In the fraternity world, as in so many other fields, investigation and theorizing are wont to proceed as if the subject matter had reached a condition of static equilibrium. The introduction of dynamic elements and forces naturally upsets the rose-colored hopes or hastily formulated theories based on this lack of analysis and abstraction of essentials. The only instance necessary to quote in illustration of this tendency is the millennium of pan-Hellenism, the approach of which has been so incessantly hailed, as near at hand, by writers on fraternity subjects. Yet this promising little ignus fatuus, with all its glitter of union and glare of strength, still eludes its pursuers, who fail to recognize that the essential life idea of fraternity rests in its division into competing camps of kindred spirits. I must not be misinterpreted into unreasoning hostility to pan-Hellenism, though its advocates have still to prove that its success would not place fraternity on an identical basis with other university and college literary societies, and thus destroy its esoteric character. My position is not, I repeat, one of hostility to pan-Hellenism, in the abstract, for if that movement were properly understood and intelligently worked out it would lead to an elevation of the plane of competition, the sorest need now felt by fraternity, and would certainly tend to liberalize and enlighten the purposes of Hellenism itself and eventually stimulate the growing favor which it meets in the world at large; a favor which indubitable usefulness and healthfulness of influence are slowly gaining for the fraternity principle. This much, however, by way of illustration of the fact that scanty analysis and hope-begotten synthesis characterize much discussion of fraternity topics. Hence, in full knowledge of the usual futility of the application of mere logic to fraternity, I venture to call attention to some attempts at prophetic utterance on the "Future of Fraternity," for I conceive that either growth or decay can safely by predicted. Static equilibrium, as I have called it, can only exist under unchanging conditions. Sameness, stationaryness even, is a characteristic of decay, and when the civilization of China is spoken of as stationary, it is meant that the rest of the world has outstripped her, which is to all intents and purposes positive decline, certainly relative decadence. Without, then, in any way reflecting on the present usefulness of fraternity as an institution, we may safely predict for it, as of every other conceivable institution of man, that in the future it must be either more or less than it has been in the past. The vicariousness of causes, the unceasing change of conditions, the ever increasing accumulation of knowledge, with the sweeping away of superstitution, if not of sentiment, are constantly affecting something, altering all things. What will such causes as can now be described do with fraternity?

The function of the prophet has always been two-fold. He is first to point out the wrong-doings or causes of what is to come and then he proceeds to pronounce the woe or weal that shall betide the persons addressed. In obedience to classic models I shall look at causes antecedent to effects.

At present fraternity is eminently a college institution and is intimately concerned with the form taken by college instruction and college government. Here we seem to stand on the eve of a revolution. The scholastic trivium and quadrivium are rapidly being replaced by vast disparate systems of knowledge. Hitherto unknown forces are giving rise to new sciences. Aristotle no longer holds the key to universal learning, and in the face of such attempts as Herbert Spencer's "Synthetic Philosophy" it is safe to say that the world has seen its last of the "Enclopoedists." Specialization has supplanted breadth; the cry is no longer for liberality of culture, but grows more and more exacting in its demand for the concentration of the entire energies of each man on a single subject, or even branch of a subject. The choice of a vocation in life begins to be made earlier and the youth no longer attains general culture as a determinant of capability to choose a future course, but in very tender years, it may be wisely or unwisely, definitely decides the burning question, and henceforth with an enthusiasm almost approaching mono-idealism, narrows down the field of his attainments and intensifies his concentration on special subjects. Schools, colleges and universities are growing up, in which classics are relegated to oblivion in the interest of science, or pursued, in an antagonizing spirit, to the neglect of the exact sciences and history. What does it all mean? Is not the full, ripe, many-sided man of the past, and even of our own day, waning away into the pedantic or over specialized specialist? Or is not knowledge, divorced from refinement, taking up its abode in the ascetic habitations of scientific anchorites - intellectual abnormalities?

What becomes of the human sympathies in all this concentration and specialization? Are they to be specialized, too, and cultivated for the rest of society by a small increment of the social laborers, set apart for the purpose, in either the ministerial or professedly philanthropic function? No, I have purposely overdrawn the possible outcome of this tendency, for as yet there is but a tendency, and the sense of the fitness of things, common to mankind, will not allow it to go too far. Later I shall show that society has already inaugurated a counter-veiling movement. But this deep lesson for the fraternity becomes apparent. In it the association must become increasingly close, the contact of specialties must be made to take place on neutral ground, selfishness must be displaced by unselfishness and large generality of sympathies must teach the beauty and the possibility of self-sacrificing friendship. This, fraternity principle, is your function.

This change in the character of college instruction implies a corresponding change in college life. The fine old campus, with all its recollections, the dormitories necessitating close living together, have in large part changed. These things are passing away. Life at Johns Hopkins, at Chicago, and in an increasing degree everywhere is assuming a different character. The students are rooming scattered over large cities at varying distances from the scene of their work. The truly American "hurry" and the necessities of bread and butter scholarship are obscuring the national and inherent love of sports, and the college juvenile of today threatens to rival the primitive professor in his steady application to business and his neglect of the cultivation of associations for the development of the social side of his disposition. Everybody knows how sadly impressive is the precocity of the rising generation. Santa Claus, that beneficent and kindly genius of our youth, begins to disappear in the analyzing reason or facetious skepticism of youngsters not yet in knickerbockers. Schopenhauer's proposition, that youth is the proper time for the cultivation of memory and sentiment, which must be neglected when reason comes in for its sway, has more than two grains of truth in two bushels of chaff. We have succeeded in banishing superstition, and now the exacting canons of scientific truth threaten the banishment of human sympathy as a higher order of the same category. Hastily to review, I have shown that in college courses, early specialization threatens liberality of culture, that the tendency in large colleges of the new school is toward individual selfishness of pursuit and loss of touch with the world at large, and finally that the bond of human sympathy and union sentiment is in conflict, apparent or real, with the requirements of scientific attainments. From these premises I conclude that fraternity has a mission to perform, pro bono pubico and in the interest of the humanity of society.