United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
Hugh wasn't troubled only by religion and sex; the whole college was
disturbing his peace of mind: all of his illusions were being ruthlessly
shattered. He had supposed that all professors were wise men, that their
knowledge was almost limitless, and he was finding that many of the
undergraduates were frankly contemptuous of the majority of their
teachers and that he himself was finding inspiration from only a few of
them. He went to his classes because he felt that he had to, but in most
of them he was confused or bored. He learned more in the bull sessions
than he did in the class-room, and men like Ross and Burbank were
teaching him more than his instructors.
Further, Nu Delta was proving a keen disappointment. More and more he
found himself thinking of Malcolm Graham's talk to him during the
rushing season of his freshman year. He often wished that Graham were
still in college so that he could go to him for advice. The fraternity
was not the brotherhood that he had dreamed about; it was composed of
several cliques warring with each other, never coalescing into a single
group except to contest the control of a student activity with some
other fraternity. There were a few "brothers" that Hugh liked, but most
of them were not his kind at all. Many of them were athletes taken into
the fraternity because they were athletes and for no other reason, and
although Hugh liked two of the athletes--they were really splendid
fellows--he was forced to admit that three of them were hardly better
than thugs, cheap muckers with fine bodies. Then there were the snobs,
usually prep school men with more money than they could handle wisely,
utterly contemptuous of any man not belonging to a fraternity or of one
belonging to any of the lesser fraternities. These were the "smooth
boys," interested primarily in clothes and "parties," passing their
courses by the aid of tutors or fraternity brothers who happened to
study.
Hugh felt that he ought to like all of his fraternity brothers, but, try
as he would, he disliked the majority of them. Early in his sophomore
year he knew that he ought to have "gone" Delta Sigma Delta, that that
fraternity contained a group of men whom he liked and respected, most of
them, at least. They weren't prominent in student activities, but they
were earnest lads as a whole, trying hard to get something out of
college.
The Nu Delta meetings every Monday night were a revelation to him. The
brothers were openly bored; they paid little or no attention to the
business before them. The president was constantly calling for order
and not getting it. During the rushing season in the second term,
interest picked up. Freshmen were being discussed. Four questions were
inevitably asked. Did the freshman have money? Was he an athlete? Had he
gone to a prep school? What was his family like?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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