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18 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

opposed to the idea, but I rather fancy that parental opposition
might have met the reception that it so often does, had not my frater-
nity girls taken up the matter. At first they stormed, then they tried
to "make me see commonsense," then they pleaded; finally they
brought up the argument that I was hurting the fraternity by my
action.

As I recall their statements, they were somewhat like this—"If
you leave college, everybody will say, T don't believe that society
amounts to very much, for there's one of their girls dropping out
already.' You cannot be with us. really, you cannot live with us,
no more theatre parties gotten up on the spur of the moment on a
rainy afternoon, because you will be where we cannot reach you;
you will get out of touch sooner than you realize. You ought to
stay in college and help the frat, it can give you everything that you
will get outside and lots of things that you won't. You won't gain
anything by leaving and you will lose a lot and wish you were back."

Then those girls artfully reawakened my interest, first in them-
selves, then in the fraternity—that little group of intimates—then in
the college. They told me how different it would be to them, how
different it would be to me, until they made me want to come back.
They ridiculed the terrors of junior history and argumentation. I
believe that one of them even offered to write my briefs for me,
though I afterward learned that she had never had the course. But
the point is that they theorized, and then volunteered practical help.
Finally they implied that I didn't dare to come back. Of course,
I came.

This theme, with variations, can be made to do effective work, i f
you keep it up without ceasing. Don't let the victim rest, don't let
her escape, watch even her smallest wriggle toward freedom. She
won't make a dash for it, i f you cleverly circumvent her initial
struggles. Make the fraternity and the college so attractive that
she will want to stay.

And one last word to the fraternity in general—new girls, old
girls, undergraduates and alumnae, keep strength within your organi-
zation. Work together for the good of A O I I , in your connection
with it as an individual, in your relation to your chapter, and in
your relation and that of your chapter to the general government.

L I L L I A N GERTRUDE M A C Q U I L L I N ,

Providence Alumnae.