The second thing I want to say to you is that I want you to be a
gentleman. How absurd it is for me to write that to you. Of course,
you are, and, of course, you will be one. In the creation of the
gentleman as well as of the thinker, the personal equation counts. In
fact, it counts for more in the making of the gentleman. For in this
making truth is less important than the personality. In the gentleman
intellectual altruism and moral appreciativeness are large elements.
One has to see and to understand the personal condition with which he
deals. If he is dull, his conduct is as apt to give unhappiness as
pleasure.
In order to open the eyes of the heart, in order to create an
intellectual conscientiousness, the study of great literatures must be
assigned a high place. Constant and complex needs to be such study.
Literature represents humanity. The humanities are humanity.
Literature is style and style is the man. The gentleman as a product
represents the homeopathic principle. The gentleman makes the
gentleman. Certain colleges are distinguished by the type of gentleman
which they create. It will usually be found, on observation or
analysis, that colleges which are distinguished for the gracious
conduct of their teachers toward their students are distinguished by
the gracious bearing of their graduates.
As a gentleman you will be a friend and will have friends. In this
relation of friendship in its earlier stages there is no part of life
in which it is more important for you to exercise the virtue and grace
of reserve. Be in no haste to make friends. Friendships are growths,
not manufactures. These growths, too, are like the elm and the oak,
not like the willow. At this point lies all I want to say to you about
joining a fraternity. If the men you want to be your intimate friends
are members and ask you to join, accept. If the men you do not wish to
be your intimate friends wish you to go with them, decline. Do not
join for the sake of a blind pool membership. Such a membership is
really a sort of social insincerity, a lie.