Some high-school principals are non-committal, but more of them frankly utter their condemnation of the fraternity as prejudicial to the legitimate work of the school; as weakening the more inclusive class loyalty and as offering an effective temptation to social dissipation. They may not hope as yet to carry all high-school students with them in this judgment, but if they could line up all parents who believe that fraternities tend to alienate young people from their homes, all high-school teachers who deplore the evil which results from loyalty to a part instead of to the whole school, and all those who, having advanced to college, look back upon those earlier fraternities as cases of premature development, the young people would be amazed at the verdict against the high-school fraternity!
We are constantly hearing the assertion that it is difficult for girls to complete the high-school course without breaking down. Under anything like normal conditions such a claim should be preposterous! There are good reasons for believing that the nervous collapse is due less to faithful study than to the unnecessary excitements of fraternity rivalry and to the irregular hours and social dissipation consequent upon fraternity life.
The right place for the fraternity is in the university where boys and girls have become young men and young women, better able to guard such organizations against these abuses; better able to see to it that no barriers are built between them and those whom they ought to know; better able to extend their generous admiration to those not of their particular clique. In the university large numbers of students are away from home, as is not the case in high school—and where it is wisely controlled, the fraternity may be made a center for the deepening of wholesome intimacies, in a way to render it a useful educational force.
It is well for every student to postpone the choice of a fraternity until near the end of the first year. Before he joins, he will need to look the various chapters over carefully and learn more about them than appears in the shape of the pin or in the color of the flag at the top of the house. He will want to ask what kind of men belong; what are their ambitions and aims; what is their rank and standing in college; whether their habits are clean, sound, wholesome, or enervating and shady; what is the moral atmosphere about their house; what sort of alumni have been sent out. He will only join one fraternity and he wishes to make no mistake in that choice.
The habit of “rushing” men for membership has become inexpressibly silly. The heads of weak men are turned by the social attentions thrust upon them and the stronger men are frequently repelled by this overdone eagerness. One would suppose the various chapters would be ashamed to exhibit such anxiety to have men join as would seem to indicate a sense of their own weakness. Let the fraternities make themselves worth joining and a sufficient number of promising candidates to fill all the lists will be forthcoming! Let any student make himself worth having and the door will be open into a desirable house whenever he is ready to enter it.
It would be well if each student made his fraternity experience preparatory to the larger social status into which he will enter as a mature man—a status where the narrow exclusiveness of the snob finds the door shut in its face by men of sense. If he has really gained a genuinely social spirit, he will be better able to take his place in the business world as one ready to aid in building it upon the basis of honor, integrity and mutual consideration. If he has rightly learned the lessons of fraternity life he ought to be a better citizen, ready to work in harmony with men who are bent upon making the State an organized expression of wise and just principles. He ought to be fitted to be a better churchman, making that institution a worthy expression of the organized spirit of reverence toward God, of fellowship with men, and of helpfulness for all good causes. And he will best attain all these high aims if, in the supreme relationship of his life, his own soul is knit with that “friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” The Master of men came to found a fraternal kingdom of which there shall be no end, and in that kingdom every man of fraternal spirit should have standing.
IV
THE RELIGION OF A COLLEGE MAN
The leading notes in the religious life of a student will naturally be intellectual and ethical. The mind is feeling its way out among the immensities which have come into view as childhood is left behind. It is seeking to know things as they are, learning how to bear itself in thought toward the natural and the supernatural, the earthly and the heavenly, the present and the future. It is no longer content with a child’s faith received on the word of another; it has not yet found the repose of tried and mature conviction. It is in process of shaping its beliefs about God, about the world, about the Bible, about prayer, about a future life. The college man is taken out-of-doors intellectually where the walls are all down, and his religious life, like the other sections of his nature, will naturally show signs of restlessness. “The religion of youth is commonly a religion of rationalism—the intellectual life is just starting on its long journey in all the exhilaration and freshness of the morning.”
The ethical note in the college man’s religion will also be clear and strong. Young people in sound health are commonly rigorous and even merciless in their moral judgments. They are oftentimes unduly critical touching the shortcomings of others. They are confused as to many of the moral sanctions and uncertain as to what distinctions are essential and what are merely conventional. They have a desire to know what is right and why it is right, and they wish to discover the motive and stimulus which will render them strong in doing the right. The best results are always attained by taking into account lines of interest already established, rather than by cutting squarely across the grain, and the most effective approach to the heart of the student can be made by observing these two leading notes in his religious life.
I am confirmed in this view by this bit of personal experience. For six years I lectured every Monday during the second semester at Stanford University, giving courses on “The Ethics of Christ,” a study in the four Gospels, on “The Life and Literature of the Early Hebrews,” a study in the Old Testament, on “Social Ethics,” a study of moral values in the various relationships of modern life. These courses were offered as any courses would be. A full syllabus was used and much collateral reading suggested; a monthly written quiz and a final examination were held; credit was given for work done as in any other department. The courses were popular though the requirements brought a sufficient number of failures each year to keep the thought of a day of judgment before the mind of the class. There was evident throughout a strong, healthy interest in the intellectual problems of faith, in the interpretation of scripture, in the ethical questions discussed, and in the intelligent application of moral principles to modern life. The sight of those young faces and the reading of the papers offered have helped to confirm me in the view that the two characteristic qualities of the college man’s religion are those already indicated.