I dislike those “the best sororities with the most gorgeous houses” or the “top ten fraternities to join if you want to be President of the United States” posts on the web. They are bogus, likely click-bait, and serve no purpose other than to drive traffic to a website. Yet, excitement is building as things gear up for another academic year on college campuses across the country. At some, that means that fraternity and sorority recruitment time is near. Best wishes to the young men and women making decisions as to which organization to join. My advice is to make your own decision, free from the internet hype and ranking.
Students have been making that decision for centuries. The world was much different in 1922, when the following paragraphs were written. Only a handful of college students had access to an automobile, few had grown up having their own bedroom and even less had their own private bath. There were no portable phones, televisions, handheld electronic devices, and the things that today’s college students consider necessities. And yet, the sentiments expressed by George Banta* in the July, 1922 issue of Banta’s Greek Exchange ring as true today as they did nearly a century ago:
One of the questions most frequently asked of us is as to which is the best fraternity. This most naive question is most often propounded to us by non-fraternity folks who are debating the choice of a fraternity. Rushing season also brings us such inquiries and these latter often take the form of asking us to decide definitely between two different fraternities or sororities. It is no uncommon thing in the autumn for us to receive telegrams which have manifestly found their inspiration in the fierce rushing on the campus.
It is not merely a question of the impropriety of our undertaking to decide such questions. Any opinion that the editor might harbor would be only his personal opinion. We have long ago learned that choice of a fraternity is a state of mind. There are those to whom the question of size is important; another prefers limitations and exclusiveness; one prefers that which is ancient; another that which is new and plastic and gives opportunity for individual activity, and, it may be for a fight. So, there is with us a great deal bigger reason for not trying to make such distinctions than mere impropriety. It is simply impossible. We do not know which is the best, and we have long ago come to doubt whether there is any ‘best.’ We feel that we might as well undertake to decide between the relative value to the community of the two neighbors who live beside us, one to the north and one to the south. We ourselves prefer our own family simply because it is our own. And we find that each of our two neighbors prefers his family for exactly the same reason. And there you are.
*George Banta was a Phi Delta Theta and a Delta Gamma. Yes, he was an initiated member of Delta Gamma and he brought Delta Gamma to the northern states. He was also a dedicated proponent of fraternity life.
George Banta, Phi Delta Theta and Delta Gamma
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2018. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/
