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NEIGHBORLINESS—A COLLEGE AND FRATERNITY
IDEAL
"There are neighbors and neighbors," said the little old lady of
the garden opposite my own last evening as we sought for signs of
daffodils after an April shower.
"Yes," I acquiesced thoughtfully through the fence palings. The
knowledge that I must go indoors and write the article which the
measles had prevented someone else from doing was most unwelcome.
It was so much lovelier to search for daffodils.
"There are Mrs. Jones, who never comes in except to borrow some-
thing," continued my garden neighbor, "and Mrs. Smith who never
calls when she isn't in trouble, and Mrs. H u l l who is never interested
in anybody besides herself, and Mrs. Brown who is never satisfied
with the way things go. I don't suppose they realize it, but they
just make my world. Seems like when spring is coming, and when
we all live together so, we might forget the borrowing, and the
worries, which never help any, and the self-interest, and the criti-
cisms. Seems like we might carry something with us instead of
taking away something from someone else. Don't you think so, my
dear?"
My neighbor of the garden asked the question twice before I had
the presence of mind to reply. And even after I had assured her that
I did most thoroughly agree with her, she looked puzzled. You
see my manners had suddenly vanished by the blessed realization
that my article had been written in the search for daffodils out there
in the garden—written by the little old lady and her bothersome
neighbors.
For in Mrs. Jones, do you not see the girl who borrows your sweater
and your tennis racquet and your new fountain pen and your note-
book and your ideas? Is not Mrs. Smith the counterpart of her,
who never seeks your room unless she has fears or worries to relate,
unless she knows the chapter has made a lamentable mistake in the
choice of freshmen? Have you Mrs. Hulls in your chapter—girls
who think their own fraternity the finest in America, who have never
yet been able to see that fraternity standing is, at best, relative?
The Mrs. Hulls are chronically averse to admitting the splendid
achievements of their Greek neighl>ors, always insistent that chapter
doings be strictly within the chapter, too ready to take a slight and
too slow to relinquish it.
And have you not dozens of Mrs. Browns in college? Girls who
are never satisfied with the way this and that organization is run,
who cannot seem to realize that criticisms invariably retard har-
TO PRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 199
monious progress, who, all unconsciously, perhaps, have gained the
reputation of being chronic kickers?
Doesn't it truly "seem like when we all live together so, we might
forget the borrowing and the worries and the self-interest and the
criticisms?" Doesn't i t "seem like we might carry something with
us" into every place we go?
Commencement is coming! A few weeks more and you will have
no chance to tell the senior president how well she has managed things,
to congratulate your Greek neighbors on the honors they may have
taken away from you, to spend a half-hour with that lonely sort of
girl who never made a fraternity and who, therefore, will miss those
associations cherished by you—associations which will yearly draw
you back in heart.
Neighborliness.' Shall we not make it a college and fraternity-
ideal? Not the Mrs. Jones and Smith and H u l l and Brown kind—
the kind which regards imposition as an unquestionable right—but
the kind which "carries something" instead of always "taking some-
thing away." That kind of neighborliness w i l l cement friendships,
heal differences, bridge embarrassments, make the Greek world one
in aim and relative achievement, and transform college life into the
realized ideal which we all have long held for it.
INSIGHT
I f we but saw the things we see.
Insect, flower and swaying tree;
If, through our seeing, we might know
The sky, the earth, the deeps below;
Our eyes would catch, now dull and dim,
A vision wonderful of Him,
Through whom and to whom all things are,
From flitting bird to flaming star.
So may the seen become the known; Congregalionalisl.
Our vision, sight to insight grown;
Our joy, each common day that brings
God's presence near in common things.
—John Taylor Shaw, in The