Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/21

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wisely nor well. For an objectionable custom which, it seemed to me, was quite general, the fraternities got the advertising and the criticism. The only difference which I can see in these cases between the fraternity man who drinks to excess and those outside of such organizations who do the same thing is that the fraternity man goes to destruction with his friends about him, while the other men have perhaps a less sociable but an equally destructive experience. In this institution to which I have referred I believe the faculty was wholly to blame for conditions. It set the students an example publicly and privately, it took no responsibility and exercised no disciplinary control, but weakly allowed to continue a practice which can only be subversive of all that tends to the development of good citizens.

My visit to other prominent institutions where fraternity difficulties have arisen and where there has been general criticism of the habits and life of the men in these organizations has led me to the conclusion that in most if not in all cases the conditions in the fraternities is only a slightly exaggerated instance of what may be found generally—among the student body. For these conditions, whatever they may be, I do not believe the fraternities or any other undergraduate organizations can be or should be wholly blamed. My experience for twenty-five years with thousands of