1912–13 Volume 37 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

THE SCROLL 365this matter, and fraternity pride shpuld be a sufficient incentive. Severalyears ago a number of fraternities, among them Phi Delta Theta,directed the appointment of a scholarship committee in each of theirrespective chapters. The business of these committees is to inquireinto the class room records of the members and to encourage, aidand if necessary admonish those members who are backward in theirstudies. Then the question of chapter house regulation and individualmorality must be settled by each fraternity for itself. Years ago PhiDelta Theta adopted strict chapter house rules, including rules whichexcluded liquors from the houses and prohibited gambling in thehouses, and its last National Convention decided that no liquorsshould be allowed at any convention banquet or smoker or at any otherfraternity meeting. Phi Delta Theta will endeavor to attend by itselfto questions relating to scholarship and morality.BUT there are other questions on which no fraternity can act independently,and on which the Interfraternity Conference, if it hasany good reason for existence, should act. Take the question of prohibitingthe initiation of members of preparatory school fraternities.College fraternity men generally now recognize that the school fraternitiesare an evil, though they have taken a long time to wake upto'the fact. The general experience is that members of school fraternitiesbecome blaze in regard to fraternities before they enter college,and as a rule they make very inefficient members of college fraternities.The principals of preparatory schools are practically unanimousin denouncing the bad effects of fraternities in their schools,and city boards of education almost universally condemn the schoolfraternities and in many places have suppressed them. The schoolfraternity is accused of making little prigs of its members, of leadingthem into extravagant expenditures, of demoralizing their habits ofstudy, and of leading them into habits of dissipation. The faultsof the school fraternity have been widely exposed in the newspapers.A large part of the public does not discriminate betweenthe school fraternity and the college fraternity and condemns bothon the same grounds.Much of the odium which attaches to the school fraternity fallsalso on the college fraternity system. To free themselves from thisodium, college fraternities must help to suppress the kid fraternities.