Page 23 - 1911 November - To Dragma

20 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

they were formerly. I t used to be a simple thing to declare fealty
and undying devotion to some brother who became such because
he was a star in this or that line. So long as he keeps his distance,
as it were one could worship him and admire h i m ; no doubt the
sentimental regard for him was genuine.

Nowadays, a man will think much harder before casting his vote
to admit a new member, for it means daily association on the frank-
est and most intimate terms possible, with common interests, mater-
ial and ideal, financial and social, practical and sentimental. More-
over, a member will hesitate a long time before breaking with his
chapter, however deep his grievance, for when he moves out of the
house the whole college knows it and things are said. As it used to
be, the man could get a "grouch on" and fail to attend the weekly
or semi-monthly chapter meetings and nobody would be the wiser
on the outside. As a place for one to learn to bear and forbear, to
respect or recognize another's viewpoint, to control one's temper, see
oneself as others see him, get the "swell-head" bumped out of him,
submit to discipline, whether he had known such a thing at home or
not, a chapter house, well organized, provides the ideal situation.

This is where the practical side comes in again. Men are human,
especially college men. I f one of their brothers, with whom they
have to eat three times a day, room with, be seen with on all occa-
sions, study with, play with, is not what he should be, they set about
to make him what he should be. They don't shut their eyes, as of old,
and say he is perfect because he happens to wear their badge; they
know better. I n order to make their own forced association with
him bearable, i f for no other motive, they set about to correct him,
by methods more or less strenuous that have evolved through neces-
sity, the mother of invention. The correctives usually succeed i f
the offending brother has any manhood; i f not, he has the alternative
of severing his connection with the fraternity. The ideal of today is
that one must make himself worthy of the fraternity and a credit to
i t ; not that the fraternity must shield him, however great a rake
he may be. The chapter house, with its very human side, is respon-
sible for this.

Perhaps the best thing that the chapter house has brought to the
fraternity is the necessity of doing, in place of dreaming; of accom-
plishing, not just proclaiming. To begin with, it becomes absolutely
imperative to take in members, a goodly number of them, each year.
How long would a chapter last, with the expense of a twenty man
house on its hands, were it to prove supercritical or negligent in this
regard? As they simply have to take in men, the chapters w i l l work
tenfold harder to secure the particular men that they want, because,