THE UNDERGRADUATE CHAIR

Our article last month discussing the precarious trend at present undermining fraternal organizations at Dartmouth seems to have been received by readers of this column with a good deal less resentment than we had expected. We looked for antagonistic criticism from some of the more avid brothers in Greek bonds, but all the comment was more or less in agreement with the arguments brought out, and much of it, in fact, led us to think we might not have gone far enough in our conclusions.

It is not, however, necessary to go further into this matter now, other than to mention a related subject that came to our attention on the week-ends of the last two home football games. The last month has seen many of the local houses formally initiate their '37 pledges, and these ceremonies have, of course, been preceded by the usual initiation horseplay. It had been our impression that the Dartmouth chapters had outgrown most of the stupid and repulsive initiation practices that to most college men are characteristic only of high school clubs and of the minds of non-college readers of "collegiate" and movie magazines. But when one goes down Hanover's Main Street on the day of the Virginia game and sees half-naked pledges on skiis measuring the distance from Commons to the Post Office with frankfurters, and then looks on the other side of the street to observe two grovelling undergraduates going through the act of canine and town sidewalk cleaner, in full view of Dartmouth men and their week-end guests, it makes him think twice about the maturity of some of his fellow undergraduates. If those who conceive these humorous initiation pranks could only realize that they amuse no one except the town kids and a few naive freshmen, their limited ingeniousness might actuate them to devise less repellant tasks, or at least keep them off Main Street.