Page 7 - 1912 May - To Dragma

130 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

THE SORORITY SYSTEM

( M A R Y ROSS POTTER, D E A N OF W O M E N AT NORTHWESTERN

UNIVERSITY.)

In colleges as large as Northwestern there must be units smaller
than the natural college divisions, and it is perhaps true that the
fraternities furnish the best opportunity for such divisions, at least,-
I know of no more effective agency. They afford much valuable
training to the individual—though their systems of upper-class ad-
visorships, their personal criticism of one another, their opportuni-
ties for leadership provided to larger numbers than could otherwise
be accomplished, even their demand for occasional self-sacrifice of
an almost heroic kind—and they supply the instinctive need for
close companionship. They furnish social training which the col-
lege at large could scarcely give. They also, i f they are of high
standard, afford a means of recognizing superiority from the student
point of view, which seems good. I sometimes think that our strug-
gle after democracy of spirit so centers in the raising of the average
as to result in actually placing a premium upon mediocrity.

One point further I should like to add ; that many—indeed most,
I believe—of the evils of the Sorority system lie at the door of the
national organizations because of their growing complexity. While
I am sure that the intention is right, the fact is that the travelling
officers exert almost dictatorial power over the chapters" which power
is employed by these officers with meager knowledge of and the
merest incidental interest in the particular aims and problems of the
local institution. Thus the center of loyalty is shifted from the
local institution to the national Sorority ( I have heard the students
acknowledge this repeatedly) and the solution of local problems is
complicated by outside interference. Here is a point to which I do
believe reform must come sometime.