and one of the best respected fellows in the Greek-letter organizations.

"A fraternity is supposed, by those who know, to be a men's organization with serious motives and purposes behind it, and the 'rough house' is mere child's play. It is said that the pledges expect it—but one does not always get what he expects in college. One of the worst features of the farce is that it cheapens the real ritual. The freshman is very likely to put one on a par with the other and to consider the pledges that he takes as a huge joke.

"I do not believe that there is a great deal of danger attached to the 'horse play.' True, those who go through it are stiff and sore for several


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 days, but one very seldom receives any lasting injury. Occasionally, however, we hear of someone's being seriously injured. Then the Greek world gets some unpleasant notoriety.

"In my experience I have never seen an instance of anyone's being benefited by the farce. It is not true that the initiates are treated with less severity than they would be without it. It always gives a fine opportunity for the gratification of any personal grudge, and the fellow who has gone through one is the same fellow who wields the paddle most lustily.

"People not in college cannot understand it, and with the whole Greek-letter system undergoing an attack as it is at present, the 'rough house' simply furnishes material for the opposition, and I, for one, am firmly convinced that it should have no place in our initiations."

A third man, whose fraternity ritual, if one may guess from its origin, is one of the most dignified among college societies, says:

"It is my opinion that 'horse play' arises largely from the lack of a well defined ritual. The more complete and impressive the initiation service the less will be the tendency to start anything in the line of 'rough house.' This sort of thing has a place only in an organization without definite aim or purpose other than the amusement of the members."


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 Still another says:

"It is advanced that, when you subject a man to physical ordeals or cause him to make himself appear ridiculous, you probe his character. In my opinion, a man's conduct under initiation is not an index of his character. A man may allow indignities to be heaped upon him merely because he sees it to his advantage to do so and not because of any particular goodness of character. The man of coarse sensibilities will smile; the man of fine sensibilities will feel insulted—neither will be benefited, nor does the fraternity reap any benefit."

These opinions were to me interesting, and I present them for what they are worth. As for myself, as I look back over the experiences which I had, and as I have seen and heard the effects which these exhibitions or the reports of them have had upon the general public, I have come to see how common and vulgar the practice really is and how out of keeping with the real purposes of the fraternity. AnthingAnything [sic] which brings the fraternity or fraternity men thus prominently before the people who are not in sympathy with such organizations is sure to do them damage. The public "horse play" seems to me now a display of crude advertising which will only bring the fraternity into disrepute.


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 When I was a small boy I remember that a merchant of the country town near which I lived offered a prize of twenty-five dollars and the minister's fee to any couple who would be married in his shop window at noon on the Fourth of July. Somebody accepted the offer and got the money, and to this day I never see a fraternity man capering about the campus engaged in some of the "horse play" incident to an initiation but that I think of that couple—crude, illiterate, without sensitiveness—standing in that public place before the laughing, jeering, unsympathetic crowd to have performed the most sacred and holy rite of marriage; and I always hang my head a little in shame.

As to the arguments in favor of "rough house," I do not believe that any man was ever permanently helped by it. Even though a man should prove himself to have a "streak of yellow" in him, that fact, as I have said never bars him. If he be too "fresh," the rough treatment may calm him for the time being, but he bobs up serenely at the next initiation, fresher than ever, and keen to beat up the defenseless brother who has come after him. If there are exceptions to this statement I do not now recall them. If the treatment were carried into the sophomore year, and the fresh or incorrigible sophomore were subject to discipline, the case might be different. The freshman knows,


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 however, that the period of his probation is short and he usually breaks out worse than ever when it is ended.

As to "showing the freshman his true place," I have in another paper expressed myself on this topic. I believe that because of his somewhat wider experience the upperclassman should rule, but I have little sympathy with the feeling that it is to the advantage either of the freshman or of the fraternity that the initiate should be humiliated and insulted simply to establish the fact that the upperclassmen are in authority. I have always felt that it was pretty poor discipline even for parents and much less for fraternity men to be under the necessity to use force to show a child or a freshman his true place.

I think it is true, too, that such practices cheapen the ritual and center the thought of the initiate not on the seriousness of the ceremony through which he is going, but upon the probability of his getting a good crack across the pants as he is being led about by the fraternity officer. Even though the rough part of the initiation may be given on the day previous to the presenting of the real ritual, the initiate does not know this, and usually has his weather eye out for trouble. The seriousness of effect, therefore, I feel sure, is injured, and the real meaning of the ritual is lost.


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 Fraternities will justify themselves only as they can establish the fact that their purpose is a serious one; that their members are men rather than foolish, unruly boys; that in taking men into their organizations they are taking them into a brotherhood rather than an autocracy. If this is their purpose, there will be no need of "rough house" and no place for the public "horse play" of which we have seen too much.


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Whatever was once the custom, in these days, at least, fraternity men are expected to pay their debts and to do so promptly. The young man with the buoyancy and optimism of Mr. Skimpole, in Bleak House, who held that "the sordid word money should never be mentioned in the relations of friendship" is having little vogue at the present time. The enthusiastic life insurance agent, if you will admit his logic, can prove to you that if you will pay your premiums long enough they will cost you nothing, but every sensible man knows that the thing that is worth anything costs something, and the fraternity is no exception.

Fraternity men in the past have too frequently taken their obligations lightly, and so in a financial way have brought fraternities into disrepute. Fraternity officers have begun strongly to emphasize the importance of financial matters in the fraternity and are insisting upon the introduction of accounting systems into all chapters which will make it possible for fraternity accounts to be kept accurately and which will impress upon the fraternity man from the outset his obligation to meet his bills when they are due.

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 payment may be evaded or deferred. It is ordinarily as unwise to go into a fraternity with the idea that the cost of living will thus be reduced as it is to enter matrimony with the thought that it will cost no more to support a family than an individual. With us at the University of Illinois the fraternity man is likely to be called upon to expend twenty per cent more than if he had remained outside of the organization, and if he develops popularity and contracts the joining habit, it may cost him considerably more than this.

The payment of bills and the meeting of personal financial obligations is quite as often a matter of habit as of monthly income. So far as I have observed, the man who is broke in college, who allows his bills to go unpaid, or who lets his fraternity brothers meet his obligations is not more punctilious about such matters when he leaves college and begins to earn a regular income. I held for five years the notes of a fraternity man given to the chapter for board, and though the man was soon drawing a good enough salary to enable him to marry, he has not up to this time been getting enough to make it possible for him to pay his old board bill.

Every organization has a longer or shorter list of these grafters whose pocket books and whose memories are short, who are careless or generous with their own money and who feel no compunc-


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 tions of conscience at living off any one who will stand for it. Their excuse for not paying what they agree to pay or what they are due to pay is usually that they have had hard luck, that they have managed badly, or that they are going to find it easier later. The facts are that there is seldom any good reason except that they have lived beyond their income. It is the man with the small or moderate income who usually keeps his bills paid.

The men who are in these days giving most time and thought to fraternity matters are putting less and less stress upon mere sentiment and melodramatic feeling as a basis of true friendship and are coming to see that there can be no real brotherhood unless it is based upon principles which require every member of such an organization to do his part in keeping up the fraternity and to pay his part of the regular bills incident to such an organization. If a fraternity is to get anywhere, its finances are to be sound and dependable, and usually the finances of the group are determined by the way in which the individuals conduct their money matters. No one ought to assume more financial obligations than he can meet, but, having once agreed to pay, he is under moral obligations to do so whether it happens to be a subscription to the minister's salary, a chapter house note, or a board bill. That fraternity


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 will do its members the best service and give them the best training which insists upon regular and prompt payment of every financial obligation. If a man can not pay he ought not to be in college. He should have pride enough not to allow himself to be carried by those who perhaps can afford as little as he can to meet additional financial obligations. I have had a good many interesting experiences with regard to the way in which fraternity men pay their debts. Possibly one of these, given somewhat in detail, may serve to show how fraternity men meet their obligations, and the methods employed to induce them to pay.

For a dozen years or more, as treasurer or trustee, I have been responsible for the collection of house notes and other pledges of three organizations—two fraternities and one sorority. These duties have brought me various experiences, pleasant and otherwise, and have incidentally resulted in my collecting $10,000 or so for the three organizations. As a remuneration for the expenditure of my time and effort I have been permitted to come into contact with various sorts of human nature, and I have learned much as to how fraternity men and women meet their obligations.

The funds for the building of most of the fraternity houses at the University of Illinois have been raised in part through notes given by the alumni and by members of the active chapter.


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 These notes are usually for ten dollars each and are ten in number, payable one each year for ten years following the student's entrance into the university or following his graduation. Sometimes only five of such notes are given. The keeping up of the payments on the house is usually absolutely dependent upon the fidelity with which the individuals keep their obligations, and failure on their part to that extent embarrasses the officers who have the responsibility for looking after the finances of the organization.

The form of the notes which I hold is legal, I suppose, but, though I have never tried to do so, it is rather unlikely that they could be collected by process of law, and so they must be considered more as debts of honor than as legal obligations. The form which has been used I give below.

Champaign, Ill., June 24, 1914.

Two years after date, for value received, I promise to pay to the order of, Trustee of Chapter House Fund of Beta. Theta, the sum of Ten Dollars ($10), with interest at 6 per cent after maturity.

The proceeds of this note are to be applied to the purchase of a Chapter House, and will be used for no other purpose. City...................................., State....................................
 * Street....................................,


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 Though as I say these notes would be collected by law with difficulty, if at all, not many men care to have such obligations put into the hands of an attorney, even if there is little likelihood of his being able to collect, and so I have found that some men who are otherwise reluctant or stubborn about paying will yield rather than have the matter tested. Men will grow angry and tell me to try it, if I think it will do any good, but at the same time they will pay rather than suffer the humiliation in their own towns of having it tried. Human nature is certainly a queer thing.

Of the three sets of notes which I hold and have made an effort to collect, two were for purposes of raising money to pay off a debt some time ago contracted, and the other set was to help meet the expenses of building a chapter house. The former I have found more difficult of collection than the latter, for the reason perhaps that there was a less tangible and visible object for raising the money. Paying for something that is already eaten up, or burned, or worn out is too much like paying for a dead horse. The house was an object of interest and pride, an object which the men could enjoy, and come back to, and for that reason, perhaps, they more readily put their money into it. My experiences were similar in each of the three cases; but to avoid confusion, my discussion and my illustrations will have to do


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 with the collection of the money for the house fund.

To begin with, the signing of these notes was entirely voluntary. The use to be made of the money and the need of raising it were usually explained to the fellows, so that they did not enter into the obligation blindly or through force. Not all the men signed them, and no men lost caste or favor who refused to do so. In the majority of cases the first note came due within a year after the student's graduation, though some were payable at the beginning of the sophomore year. Even though the man at first drew a small salary, or lived upon a moderate allowance, ten dollars a year could not be considered a very heavy assessment.

The work which I do in the attempt to collect these three series of notes is of course entirely gratuitous. There is no personal advantage to me in the collection of the money. I have paid my own notes as any other alumnus might. It takes time and often time which I can very ill afford. I have never received in return what the collections have actually cost me, and I seldom get thanks, even from the people whose interest I am trying to conserve. I have always felt that if I were willing to work for nothing and pay a part of my own expenses that I am at least entitled to a courteous reply to the letters that I write, but


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 whether I am or not I often receive none. I have written men regularly twice a year for ten years and have never received a word of reply—and these men were quite able to pay. I nodo [sic] not care so much what they write as that they say something. I should rather have an impertinent letter than none at all. If they do not intend to pay, if they have lost interest in the fraternity, if they have objections which they wish to make to the management of the organization, I welcome all these various points of view. If they are hard up, broke, going to be married, or going to pay in a month, or even if they have no intention of paying and think I am a swindler or a grafter, I am glad to know, for all these things give zest and variety to an otherwise monotonous task. It is this dead silence, like a freshman just before initiation, that gets on my nerves. A good many of the men to whom I write are bankers, lawyers, or business men quite familiar with the courtesies and traditions of business methods; all that I want is that the matter be treated in a business way. I have always felt that a man who paid his own personal part of a subscription and who then was willing to spend his time and try his patience in an attempt to collect what is justly coming from me was entitled to most polite consideration from me. But quite the contrary is often true.


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 It is a great delight to find an exception. I have in mind one man who always answers my letters with a promise of payment in the near future. He has been doing this for years, and though he has never paid a cent, I like him for his courtesy. He is a gentleman, if he is a liar, and I should a thousand times rather do business with him than with the fellow, who having given his word, ignores all communications advising him of his obligation, or who is peeved because having made a pledge he should be expected by anyone to redeem it.

The men who paid the most readily were not always the men who could do so with the least sacrifice. The man who was first to cancel his ten notes was a young fellow working for fifty dollars a month, who without notice from me paid the first five notes when they came due and then discounted the last five at five per cent and took them all up. I have more than once been interested in seeing that the men who can most readily return to their alma mater to see a football game or to attend the annual dance are most likely to find it difficult to pay when a chapter house note comes due. Whether or not a man can get money is often determined by what it is to be spent for.

The men who have not yet paid a single note, though the entire ten are now past due, are in general prosperous fellows quite well able to meet these obligations easily. These men have never


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 acknowledged any one of the twenty or more letters which have been written them, but if they should do so and should analyze their reasons for not paying and should put them down in black and white, they would probably resolve themselves into two. In the first place, upon leaving college these men moved far away from the scenes of their undergraduate life. In the localities to which they went there were few college men and few associations to remind them of the fraternity. Naturally, they thought less and less of college ties as they went on, and when the first letter came reminding them of their overdue obligation, they resented it and neglected it, and thought no more of it, perhaps, until the notice of the second overdue note came. Now an obligation of ten dollars is not so hard to meet, even by one whose income is small, and who is practicing economy, but when this sum grows to twenty dollars the strain upon the pocketbook is considerably more than twice as hard. To many young fellows the problem of meeting an unexpected financial obligation of twenty dollars seems so difficult of solution that he gives it up and thinks no more of the unpleasant business. When these delayed payments amount to thirty, fifty, or one hundred dollars, the idea of payment is unthinkable.

The second reason why men like those I have mentioned do not pay is found, I believe, in the


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 fact that they were taken into the fraternity late in their college course, were in college only a year or so, never assumed, or possibly never were allowed to assume, any responsibility for its control and management, and so left college without much to tie them closely to the fellows left behind. The fraternity to them, seen in the widening perspective of the years that have intervened, seems little more than a boarding or lodging house in which they may have spent a few transient weeks. To send money to keep up such an institution seems to them a good deal like dropping it into a friendly rat hole.

The solution of the first of these difficulties lies with the man himself who should take his obligation to the fraternity seriously and who should meet it honestly and promptly as he would meet any other business or social obligation which he has assumed. He tries to excuse himself on the ground that such obligations are in a different class from ordinary promises to pay. If it were a laundry bill, or a bill to his tailor or his grocer, it would be different. The facts are, however, that such men will frequently dodge a laundry bill quite as readily as a house note. If they argue that the obligation to the fraternity is a minor one and that later obligations should take precedence, they will say that the laundress lost their hose and burned their best silk shirts in the ironing. There


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 is always an excuse and a way out if one does not want to pay.

The second difficulty can be met by an active chapter which should keep more closely and regularly in touch with its alumni than most chapters with which I am now acquainted keep, and which should make a constant and strong effort to get all of the old men back as frequently as possible. The chapter can help, also, in impressing upon the men while undergraduates their obligation to meet all their debts with promptness. The average fraternity man, if on account of his financial limitations he were called upon to choose between the alternative of attending a formal party or of paying his overdue chapter house note, would seldom hesitate long in choosing the former course. Pleasure before business is too often his motto. The fact that I have no personal acquaintance with the tax collector does not, of course, excuse me from paying my taxes, but the fact that a fraternity man often gets out of sympathy and out of touch with his fraternity is to him an easy way to evade keeping his promises.

The excuses for non-payment which men give are interesting. As a rule I have found that the men who do not pay do not have the courtesy to offer an excuse, but simply ignore the obligation. The occasional man, however, having leisure and a stenographer, offers an excuse. Some men hold


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 that money paid by an alumnus to a fraternity, like one's annual contribution to the pastor's salary, is a gift, payment of which may be withheld to any time which may suit the mood or the convenience of the giver. He feels that his "I promise to pay" when given to the treasurer of his fraternity still leaves him free to keep his word or not as he chooses. He does not stop to think that the building of the chapter house was based upon that integrity of his written word, and that if he does not honestly meet his obligation the chapter is often seriously and even irreparably injured.

Marriage, I have found, is considered by most men an adequate excuse for failure to meet any financial obligation entered into before the marriage occurred. When a man entrenches himself behind a little family, he seems to feel safe from any arrows of financial obligations which may be hurled against him. Even an engagement is considered no mean excuse and makes the man immune from the effects of previous debts as vaccination protects him against smallpox. If there are children, his fortress is invulnerable; nothing can effectively storm his financial citadel. More recently assumed obligations also are wont to take precedence of a chapter house note. The man who buys a farm, opens an office, goes into business, takes a trip to Europe, or spends money in any way, considers this a logical reason for not meet-


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 ing his fraternity obligations. There are, of course, legitimate excuses, and these are generally offered and received in good faith. Even fraternity men suffer misfortunes, are compelled to meet unexpected situations, and fall victims to real hard luck; but they are honest and when the sun comes out and the financial sky brightens they come across with the ten dollars.

The men who never have to be notified, and their number is small, or who, if they forget, respond to the first call are the men who when in college amounted to something in the fraternity and in the college. The really strong men in the active chapter are the dependable supporters after they go out into the world. As I have said, the meeting of obligations promptly is a habit rather than an incident. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but as a general thing the men who, after they are out of college, meet their fraternity obligations regularly and willingly are the men who while in college did the greatest amount of hard work to make the fraternity what it ought to be. The fraternity notes with reference to which I have drawn these conclusions first came into my hands about twelve years ago, so that for many of the men the tenth note is now past due. As I look over the list of men whose obligations were met and who have paid up the entire series, I find few who were not as undergraduates a source of


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 distinct strength to the chapter. They were men who realized their obligations, who took responsibility, who stood for the best things for which the fraternity stands. They were the ones who gave to the fraternity the best that was in them and who therefore received from it the highest that it has to give. Recognizing, as they still do, what the fraternity has done for them they are still willing and anxious to help in its maintenance. The men who do not pay are, on the other hand, usually the ones to whom the fraternity meant little or nothing, and who mean little or nothing to it. Perhaps the fraternity should be blamed for not inculcating in them higher principles, for not holding them while they were undergraduate members to stricter principles of financial practice, for not impressing them more strongly with the value of truth and the obligation to redeem every promise.

As to my methods of collection I have tried every sort of appeal. Sometimes I write a simple note like the following:

"Dear Brother Jones: This letter is simply to inform you that your fourth chapter house note for ten dollars ($10.00) was due July 1st. As usual we need the money.

Fraternally yours,


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abbess of Andoüillets, which if you look into the large set of provincial maps now publishing at Paris, you will find situated amongst the hills which divide Burgundy from Savoy, being in danger of an Anchylosis or stiff joint (the sinovia of her knee becoming hard by long matins) and having tried every remedy - first, prayers and thanksgiving; then invocations to all the saints in heaven promiscuously - then particularly to every saint who had ever had a stiff leg before her - then touching it with all the reliques of the convent, principally with the thigh-bone of the man of Lystra, who had been impotent from his youththen wrap-


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 Sometimes I try the persuasive power of broken furnaces, scaling paint, unpaid taxes, and summer loan dues, not that the fact that we need the money obligates a debtor to any greater extent to pay his debts, but only that the debtor sometimes feels that it does. I have called to my aid often alumni more prominent than myself with the hope that through the influence of their position and personality the purse strings of the negligent alumni might loosen. I have tried to reach them through the regular chapter letter. I have tried to touch their pride, their loyalty, their honor; I have even threatened at times, or dropped into irony, with about the same result in each case. Each sort of appeal touches some one, though no appeal that I have yet devised seems to be generally effective. Only a few weeks ago I wrote a letter which was characterized by extreme courtesy. I received a reply from one of the brothers in which he commended me for my directness and complimented me on my tone. It was the best letter of its kind, he said, that I had written. I assured him that I did not agree with him, for it had brought me less money than any other that I had written.

Last fall, when at our regular home-coming some twenty of the old fellows returned to see the big football game of the year, I presented the case to them, and they all agreed that it was not credit-


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 able to the old guard. They passed some beautiful resolutions, got out a "hot" letter to the fellows who were back on their notes and all signed it. It is an interesting fact to note that though perhaps a dozen of the men who signed the resolutions and the letter were themselves behind in their payments, not one has sent in any money, and, so far as I can determine, not a dollar has come in as a direct result of the letter. It is easy to urge the other man to do his duty, to do it ourselves is not always so easy.

One who understands the job of making such collections as those which I am discussing may very well be thankful if he has a sense of humor; otherwise his temper may frequently be tried. I have been interested to note the attitude which the negligent alumnus often takes toward the unfortunate officer whose task it is to collect the money for the fraternity. Not a few fellows have the same attitude apparently as they might have if he were asking them for a personal loan or a gratuity. My ancestry and my general character have more than once been called in question, and all sorts of aspersions have been cast upon my reputation, simply because I have insisted on a man's paying what he had agreed to pay.

I have been asked often what percentage of these obligations I have been able to collect. This is a pretty difficult question to answer, since no


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 one can tell that an obligation is absolutely worthless until the one who made it is dead. Even in this seemingly hopeless situation one can never be quite sure, for occasionally relatives may have a greater sense of obligation than did the man himself when alive, and may come to the financial rescue. Every once in a while a man pays, whom I have considered for years as hopeless, so that for me in this experience "Hope springs eternal." So far in the two cases in which the notes were given to raise money to meet a debt already contracted I have been successful in collecting in one case little more than fifty per cent and in the other about seventy-five. In the case of the notes to help build a chapter house I think I have already collected about eighty per cent of the amounts due and may ultimately bring the percentage up to ninety. In this case the unexpected is always happening. The man comes back and sees the house, or his younger brother or his wife's cousin is starting to college, and, wanting to make good with the active chapter, he liquidates. Maybe he meets an old pal who stirs up his recollections of other days, or he strikes it lucky and has an unusually generous feeling. In any case something happens that makes him send in the ten or the twenty that gives me a sudden shock of surprise. It may be if I live long enough and study the problem hard enough I shall be able to collect it all.


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 In the meantime I suppose that there are a good many unfortunates like myself throughout the country whose job is to get fraternity men to meet their chapter obligations. To help them and me I believe the active chapters of fraternities may do a good deal. While a man is in the active chapter he should be required to keep up all of his obligations. If he gets behind, his father should know about it. The fraternity is too often sensitive about letting parents know just what their son's financial situation is, and so an obligation which might often easily be met goes unpaid for years.

The fraternity as a whole should not go into enterprises which cost money without seriously counting the cost. House parties and formal dances, and banquets, and automobile trips are all well enough if one has the price, but when young fellows have to go into debt for these pleasures, they should choose the more simple life. "Are you going to have a house party this year?" I asked a fraternity man not long ago. "No more house parties for us, believe me," was his reply. "The one we gave last year has kept us on the verge of financial ruin all year. We've been trying to save on the board in order to make up for our social splurge, and we haven't had a decent meal for three months." He had learned what many of the rest of us have learned, that it is a pretty


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 dangerous proceeding to mortgage the future. No one should be allowed to get behind, for no young fellow ever will have more money next month than he had last.

As to the alumni, perhaps one reason why we have not been more successful in making collections from the alumni than we have been is because the number of letters which our alumni receive in which they are directly asked for money is so much in excess of the number of friendly or newsy letters which they receive from the chapter that they hesitate to open their correspondence for fear of receiving a dun. Some chapters to overcome this situation have begun the publication of a regular monthly or semi-monthly paper which they send to all former members, and others send out a regular series of friendly, newsy letters.

Alumni should be urged regularly to visit the active chapter so that they may not lose interest in it or be ignorant of its affairs. The sooner the chapter gives its underclassmen responsibility and develops their initiative and interest in chapter affairs the sooner these members can be depended upon to have a permanent and vital interest in the upbuilding of the chapter, and the more likely they will be when they are in the chapter to keep up their obligations and pay their just debts, and the more likely also they will be when they leave the active chapter to meet their obligations to it.


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One of the most vivid impressions I received at the first fraternity Congress I attended was connected with the reports which the individual chapters made to Congress with reference to the conduct, progress, and achievement of the chapter. No facts were stated more eagerly and with more evident pride than those which recounted the successes of the "joiners," and which gave in detail the number of members in each chapter who in one way or another had become allied with an external or extra-fraternity organization. In the eyes of the fraternity man, it seemed to me, there was no honor so great as being bid something else, and nothing so much to be desired as to belong to an organization outside of the fraternity, unless it were to belong to a number of such groups of men. No matter what the organization was, the simple announcement that some brother had made it was enough to call out rounds of applause. Even the announcement by one of the chapters that two of the brothers had broken into the mystic circle of Theta Nu Epsilon was considered a matter for general rejoicing.

In reading the various fraternity journals which come to my table I am impressed again with this same attitude of mind as seen in the chapter letters in which are recounted the various social and in-


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 tellectual honors which have been carried away by individual brothers. Among the numerous things which a man may do that will make him worthy of mention in the chapter letter none seemed to be seized upon with more eagerness nor told with more conscious pride than the fact that one of the brothers has joined something or has been offered a chance to do so. From a recent number of a widely circulated fraternity journal I quote the following from one letter with only the names of the men veiled:

"Blain has just been elected to the Red Headed men's Club; Barlow is an Alpha Delta Sigma; Lane has made Psi Mu; Thompson was recently pledged by Tau Beta Pi. We have at present a representative in almost every club on the campus."

I have wondered if this fraternity ever took the time to compute the amount of energy dissipated by this general scattering of the fraternity's forces.

I have never been opposed to these organizations to which I refer; on the contrary I think I may say with confidence that I have in most instances approved of them, and in some cases have gone so far as to encourage them. The fact that we have so many at the University of Illinois may in a large measure be attributed to this encouragement, since I am placed officially in the strategic position of


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 ping it up in her veil when she went to bed—then cross-wise her rosary—then bringing in to her aid the secular arm, and anointing it with oils and hot fat of animals—then treating it with emollient and resolving fomentations—then with poultices of marsh-mallows, mallows, bonus Henricus, white lillies and fenugreek—then taking the woods, I mean the smoak of 'em, holding her scapulary across her lap—then decoctions of wild chicory, water cresses, chervil, sweet cecily and cochlearia—and nothing all this while answering, was prevailed on at last to try the hot baths of Bourbon—so having first obtain'd leave of the visitor-general to take care of her existence—she ordered all to be got ready for her journey: a novice of


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 being able usually to secure the approval or the denial of the request of various groups of men to organize as seems in each case best. I have, however, never been quite sure that many of these organizations are of any positive advantage to the fraternity as an organization, though they may at times help to broaden the individual member and to bring him into more general prominence. Though it may help Smith to join Helmet and Jones to become a member of the Egyptian club by broadening their view point and bringing them into contact with a larger number of fellows, and throwing added responsibility upon them, yet the time which each must give to the outside organization may so divide his interests and take him away from the important duties of his fraternity that his influence and his effectiveness may on the whole be seriously decreased.

I know any number of fellows at the University of Illinois who belong to so many things that they have little time to give to the management and best interests of their fraternities. If there is company at the house Joe can not help entertain them after dinner because he must go to a called meeting of Scabbard and Blade; if a party is being planned or the matter of the house fund being discussed, he must be excused because it is the night when Klu Klux meets or Arcus has its initiation. And so it goes; when he is needed he is not to be found,


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 and when he does appear at the deliberation, he is an irritation and a nuisance because someone must explain to him what happened while he was absent. This might not be so bad if the absent member brought back the fraternity something gained from his outside alliance, but this is seldom true. One of the most popular men I know in college has this year ruined his scholarship and been worse than useless in helping to run the affairs of his fraternity because he has belonged to so many things that his outside interests have taken all his time. He has been unable to do any work himself, and he has been supercritical of those who have had to bear the burden of running the fraternity.

Most of these extra-fraternities are secret; their activities and their legislation touch only the individual and seldom react to the benefit of the various fraternities from which the members come. We have at the University of Illinois, for example, a sophomore and a junior intra-fraternity organization. The members are not selected by the fraternities from which they are recruited, but by the members of these class organizations themselves. That is, most of the extra-fraternity organizations are self-supporting. It is not the purpose of a sophomore fraternity to help all the other sophomores in the various fraternities from which they come, but simply to have a selfishly good or helpful time among themselves.


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 Usually not more than two or three members at the most from each fraternity are eligible to membership in these organizations. When these members come back to the chapter house from the weekly or fortnightly or monthly meetings there are often private references between them to what has gone on or subtle and unintelligible allusions which not infrequently arouse the interest of the brother classmen, even if they do not go so far as to develop petty jealousies. The fact that one brother knows something that he can not discuss with all the others, that he laughs uproariously over a joke which he does not feel at liberty to explain, or that he belongs to something that the others of the same class'and attainment can not get into, even if these things are in themselves trifling, will often prevent that unity of feeling—and action which would otherwise be easily possible. I have known frequent instances of the development of factions and cliques in fraternities, which have tended seriously to the disruption of the organizations, caused entirely by the misunderstandings and jealousies incident to the membership of some of the brothers in organizations outside of the fraternity. I said to a man not long ago, "What is the matter with your fellows this year? You do not seem to be working together." "Three of our boys expected to get into 'Crescent' and only two made it," he replied. "They have


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 been a little supercilious and self-satisfied all year, and it has stirred up a feeling that has made harmony of action impossible."

The fact that the fraternity has no voice in the selection of the members which shall represent it in those outside organizations seems to be a source of trouble. "Do you think we ought to let Allen go into Yoxan?" a fraternity president asked me recently. "He is not logically the man for the organization, he already shirks obligations, the new organization will do him no good and is likely to do us harm." I realized that everything he said was correct, but Allen did not care to take advice and went into Yoxan just the same. If the chapter were consulted as to whether or not Brown is its most representative sophomore or Adkins should be elected to Keys, it might be different. The real facts are that it is not the fitness of either for the place but his intimacy with the brother who last year represented the chapter that determines his election. It is this fact which so frequently causes dissension, for even to the so-called "honorary" fraternity as well as to those which lay no claim to such honorary standing, it is often the weaker brother who is elected, since the fellow who spends most time away from his chapter and neglects his studies the most is not infrequently the most popular among his fellows


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 and so most likely of election. It is the good fellows they all want.

The election of such men is an evil in two ways. It tends usually still further to weaken their scholarship and their influence in their own chapter, and it tends, as I have said, to arouse ill feeling and jealousy among the other men who recognize the injustice of such an election and are annoyed at their own failure to attain the so-called honor. The weak man who should have been strengthened by being given responsibility in his own chapter is able to dodge it often by pleading as an excuse the duty and obligation he owes to his extra-fraternity organization. He can find time to go to a meeting of the "Lambs," but he is too busy to study English or to look after the particular fraternity duty for which he is responsible.

It is argued by a good many men that these extra-fraternity organizations bring into prominence the fraternity from which members are chosen, and since those members come pretty generally from all fraternities, help to break down the fraternity lines, to reduce friction, and to harmonize intra-fraternity disputes and differences. I am not at all convinced that this is true. At the University of Illinois intra-fraternity organizations and organizations which are composed largely of fraternity men have multiplied materially within the last few years, and yet I can not find