C. F. Birdseye Believes They Bring Undergraduates More Under Influence
of Alumni.
The American college fraternity has become a farce, educational and
social, intellectual and moral, so great that even but few fraternity
leaders appreciate it. At more than one college, chapter-houses have
done away with the need of dormitories. As colleges have grown larger
and more unwieldy, and the members of the faculties have been less
frequently in personal touch with their students, the fraternities have
in no slight degree taken the place of the old small-college units,
alumni now influencing the undergraduates through their fraternities,
much as the professors used to.
Writing in the _Outlook_, Clarence F. Birdseye points out that our
college fraternities are to-day great educational influences:
The pick of our alumni in wealth and influence are fraternity men. If
a tithe of this power can be turned back into the lives of the
undergraduates to supplement the efforts of the faculties, we can do
much to restore individualism.
Neither college nor fraternity conditions are at present ideal. They
are often bad, and there is real foundation for all complaints. Unless
promptly checked, the evils will grow far worse and more difficult to
root out. This question must be studied by its friends, and the reform
must come from the fraternity alumni; for the fraternities can be
awakened and developed, but not driven, nor driven out.
Like every other historical, educational, or social question, this
must be studied carefully and with open minds by many alumni and from
different standpoints, so as to cover widely divergent conditions in
institutions that may be universities or colleges, rich or poor, large
or small, old and conservative or recent and radical, public or
private, at the North, South, East, or West, and therefore governed by
widely different religious, social, educational, and political
influences.
Wide Distribution of Chapters.
The wide distribution of its various chapters adds greatly to the
perspective and corrective power of every fraternity, and makes it an
ideal instrument for wisely investigating and righting undergraduate
conditions at the same time in widely scattered institutions.
The true fraternity alumnus can mold the lives and motives of his
younger brothers. In most colleges the fraternities are so strong that
if we can change the atmosphere of the fraternity houses, which for
four years are the undergraduates’ homes, we can change the whole
undergraduate situation.
The fraternity alumni have contributed hundreds of thousands of
dollars for housing and otherwise helping the undergraduates. Every
fraternity has many loyal and devoted graduates who willingly give
time or money or both to the true interests of their younger brothers,
and whose word is law to them.
The character of the influence of each chapter depends largely on the
local alumni, strengthened, guided, and impelled by a strong central
organization. Why not apply modern business principles and systematic
organization to this all-important problem?
Atmosphere of Chapter-House.
We have one thousand seven hundred fraternity chapters in three
hundred and sixty-three of our institutions of higher learning as
_foci_ from which the good influences might constantly and powerfully
radiate. There has been too much tendency to make the fraternity the
end and not the means.
The alumni have not realized that the atmosphere of the chapter-house
determines the character of the chapter’s influence on its individual
members, and that the ultimate responsibility for this atmosphere is
on the alumni. If we would make this atmosphere permanently good, we
must appreciate that the alumni are the permanent and the
undergraduates the transient body—completely changing every three
years; and the seniors, the governing body, every year.
We, as the permanent body, have no right to furnish our undergraduates
with fine and exclusive homes, and then shirk responsibility for the
future conduct and influence of those homes.
The proper government of a chapter is a strict one, with the power in
the hands of the upper classmen, especially the seniors, who are in
turn held strictly accountable to alumni who are in constant touch
with the situation and personally acquainted with every undergraduate
and his work and needs.
Where such conditions are continuous, the chapter’s success is
assured, and the effect on the undergraduates is highly beneficial.
The fraternities, through strong central organizations, must make
these conditions prevalent and continuous in every chapter. This has
long been the theory, but the practise has been poor.
Correction of Waste.
The fraternities, with their numerous chapters in different
institutions, have the best possible opportunities for the
investigation and correction of the wastes and for the enforcement of
economies in college life.
No one can measure the waste and lack of economy, to the college, the
fraternity, the community, the family, or the individual, of a failure
in college life, from whatever cause it comes.
It is criminal that we have not studied these wastes in our colleges
as we have in our factories, railroads, and other great industries,
and that we have allowed the pendulum to swing so far to the other
side, and have not long ago returned it to its mean, and found
educational influences to replace the small units of the earlier
colleges.
Mr. Birdseye maintains, in conclusion, that it is for the fraternities
to devote their wealth and influence to improve undergraduate
conditions, incite their men to the best work, and prevent the wastes
which result from a failure in college lives.