“Start the year with a resolution to make scholarship paramount, and then do it. Fraternities are judged by the outside world more by their scholarship record than by their array of captains, managers, and social stars. An efficient chapter does not need to neglect any side of college life. See that your men are good students. If they are capable enough to do something in addition to that, see that they select the right thing and then that succeed in their choice.
“A chapter which fails to maintain a high standard of morality does not reach its greatest efficiency. The chapter house is a training school with a four-year course – an adjunct to the university. It is expected that young men who are permitted to enjoy its privileges will be trained in right thinking and right living. A chapter which graduates poorer men than it initiates has failed in its opportunity. Neither will an efficient chapter tolerate undemocratic actions by its members, either in the chapter house or upon the campus.
“An efficient chapter will secure the loyal and interested aid of its alumni. There are many ways to do this; there are perhaps more ways to lose such interest. Try to choose the right ways and to bring all the alumni into closer touch with the chapter and the fraternity.
“An efficient chapter will see that its bills are promptly paid; that the books are properly kept; that correspondence is not neglected; that letters and personals appear regularly in The Shield; that its alumni are subscribers to the fraternity magazine; that a card index of its alumni is kept; that its history and scrap book are not neglected.
“Let us start this year right. Try to make your chapter efficient.”
I love to read through old issues of fraternity magazines. Many decades ago, most of the magazines had a column with news taken from other fraternity magazines. I found this in both Phi Gamma Delta’s magazine and Pi Kappa Phi’s Star and Lamp. It was originally published in the Shield of Phi Kappa Psi, most probably in 1912 as the other appearances of it were in 1913. Although the message was written for the great grandparents and great-great grandparents of today’s college students, the sentiments ring as true today as they did a century ago.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
