It is no exaggeration to say that these apparently insignificant organizations of irresponsible students have modified the college life of America and have had a wide influence. Members join in the impressionable years of their youth; they retain for their organizations a peculiar loyalty and affection, and freely contribute with money and influence to their advancement. Almost universally the members of any particular chapter (or part of them) live together in a lodge or chapter house. The men's fraternities own hundreds of houses and rent as many more. The fraternities form a little aristocracy within the college community. Sometimes the line of separation is invisible, sometimes sharply marked. Sometimes this condition militates against the college discipline and sometimes it assists it. Conflicts not infrequently occur between the fraternity and non-fraternity element in a college. It can readily be understood how young men living together in the intimate relationship of daily contact in the same house, having much the same tastes, culture and aspirations would form among themselves enduring friendships. In addition each fraternity has a reputation to maintain, and this engenders an esprit du corps which at times places loyalty to fraternity interests above loyalty to college interest or the real advantage of the individual. At commencements and upon other occasions the former members of the chapters return to their chapter houses and help to foster the pride and loyalty of the undergraduates. The chapter houses are commonly owned by corporations made up of the alumni. This brings the undergraduates into contact with men of mature age and often of national fame, who treat their membership as a serious privilege. The development of this collegiate aristocracy has led to jealousy and bitter animosity among those not selected for membership. Some of the states, notably South Carolina and Arkansas, have by legislation, either abolished the fraternities at state-controlled institutions or seriously limited the privileges of their members. The constitutionality of such legislation has never been tested. Litigation has occasionally arisen out of attempts on the part of college authorities to prohibit the fraternities at their several institutions. This, it has been held, may lawfully be done at a college maintained by private endowment but not at an institution supported by public funds. In the latter case all classes of the public are equally entitled to the same educational privileges and members of the fraternities may not be discriminated against.