As I read through some of the old issues of the magazine I noticed a distinct tone in many of the articles. The tone that many of these articles are written in is much different than what we encounter in today’s writings and discussions in the Greek world. The tone of these articles is stronger than what we read and hear today. It is not an inherently weakened tone nor an apologetic tone. The early writers in our fraternity were strong in their convictions and proud of their membership in Sigma Pi. I imagine that the men who wrote these articles would give a passing chuckle at the heavily biased, anti-fraternity, anti-male drivel that many extreme sources are publishing these days. They’d read an article that talks about the “dark power” of fraternities and pity the writer – not attempt to glean some greater bit of wisdom from this obviously biased perspective.

My long-time readers know that I remained engaged in my fraternity beyond graduation by serving as a local, regional, and national volunteer. And during the 11 years that I’ve spent as a volunteer, I’ve seen and heard a whole bunch. When I began as a volunteer, I joined a national association presumably focused on providing assistance and guidance to fraternity advisors. My membership in that organization lasted about two years. I left that group when I realized that it was not an organization focused on building and strengthening Greek life at the chapter-level, which is the area that interested me the most given my volunteer position at the time. Rather, this was an organization focused on providing university employees working with fraternities and sororities different methods of controlling their students, limiting their university’s liability in worst case scenarios, and implementing more “campus progressive” policies on Greek organizations (i.e. policies that clandestinely break down traditional gender roles by forcing fierce repercussions on men who act masculine as well as women who act feminine).

In short, the strong, masculine perspective that is evident in the writing of my fraternity’s early leaders is absent today. In fact, it’s not just gone – it’s blasphemous on today’s hyper-sensitive college campuses.

I’ve written a commentary about how and why the “campus progressive” mentality was formed and is now spreading in Greek Life. And I plan on publishing that commentary in the near future after I’ve revised it some more. But I thought it would be useful to show you one of the early writings from my fraternity’s magazine to serve as baseline for that future commentary. To that end, I downloaded the first issue of The Emerald and I couldn’t stop reading it. After the opening editorial, I was hooked by the first opinion piece which followed. This piece was titled Measure of the College Fraternity as an Institution and was written by Brother Ralph Stanley Bauer of our Phi Chapter at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

For those of you who are highly engaged in fraternity and sorority life, I think you’ll enjoy reading Brother Bauer’s thoughts which were first published 102 years ago. It is amazing that over a century later, many of the same criticisms stand against our organizations. The difference between today and back then is that the “muck-rackers,” as Brother Bauer calls them, are now empowered and working on college campuses! These muck-rackers are quick to throw away over a century of history in an effort to reprimand college students for a perceived deviation from their strict, mucky definition of Greek values.

Again, I’ve written more on this which I’ll publish here soon. In the meantime, though, I’ll end my thoughts here and yield this space to Brother Bauer. I hope you’ll find his commentary as satisfying as I did when I first read it.

Measure of the College Fraternity as an Institution
By RALPH STANLEY BAUER, Phi Chapter

WHEN a modern and practical man of affairs desires to know whether it is best for his son, a freshman in a university, to become a member of a fraternity, he is likely to ask two questions. One is: What is the demeanor of “frat men” during their careers as undergraduates? The other question that he will ask is: “What do “frat men” amount to after they leave college?” Of these two, the latter question is of the more practical consequence. Fraternities mould men. As they do this work well or poorly, they are successful or unsuccessful. The efficiency of a factory is never determined by the appearance of its product in its unfinished state and when it is only half way through the factory; only the finished product of the factory indicates whether the establishment is serviceable. Moreover, it is not usual to judge the usefulness of a factory by the poor quality of a very small portion of its products, but it is customary to study rather the average quality of the entire output.

Yet there are certain “muck-rakers” who are criticising college fraternities in a manner in which they would not think of criticising other organizations. They forget that the test of the efficiency and usefulness of a college organization is not to be found in the conduct, appearance and demeanor of the student members of the organization. They fail to remember that the test is to be found in the finished product and not in the half-finished material. They say that fraternity men are more attracted by outside amusements than by their studies; that they do not have time to do their class work because of fraternity activities, and that fraternity men are, as a class, sporty. Suppose that, for purposes of argument, we grant all these allegations to be true; does it indicate anything if they are true? Do not these same boisterous, rollicking, fun-loving students become real, live, industrious, useful citizens. In the modern university there is no place for a man who is slow; other students may sympathize with such a man, but they have very little patience with him. Real strenuosity is a part of college life, and it is also a part of business and professional life. What appears to some old fossils to be a sporty and wicked atmosphere is just the kind of an atmosphere that said fossils need to live in for a short time, in order that the stale and sour gases of musty antiquity may be met by a suitable antidote.

These old-time traducers of college fraternities go still further and say that the lives of some college men have been wrecked because of associations formed by them in fraternities during their careers as college students. But suppose even that we grant that this is a fact; have not some persons ruined their lives by forming evil associations while attending Sunday School? Yet, who would dare to argue that, for this reason, the Sunday School should not be accorded a place among our useful institutions?

Educators are agreed that a child is not a small adult and therefore should not be expected to act as an adult would. Neither should the same conduct be expected of young men of ages ranging from sixteen to twenty-six as one would expect of men of forty. Young men of student age need more of recreation, amusement and diversion than do older men. Many of the best forms of wholesome enjoyment are supplied to the student by the fraternity. All this aids in the development of the individual and makes him better fitted to “mix” with other men and take a real place in the world after he leaves college.

We trust that no one will take what has been said concerning recreation and amusement to indicate that the writer has any inclination to believe in the absurd and vicious doctrine that a college man must “sow his wild oats.” No more pernicious proposition was ever put before young men. It is difficult to understand how so base a view of life should ever have gained a footing anywhere in a civilized and Christian country.

If the writer had the space necessary, he would be glad to go into a somewhat full discussion of the reasons why a fraternity man, upon graduation, other things being equal, has received a better training than has a “barb.” Many reasons might be given to show why so large a number of our most successful business and professional men have sprung from the ranks of the college fraternities. Surely, organizations that have produced nearly all of the recent presidents of the United States cannot be wholly bad.

Results count. Vague theories and gloomy foreboding about the “cussedness” of the whole situation cannot impress a man who thinks. Let the great college fraternities of America stand upon their brilliant record of past achievement, and let us hope that the future will equal or, if possible, surpass it in glorious results.

We need more people with this mindset working on our campuses! This is the perspective that our young men and women need to understand. The angry muck-rackers should be shunned from our movement, not employed and empowered by our campuses!

Last night’s live finale gave hope and inspiration to all of those people who feel that they have been “categorized” into not losing weight. In other words, those people who feel that they cannot lose weight because they are too old or are within a certain age range for a certain gender see now that it can be done. Jerry is 64 years old for goodness sake!

My only gripe with the finale was that it was too long. A three hour finale is completely unnecessary. The entire show could fit into a 90 minute show, which would be nice since there could either be a 30 minute pre-show or a 30 minute post-show. But NBC relies so strictly on the results it gets from audience testing that it completely misses how to put on a television production that makes viewers comfortable while watching the show. Sure, people tuned into the finale to see who was going to win, but the truth is that watching any NBC show is horrible because of the crappy timing and pacing of their shows.

Subscribe to JerseySmarts.com Newsletter Email: Visit this group

For those of you who are looking for even more commentary presented from a unique New Jersey point of view, be sure to follow JerseySmarts.com on Twitter @JVince81. Also, sign-up for our quarterly newsletter by using the sign-up form in the box to the left. The newsletter is sent four times each year to provide links to just a few of the top stories that you might have missed. That’s it – there’s no random sales pitch and we do not sell our mailing list to any third party advertising companies. The only updates you will ever receive are from JerseySmarts.com with links to the latest updates from this site. That’s it. Period.

Anyway, congratulations to Helen and Jerry as well as everyone who lost a ton of weight. Mike’s (the 18-year-old kid) transformation is also an amazing story. I’m happy for him and I hope that he sticks to a good diet and workout regime because he can now be healthy for the rest of his life.

Ha ha ha! How great is that?! Not only do you have the team at ThinkGeek.com reviving one of the most underrated consoles of the last generation, but they’re doing it on the cheap. And as for games, an eBay search shows me over 900 listings (plus I’m sure any GameStop or EB Games has some discs laying around for sale).

And I love that Dreamcast is now competing again (at least in terms of price) with PlayStation 2. Frankly, this is a battle that it cannot win since virtually everyone owns a PlayStation 2 (some 45.2 million sold vs. 2.2 million for the Dreamcast). But it’s fun and I got a kick out of it.

I would absolutely buy a Dreamcast, but the truth is that I really enjoy the Wii and Nintendo DS so much that I don’t want/need another system. And even more than that, I don’t really have any time to play video games these days. If I pick up an hour or two of gaming each month between the Wii, the DS, or my computer then that’s a lot.

But for those of you who want an affordable – and fun – alternative to the current generation of video gaming systems, give Sega’s Dreamcast a try!

Actually, given the smaller size of the location where I joined it would be surprising if they could fit a locker room or an office in the building! The gym has got to be less than 1,000 square feet in total space, but the truth is that it carries itself very well. There are separate male and female bathrooms and a desk that serves as the “office.” Behind the desk is a set of cubby holes that serve as your personal locker, too. It’s really a genius setup for a smaller scale gym.

The other thing that makes this gym unique is that, due to its small setup, it really is not made to handle a high number of members working out at the same time. In fact, since I joined last Saturday I’ve been at the gym three times. The first two times I attended were at night on Saturday and at night on Sunday and when my roommate and I showed up there was no one there. The lights were actually off when we arrived (they automatically turn on via motion sensors when you walk in the door).

The third night I attended the gym there was a classic clod hopper on the treadmill next to me. And with that, the next chapter of gym stories on this blog seems to have begun!

The Giants, Titans, and Eagles are all better teams. Hell, the Cowboys and Patriots are better teams and they both make me sick! That said, I’m looking for the Steelers to make a mockery out of the Cardinals and send them back to Arizona in no time at all. In truth, it’ll be interesting to see how the NFL will play the Roethlisberger vs. Warner match up. That said, I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I’m really not that interested in the match-up.

For those of you who are attending a party or SuperBowl gathering tonight, remember to be safe on the roads and don’t be stupid by drinking and driving. Other than that, enjoy the night!