SOCIETY LIFE AMONG UNDERGRADUATES
But the supreme opportunity for the inculcation and employment of honesty is not reserved for examinations and public presentations; it also belongs to the complex social life of the colleges, which has become important. The club-book of an Eastern university, for example, records the existence at that institution of ninety different social organizations, the object of most of them being to bring men together sociably. Such intermingling is vital for college friendship. It is true, as former Dean Henry P. Wright of Yale has said, that, to a student, a friend is a “fellow whom you know all about, and still like,” and for that reason the social organizations which bring men together in an intimacy closer than is found anywhere else are indispensable aids in the formation of lasting friendships.
The social groupings of college life are also important because they give an opportunity for concrete and tangible success through student leadership. College society, in fact, has brought into being a restricted, but very real, world, with special laws and a kind of public opinion founded on student initiative and sentiment. Responsibility and leadership in college affairs have given many an undergraduate the initial stir to the qualities which make him successful in after life. These fraternal bodies, democratic, discriminatingly alert for the best men, and usually emphasizing worth rather than birth, are vital not only in the discovery of individuality, but also in their unique contribution to the corporate strength and unity of college life.