The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (collection)/Rushing and the Rushee
I have always felt that some of the strangest and most curious phenomena connected with fraternity life and fraternity customs have to do with the processes and procedures of rushing. In trying to explain to the fathers of prospective freshmen just what fraternities are and what customs they follow, I think there is nothing more difficult of elucidation than those details which connect themselves with the preliminaries to bidding a man. I hear the sounds, and look on at the struggles, and detect the same old subterfuges every fall, but I have never yet been quite able to look upon the procedure wholly seriously. I hear the same argument recited to me every year by the freshman who has listened to it in the chapter houses, the whole purpose of which is to dazzle the coveted man and to make him decide at once to take the pledge button.
Perhaps some one may essay to read this paper who is so ignorant of fraternity parlance as not to know what "rushing" means. For his benefit I may say that rushing is that conglomerate process by which the members of a fraternity in theory attempt to study a new man's character, to get acquainted with him, and to let him get acquainted with them, in order that both the fraternity and the freshman may decide intelligently whether or not either wishes to continue the friendship and cement it into brotherhood. To those engaged actively in this process of eating and drinking, of talking and drawing people into talk, of picture shows and joy rides, of vaudeville and house dances, it is really a serious business, verging often upon tragedy; to an unimpassioned and disinterested spectator the results are often serious, but the methods not infrequently suggest farce comedy.
Until within a few days before term time the college town is dead. One walks down silent deserted streets. Sleepy merchants in the University district sit in front of their places of business, yawning and without a customer. The middle of September arrives, and then everything changes. Fraternity officers come to town, fraternity help arrives, yards are cleaned up, houses are set in order, the student district in general takes on a look of life and activity, and some evening after the freshmen have begun to come in, if I chance to walk down fraternity row, or if I am invited out to a fraternity house dinner, I find that the whole community looks and sounds like a carnival in full sway. The air is full of college songs and vaudeville melodies; pianos are pounding out rag time, ukuleles are strumming, and victrolas are giving expression to all sorts of vocal efforts from Harry Lauder in Roamin' in the Gloamin' to Tetrazzini in the Mad Scene from Lucia. I do not need this familiar sound of revelry by night to recognize the fact that the rushing season is on.
I have always been interested in the large part which music, or that which passes for music, plays in the rushing program. I have never visited a fraternity house during the period of rushing that I did not come away hoarse from my efforts to carry on a conversation in the face of the storm of music that thundered and roared constantly on. Very few chapters are content with a mere piano played by a single performer. They try duets and trios, they gather round the piano with horns and drums and shout the latest rag time. At one house which I recently visited they had formed an orchestra with two drums that made noise enough utterly to drown any attempts at conversation. I leaned over and shouted at my companion with whom I was trying to carry on a simple conversation until I was red in the face. One organization I visited last fall had borrowed for the season a musical horror that really fascinated me. It combined under one mahogany roof a regular orchestra—piano, violin, flute, and so on. All you had to do was turn a crank and press a button and you were off. The man who operates the musical machinery at the fraternity house during the fall rushing season must come back in good physical condition, or he will be as completely exhausted at the end of the first week as a green freshman after his first scrimmage in football.
"Why do you regularly carry on these wild musical incantations during the rushing season?" I asked a fraternity officer recently.
"It's the custom; every one up and down the street is doing it," was the reply; "and you have no idea, unless you've been through the strain, how it fills in gaps in conversation, and helps to relieve self-consciousness."
I am quite well aware that it not only helps to fill in the gaps in conversations, but that it usually makes conversation impossible. How it aided the fraternity to get at the real character and worth of the fellows they were studying, however, I could not see then, nor can I now. I believe that one of the ways in which fraternities could help themselves on to more intelligent rushing would be to have less music, and more quiet well organized conversation. I believe this because of the real purpose for which the processes of rushing are carried on. The new man is usually very little known. He has been recommended by some one who knew his father, or who had met his sister at a summer resort, or who has some social ax to grind. Usually the one who recommends him most strongly knows least about him directly. It is, or it should be, the purpose of the fraternity in rushing him to find out something about his social and intellectual training, to discover his purposes, his ideals, his initiative, his adaptability. If he is initiated, the members of the chapter will have to live with him for four years, he will be a member of the family; he will help to give the chapter character and reputation, or he will do his part in bringing it to disfavor or disgrace. It is no trifling matter which a fraternity is undertaking when it begins to rush a man, but I have seen fraternity men give more thought and attention in going into the pedigree, history, and winning points of a bull pup they were about to take into their household than they did to the qualities of the young fellow they were about to pledge as a brother.
I think it would be a helpful proceeding for every member of the active chapter to ask himself before he goes into the work of the rushing season just what rushing is for, and govern his conduct accordingly. Years ago, before the University had rid itself of hazing, it was the custom of the unregenerate sophomores to run in any isolated freshmen who might be out alone after night, and force them to take an immediate bath in the Boneyard, a dirty sluggish little stream scarcely more than a ditch that flows through the campus. I was out one night about nine o'clock walking through the student district when I came unexpectedly upon a group of sophomores putting three freshmen through this ceremony. One husky second-year man was standing on the bank of the stream, and as he pushed each freshman into the slimy depths, he called out lustily, "What's the Boneyard for? What in the hell's it for?" As I have sat by each year for the past thirty years and watched the processes of rushing, I have asked myself more than once, with reference to rushing, the same general question that the sophomore asked about the Boneyard, "What is rushing for?"
Perhaps one of the first things which a fraternity should attempt to discover when rushing a man is how long he expects to remain in college. The purposeless man, the man who has not decided what he is coming to college for, who expects to stay for a year or so and then get into some real work, is useless to a fraternity. It is time wasted taking him in. It is that sort that brings down the scholarship average, that fails to pay his house bills, and that gets fraternities generally into disrepute. Many a good man may have to leave college before graduation, but the fellow who comes with the avowed intention of hanging around only for a year or two ought not to be considered.
One of the surprising features of rushing is the rapidity which it is carried on and brought to a finish. "How quickly is a young fellow pledged?" an old college mate of mine, whose only son expects to enter the University next fall, asked me at Commencement time. "Within a few minutes, sometimes," I answered in all seriousness. I have seen men wearing a pledge button at inter-scholastic time before they had been in the chapter house over night; I have known men to be approached with a pretty definite proposition of membership while for the first time on the way from the railroad station to their boarding houses. Freshmen come in to see me every fall with some curiously wrought pledge button, to which they have become attached during the night, and it has often all been brought about so suddenly that they want someone to tell them what has happened to them. The rapidity with which membership is offered and accepted is frequently appalling. It is like conversion at a Billy Sunday revival; it comes without warning or seeming deliberation.
There is nothing that urges on this rapid work like competition. In fraternity affairs, as in other business, it is the life of trade. Business may be a little dull as regards Smith and the Beta's; several of the brothers may be indifferent, and one or two stubbornly "not ready to vote," but if one of the officers of the fraternity happens to drop in to my office and finds a Deke asking me for Smith's address and history, Smith's stock picks up immediately in Beta circles, and ten to one he is wearing their pledge button before morning. I have heard one man, pretty wise and experienced in fraternity affairs, offer to bet that he could take almost any man, inconspicuously dressed, moderately good looking, and not too hopelessly unsophisticated, and get him pledged within a week just by introducing him to a few fraternities during rushing season, and starting a little competition. It would be an interesting experiment, and I should not be at all surprised if it worked. If I dared, I could myself tell some entertaining tales of men who were rushed through in order to keep the other fellows from getting them.
Another reason alleged for rapid work in rushing is the fact that the chapter can not bear to lose a man whom it is seriously after. One of the most frequent boasts in chapter letters after the rushing season, is the statement that "We rushed ten and never lost a man." "Why did you bid Savage so quickly?" I asked a fraternity officer not long ago. "You know little about him, and he is not you type of man in any sense." "I know that is true," he replied, "but the Psi U's were after him hard, and we didn't want to lose him." And yet in many cases these men under discussion are of such a character that it would be a credit to any fraternity to lose them.
I have been interested in studying rushing methods to see how strongly undergraduates are influenced by insignificant or trifling details. If a man talks too much or too little, if his ties or his shoes or the intonations of his voice are not just right, he is likely to be thrown into the discard. "Cole is an awfully good man," a senior said to me in speaking of a prominent junior who was not a member of any fraternity. "Yes," I answered; "you fellows rushed him pretty hard when he was a freshman; why did you never bid him?" "Well," was the senior's reply, "most of us were strong for him, and thought him a prince of a fellow, as he is, but Hill simply couldn't stand for the way in which he shakes hands, so we had to let him go." Here was a fraternity that had turned down one of the strongest and most influential men in college—forceful, aggressive, a real leader—just because he did not hold his arm at the approved angle when he was shaking hands. The fellow who confessed to the reason was ashamed of it, as he should have been.
"I am convinced," I heard a gray haired fraternity man say in a public address not long ago, "that fraternity men in rushing freshmen pay altogether too much attention to the cut of the fellow's clothes. If the chapter would scrutinize the men's characters a little more and their clothes a little less, fraternities would advance more rapidly than they are now doing." In illustration of this point is the story of two men who, a few years ago, came to a little college in the Middle West. One was well dressed, smooth, and self-possessed. He was bid at once. The other was a green, awkward country lad, ill-dressed, and inexperienced. He had beeen recommended to the same chapter as the first man, but when the fellows looked him over they laughed; he was undeniably impossible. A little later, however, as the men came into closer contact with him in class, in spite of his ill-fitting common clothes, he grew on them. He had a charm and a strength of character which made a vital appeal to their good sense. His name was brought up again, and after much opposition it went through. The first man proved to be commonplace; he never disgraced the fraternity, though he never did it any good. The second was adaptable; he learned quickly to break away from his crudities. The chapter looks back upon him and counts him the best president it ever had. Today he is one of the leading ministers in one of the leading Protestant churches of the country, and the head national officer of his fraternity. The overlooking of certain unessentials, and the recognition or real merit, saved to his fraternity one of the best men it has ever had.
Too often, in a coeducational institution at least, in looking a man over, the fraternity judges his fitness too much from the social impression which he is likely to make upon the girls. The fellow who wears the hand-me-downs picked from the stock in father's country store, has little chance with the sporty chap who runs a charge account at Capper and Capper's. The fear that the chapter's social standing might be damaged, or that some one might laugh at them for picking a "rube," has kept man a good fellow from getting a chance to show himself in the right light. It is a good deal easier to teach a young man where to buy his clothes and when to get his hair cut, than it is to teach him moral principles and intellectual alertness. The impression which a pledge makes upon the girls has very little to do with his usefulness and influence in the chapter.
Rushing is not going to be done very successfully if the work is left to one or two members of the chapter. It is true that some one must be in charge to plan the campaign, to direct the details, to invite the new men to the house, but the responsibility of seeing that the men are entertained, that they get acquainted with every member of the chapter, and that they see the chapter at its best, should be upon every member. Often the responsibility is thrown upon two or three members only, they are given very little support, and when it comes to the time for making a decision, half the men are not ready to vote or vote without intelligence, because they have loafed on their duty, have not seen the new men enough to have any opinion of them, and so delay the decision or render it impossible, by having failed to do their part at the right time. Possibly this failure results from a lack of definiteness in planning the business—for it is a business as important as any which the fraternity does. I have seen a good deal of rushing, but for the most part it has seemed to me pretty purposeless and unorganized. Half the members of the chapter often do not meet the men, and the new men in these cases of course do not have a chance to form a definite opinion of even half the chapter. The whole process is largely a scramble. The men are invited to dinner, there is an hour or so of vigorous pounding of the piano, the crowd, or so much of it as has not sneaked away, is rounded up and rushed to the vaudeville or the movies, and following this a few soft drinks at a downtown refectory closes the session. The process is not one calculated to give either party to the pending agreement an intelligent knowledge of the other. After the members of the chapter reach home there is usually a discussion, however, and men who have been seen in this inadequate way are not infrequently elected. I have known cases where men voted for fellows whom they had scarcely seen, if, indeed, they had seen at all. "What does that fellow look like, that we voted in tonight?" I heard an indifferent "rusher" ask last fall; "I don't remember whether he was a blonde or a brunette." And all the information that his companions could give him was that the prospective brother was decidedly a "good looker."
A mistake which many fraternities make in their selection of men seems to me to be seen in the tendency to rush men of one type or from one town or locality. The fraternity, a majority of whose members are athletes, is likely to be a weak one. The fraternity which chooses a majority of its members from a single town or locality is likely to be a narrow one. Such a tendency is sure to develop clannishness and factions. "Our fraternity has been almost broken up this year," a fraternity officer confessed to me, "by our Chicago men. Half of our men come from one high school, and they always hang together and defeat anything which the other men may propose. We might with propriety be called the Hyde Park Club. We should be far better off if we chose our men from a wider range of localities." I have been forced to the conclusions through long experience that any fraternity that allows a majority of its members to be made up of men from any one city, or even from a number of large cities is making a mistake. I have never known a fraternity that followed this practice that did not ultimately regret it.
Experience has led me to the conclusion that when, during rushing season, two or more organizations allow themselves to get into a wrangle over any man who is being rushed, no one of them is likely to lose much if they drop the man altogether. Of all the men I have known during the last score of years who have been mixed up in a rushing misunderstanding, and who have created ill feeling among organizations, I can not think of a half dozen who have been worth the price of admission to the fraternity which finally got them. A new man who allows himself to get into an embarrassing position during rushing season, or who draws into such a situation the organizations which are rushing him, is usually a man lacking force or finesse.
The practice of rushing only immediate or remote relatives of present or former members of the chapter is one which would require a considerable number of pages adequately to discuss. With us it seems to have the greatest vogue among those fraternities whose history is the oldest. "My father, or my Uncle William, was a Beta Psi," seems to many a young fellow an adequate reason why he should be likewise. I have no prejudices in this matter, but I believe I could go over the records of the chapters at the University of Illinois and easily establish the fact that those which have followed this practice of nepotism have more frequently had cause to regret it than otherwise. An energetic father is with no assurance followed by a hardworking, energetic son; brothers are as unlike often as if they hailed from different planets. "Puny's brother is coming next fall," a senior informed me at inter-scholastic time. "Puny," besides being what his name indicated, was a nervous, impulsive, tricky sinner, who would slip from your grasp like an eel. He was imaginative, talkative, irresponsible. He studied only when he had to, and went to class with the most regular irregularity. His brother was a husky athlete, studious, dependable, regular, and steady as clock work. He had nothing to say; I was scarcely able by the most subtle means to pry a dozen words out of him during the fifteen minutes he was in my office. The boys were alike in nothing I could discover, excepting that each had black eyes.
"We look them over, but we don't take them unless they measure up pretty well," one man expressed it, and that seems to me the more sensible procedure to follow. There are few things, however, in fraternity affairs that cause more trouble and more heartaches. The chapter that follows the practice of bidding relatives of its former members frequently takes in a weak brother, and the chapter that does not do so, often alienates some of its best alumni. It is a loyal alumnus who can see his son or his wife's brother turned down by his college fraternity, and still keep up his annual payments to the house fund. I could easily furnish a long list of those who have not been able to stand the test.
There are fraternities, I am sorry to say, though I do not know many of them, who, like some political organizations, rather than lose a man, will employ methods in rushing which are neither honorable nor creditable. I think I need hardly discuss such details here. The organization that is not honest and above board in its methods that descends to that which is low and coarse, that wins its members through the telling of risqué stories, or through "showing them the town" is not worthy of the name of fraternity, and the freshman who is beguiled and attracted by such things is no asset to the organization that wins him.
A good many people who deplore the evils of rushing as it is now carried on in many of our institutions have the feeling that we could modify, if not entirely do away with these evils, if the faculties or the local fraternity conferences should pass regulations controlling the methods of rushing. I know a great many people who have the feeling that if an evil exists, all that is necessary is to enact a law or pass a regulation prohibiting it, and the matter is settled. My only knowledge of how these matters are regulated by rules comes from my observation of the results which have been attained at the University of Illinois by the young women of the sororities, who have had very definite regulations for a number of years. These regulations have been changed at intervals, as it was found how inadequate or impossible they were or how easily they might be evaded. From my observation of how the girls get on, I am not convinced that by their regulations they have as yet solved the diffiulties of rushing any more satisfactorily than have the fraternities without rules. I am confident, however, that if the representatives of local fraternity conferences could first come to the point of trusting each other, and would then formulate a few simple, sensible regulations which all the fraternities would agree to, and which all would abide by conditions might be considerably improved. Most of the rules which I have seen are too complicated and offer no easy and adequate means of enforcement.
The prohibiting of rushing during the first semester would not solve the problem. Men would always violate the spirit of such a regulation. The normal time for men to get acquainted and form friendships is when men first meet, not six months afterwards. The pledging of men before they enter college I think ought not to be permitted. The limit of a few days, at least, within which time men might not be bid would I think help matters, and I feel sure we shall come to the time when all fraternities will abandon the "sweat box" system of bidding a man still employed by many organizations, and instead of pushing him into a corner, gagging him, and forcing the pledge button on him whether he is eager for it or riot, the proper officer of the fraternity will write him a courteous, dignified note, and will give him an adequate time to come to the decision which, for every college man who must decide whether he will join a fraternity or not, is one of the most important decisions he is called upon during his freshman year to make.
Having said some things with reference to rushing, and the members of the chapter itself, there is much advice and many suggestions that I might give to the rushee. The man for whom these snares are being laid, for whom the wary lie in wait, is more often than otherwise ignorant of the ways of college, and more completely ignorant still of the ways of the fraternity. He is most freqently in dire need of advice, though he may not be eager to accept it. He is often as completely confused as is the country boy who finds himself for the first time alone in a great city. Experienced undergraduates know all this and take advantage of it in the tactics they use in making an impression upon the man they are rushing. Every year I see dozens of boys who are taken off their feet by the suddenness with which all these new experiences come to them, and by their inability at once to decide just what they should do. I could wish that it were all a little more deliberate.
First of all I should say that the man who is being rushed, should not allow himself to be put, at the outset, under obligation to any fraternity. Fellows often ask the new men in whom they are interested to come to the fraternity house and live for the first few days while they are getting settled. The boy who accepts such an invitation is foolish, even though he hopes to become a member of the fraternity which has invited him. He makes it difficult for other fraternities who may want to get acquainted with him, and he makes it very embarrassing for himself, should he later decide that he does not care to become a member of the organization whose hospitality he has accepted. He may feel inexpressibly chagrined, also, if the members of the fraternity ultimately decide that they do not want him, and are in need of the room which he is occupying. He need not feel, however, that he is placing himself under any undue obligation when he accepts invitations to meals, for that is a regular part of the conventional program by which fraternities get acquainted with new men, and if he joins he will later be given a chance to help foot the bills for his own entertainment. He will be wise, even if he has certain prejudices in favor of a definite organization, not to make too many dates even with it. The easily won man is frequently not desired; it is fatal to his chances of membership for him to reveal the fact that he would like to become a member. It is better not to make too many social obligations until he is on the ground. No matter how well pleased he may be with an individual or a group of individuals he should scatter his dates, for if he gives himself a chance, he may meet others whom he likes better, and by seeing the men of two or three organizations he has a better perspective by which to judge of their relative merits. The facts are, also, that even the brightest freshman needs to reserve a few hours for study at the beginning of the semester.
The man who is being rushed should use his head. If the rushing is being done well, he may observe, if he keeps his eyes open, that every member of the chapter has had some direct contact with him during a single evening—has asked him a question, or engaged him in conversation, or hung over his chair as he was expressing some opinion. If he is wise, he will not stay in one part of the room all evening, and allow the passing show to file by him; he will himself study the individuals who may wish later to have him as a brother as carefully as they are studying him, and so far as it is possible, he will get their names, hold to some detail about each one, and form an estimate of his character. If he gets into the game in this way, his self-consciousness will very quickly wear off, and he will be gathering valuable facts upon which later to base a judgment. He should try to make a study of their character as they are probing into his.
It has always interested me to see how quickly the rushers play up to the lead of the rushee. If he expresses an interest in football, the brothers who are on the squad gather round and show themselves; if he shows a religious turn, some one immediately offers to take him to church the next Sunday; if he seems interested in scholastic attainments, the one "Tau Bete" or "Phi Bete" in the house takes him on. Ever word that he drops is utilized as an index to his character. If there is some brother who is feared will mar the favorable impression which has been made or is being made on him, he is kept in the background, or sent down town on an errand. And when it comes to the time of bidding him, the brothers are most carefully selected who, it is thought, will impress him most strongly. He should, himself, then keep this all in mind, and so far as possible make as careful a study of the members of the chapter as they are making of him.
Nothing is so unwise as to talk too much, unless it be to talk too little; the happy medium is the summum bonum of the freshmen's desires. Worse by far, however, than too fluent or too meager speech, is the awful error of showing eagerness or interest. "I like you fellows better than any others I have met," I heard a freshman confess last fall to a senior as he was bidding him good night after an evening at the fraternity house. I turned cold with horror at the confession. It was precisely the way the senior wished him to feel, but it was the baldest sort of bone-head work for the freshman to admit it. It almost cost him his invitation to join the organization. It was to the senior as it might have been if the young woman whom he was expecting to invite to the Junior Promenade had expressed to him, before he asked her, the happiness which she would feel in accompanying him there. It is interesting what strange conventions grow up about us.
The boy who has been asked to join a fraternity may safely take a reasonable time in making his decision. Most fraternities give the rushee the opposite idea, but there is little to it. If a fraternity wants a man whom they have asked, they will give him such time as he needs to make up his mind what he wants to do. "We never hold a bid open" is the conventional bunk which most fraternities use to force a man to an immediate decision.
"I don't know what to do," a freshman said to me last fall. "I must give my answer by six tonight to the fellows who have asked me. I want to join a fraternity, but I'm not yet sure that this is the right one for me. If I don't join this one, I may never get another chance. What shall I do?"
"Be a good sport," I answered, "and take a risk. If you are not prepared to give them an answer at six, they'll give you another week if you insist on it." He insisted and got it. I have seldom known an organization to turn a man down when he called that sort of bluff. I asked a junior fraternity man yesterday what special advice he would give a freshman being rushed, and he answered smiling, "Well, if it's any other fraternity than ours, I'd say to him to look them over pretty carefully, and to take all the time he wants in making up his mind."
A freshman ought not to join a fraternity or any other organization just because he is asked, any more than he should be willing to marry every girl who seems pleased with him. Men say that if they do not join when they are asked, they may never be asked again. What of it? It is infinitely better not to live an organization life at all than to be forced to live one that is not pleasing. If the men with whom you associate yourself are not congenial, if their intellectual and moral ideals are not the same as your own, it is better not to join at all than to form such an affiliation. "I really should like to be a good student," a freshman said to me while we were discussing a group of men which had invited him to become a member. "Do you think I could be and join this organization?" "Pretty small chance," I had to reply. Three months later he came to me and thanked me for my frankness. He had waited and got in with the right crowd, and was happy.
I have never known a fraternity that did not put itself at the head of the list in the college in which I it is established. When the various organizations are metaphorically put upon the witness stand to explain their failures and weaknesses and possible low standing, they do it with the utmost facility. They remind me of a student I once knew in mathematics whose instructor, in commenting upon his frequent absence from the class exercises, remarked that the boy had presented an excuse seventeen times, and that they were all good and all different. I have never seen a fraternity unable to give an excellent reason for its coming short of its possibilities in any detail—social, moral, or intellectual. I suppose their is nothing strange about such a situation, however. It is a characteristic of youth. As I remember being called up before father when a boy to explain my derelictions, I do not recall that I ever lacked a first rate excuse.
In view of this youthful genius for explaining, it is just as well for the freshman to take with a little seasoning the arguments which every fraternity bidding for his membership will lay before him to convince him of its superior claims to his favor. The first and the most frequently used of these arguments is "national standing." Which are the five fraternities having the best national standing in this country? I don't know, and I am not at all sure that you do. In order to answer such a question we should have to determine the various points to be taken into consideration. Are these age, or location, or number of chapters, or exclusiveness, or the number of prominent alumni, or what? I can not say. The question is about as easily answered as one which was presented in one of the Kansas City high schools to a young freshman with whom I am acquainted. He was asked to name the five greatest educators in the country, and gave as his list, Woodrow Wilson, our athletic coach, the Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, the man who asked him the question, and myself. He may have been somewhat influenced in his choice by his interest in athletics, the Democratic party, and the Presbyterian Church, but I am not sure but that his list is as good a one as the average fraternity man would make if asked to name the first five fraternities of the country. If a young fellow can go into a fraternity which has excellent national standing, whatever that may mean, and which has other desirable qualities, also, he is certainly wise in so doing. The fundamental thing for him to decide is whether the group of fellows who make up the active chapter of the organization which desires him as a member is such a group as he would be happy to live with during the four years of his college course, and be helped by living with. If he can answer this question in the affirmative, then he can later go into the subject of local influence and national standing. The national standing business counts for very little, if the make up of the local chapter is objectionable. If called upon to make a list of the best five fraternities in college, it is not at all likely that any two men would make the same list. The freshman need pay very little attention to the "national standing" argument.
Leaving out the point just mentioned which almost every fraternity emphasizes heavily, there is always a number of other details which each organization considers as fine rushing stuff. College activities of all sorts are made a great deal of. The fraternity that has the baseball captain or the captain of the football team among its members usually lays it over every one else when it comes to showing the importance of activities; but every sort of activity is dragged out and made to pass for its full value. The importance of a corporal in the regiment, or of a cub reporter on the college daily, is exaggerated beyond all reason when being used as a rushing asset. Scholarship, social prestige, moral standing, are all thrown into the balance, and made to weigh as heavily as possible. If a fraternity happens to lack any one of these, the fact is passed over entirely, or made to seem of little value. The freshman should not put too much confidence in the statements with reference to any of these points, as they are being presented to him at the time of rushing. They are all important, but their importance is mot infrequently exaggerated when the rushers are presenting them.
The rushee will be a wise boy if he keeps in mind the fact that if he joins a fraternity he is to live during his entire college course with the men who make up the membership. They are to be his friends, his daily and hourly companions; they are to be present at practically every social function he attends, he will take them home with him and introduce them to his mother and to his sisters, and gradually he is himself to be influenced by their characters and to become like them. It is not a picnic he is being invited to join himself to; it is a college family that he is becoming a part of. "Do you know why I did not accept the Gamma Psi bid?" a young fellow asked me not long ago. "I meant to do so when they asked me, but as I thought it over, I couldn't quite see some of those men fitting in at home with mother. They aren't her sort." He was a sensible man, and so will others be who stop long enough to give serious thought to this phase of the question.
Going into an organization is not wholly a matter of sentiment; it is quite as much a matter of business. I know young men who marry because they A are in love, and who give no thought as to how the increasing bills are to be paid. So men often join a fraternity because they like the crowd and never stop to ask themselves how much it is going to cost. Before assuming any obligation it is the wisest plan to have a definite understanding as to just what is involved. The freshman is not over curious who wants to see the rooms in which he is to live and to work, if he becomes a member of a fraternity. He is showing admirable good sense if he finds out what his living expenses are to be, and how many "extras," as they say in Europe, he will be called upon to stand for. Both he and his father have a right to know this, and they may calculate with complete assurance that it will not be less than the members of the fraternity allege.
There are a few things which it is safest to avoid. There is a possibility of being too wise, of knowing too much of fraternity conditions, of playing one organization against the other, and of finally losing out. The high school fraternity boy who comes to college is not infrequently this sort. He has had a fraternity experience, he thinks, and you cannot show him anything. He is in reality the greenest and the most transparent of them all. The wisest freshman is quiet, observant, dignified. He appreciates what courtesies are offered him, and says so, but he does not show himself boastful, or smart, or self-satisfied. He keeps himself in hand, and he knows his own mind. The man who vacillates is making a mistake, and laying up for himself a heritage of unhappiness. If on Monday morning he makes up his mind that the Phi Gam's are the only fellows, and Monday night concludes that he just must be a Sigma Chi or be forever unhappy, by Tuesday noon he has probably become strong for the Phi Psi's, and by the end of the week he does not know whether he is afoot or horse back, and no one wants him. The comfort of it all, however, is that when a man consults his own best judgment, thinks the thing out, and comes finally to a decision, he is usually contented and happy for all time. There are few freshmen who get the button on, no matter what hieroglyphics it bears, who would have it different. He sees few faults in the brothers, he begins at once to make heroes out of them, and from the outset is confident that he is in the "only fraternity."
I have always felt that when a man had made up his mind to accept the invitation of a fraternity and still has other social obligations unfulfilled, there are certain conventions which he ought to respect. With us, often when Brown is pledged and still has dates with other organizations which he has not yet met, it is the custom for some member of the fraternity instead of Brown himself, to call up these organizations over the telephone, and announce the fact of his having been pledged, and ask that his social obligations with them be cancelled. I do not know how common such a practice is, but whether common or otherwise, it has always struck me as bad manners. It may be less embarrassing to Brown to have some one else explain his situation, but I think he could get no better social experience than with one of his new friends to go around to the various fraternity houses and make his own explanations, and himself ask to be allowed to break the engagement which he had made. He will by so doing increase his own self-respect, and if he does the business courteously, he will win the lasting regard of the other fraternity men who were interested in him. He can hardly square himself in a gentlemanly way by doing less.
If the man who is being rushed thinks that those who are rushing him are having a more hilarious time than himself he is mistaken. It is a nerve racking process for all concerned, from the man who plays the piano or leads the conversation to the freshman who must always be prepared at any time to be thrown into the discard and to give no indication that he cares.