DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 39 



which it did not possess in the good old days of the early 'SOs, and 

 which is, I believe, foreign to its purposes. I know changes are inevit- 

 able, but let them cease to be away from the democratic spirit by which 

 such an institution should be dominated. 



"I answer your inquiry by saying that in my best judgment the college 

 should not foster the fraternity idea of housing students and permit the 

 building of fraternity houses with rooming and boarding facilities, but 

 instead, increase the state-owned dormitories and boarding halls, to the 

 end that the spirit of equality^ aud not that of aristocracy and exclu- 

 siveness, may prevail." 



No. 4. Opposed. 



"Dear Sir: — In reply to your communication of March 8th relative to 

 the college 'Frat' (]uestion will say that what I have learned of col- 

 lege life in the past two years has decided that question for me against 

 the tendency to build so-called society and 'Frat homes,' either on or 

 otf the campus of any college or university. These exclusive sets domi- 

 nate the college life at Yale very much to her detriment. The case is 

 almost as bad at Princeton, where the president and faculity have at- 

 tempted to devise some means to get rid of them. President Eliot, of 

 Harvard, and President Wilson, of Princeton, have often publicly con- 

 demned the practice of segregation in college life as being un-American 

 and opposed to democrac}'. 



"In criticism of the arguments in favor of these fraternity houses it 

 may be admitted that they are getting to be very common, and permitted 

 by Boards of Control because such Boards know nothing better to do. 

 They are not sanctioned, however, by very many such Boards, and it is 

 wholly untrue that modern student life demands that some students 

 live apart from their fellows unless it can at the same time be shown that 

 modern life demands that some people should live exclusive and apart 

 from the rest of the people. I know of no classes of whom this could be 

 true except the feeble-minded, the insane and the criminal. The dormi- 

 tory life was quite free when the writer had the good fortune to be a 

 student at M. A. C. If such life is now too much circumscribed, it is 

 easy to remedy. Besides, the student of M. A. C. who thus lives apart 

 from the mass of his fellows (and so above them you may be sure) misses 

 one of the best things the college has to give him, viz., the college spirit. 



"At Yale you may hear of the ^|3,000 Frat.,' the '|5,000 Frat.' or the 

 '110,000 Frat.,' in each case meaning a community of fellows who spend 

 these sums or more each college year. A man of your experience and 

 judgment need not be told that the influence is unfortunate. 



"The 'Frat' and other social organizations of a college are essential 

 elements of college life, but they should be controlled in the interest of 

 democracy as against aristocracy, and at such colleges as M. A. C. they 

 should be controlled in the interest of the boy of small means who 

 desires a college education. 



"Trusting that M. A. C. will continue to be a truly democratic institu- 

 tion and that the Board of Agriculture will find means to control this 

 tendencv to exclusiveness. I am very truly vours." 



