men, not because they are naturally more capable or more reliable than are other men, and not because fraternities by their political influence put their men at the head of affairs, but because they have had more experience and because they have at the outset an organization to help them in whatever they are undertaking.
Every college or university must depend upon its alumni for the accomplishment of certain work for its advancement. There are of course some alumni whose influence is not all that could be desired, but the live, right-minded alumnus, especially the alumnus of a state university, can do much to keep the institution in a right light before the citizens of the state upon which it must depend for its support. He is in a sense its advertising agent. If he gets out of touch or out of sympathy with his alma mater, she thereby suffers a great loss. The fraternity more than any other agency that I am acquainted with helps to tie a man to his old associations and to anchor him to the college. The fraternity after the undergraduate has finished his course and leaves college furnishes him a place to come back to; when he drops into the fraternity house after an absence of a few years there is still some one there who knows him, there are many more who have heard of him, and all are glad to see him. He still has a home at the old place into which he can fit
