|
Recruitment in 1899 - Is your chapter "dead swell"?
Sisters,
I was actually reading a very old Alpha Phi Quarterly from November 1899 (yes ... 1899). I got such a great laugh from this article written by an alumna member in the "Alumnae Department" part of the Quarterly. I note that it comes from a time in our history that I've always heard about where Alpha Phi frowned on the activities of other groups and when we envisioned ourselves to be much more exclusive than most. I thought this would be interesting for others ...
"Now that the rushing season is over I may be allowed to tell a story with the hope that every active Alpha Phi will read and ponder and hide its moral in her heart, where it will bear fruit one year hence.
I was traveling from New York to Chicago a week before the time for the opening of mnay of the colleges. At one of the cities along the Hudson there came into the car four young women, whose destination I readily learned was S--------. They were all of one fraternity and their conversation was as follows, actual names being omitted:
No. 1. "O girls, we must have everything in sight this year. We can't lose one. The Fis and the Fos and the Fums will be wild when they know all we are going to do -- won't they though?"
No. 2. "Now let's see. For Saturday night we have our informal gathering. I do hope all the girls have come back with 'dead swell' clothes. You know clothes count an awful lot with a fresh. As I was syaing Saturdya night is all OK. Now of course we don't rush Sunday -- at least we must tell the freshies that, for there's sure to be some goody-good who'll be taken by that sort of thing. But we'll have to do a little on the q.t. -- We can't miss one whole day. How many are on our string?"
No. 3. "Sixty-six, and the swellest lot. Here's my notebook. Now there's Cornelia Cornelistens. She's a perfect peach. She's the dearest dear. She's awful rich. She has the swellest clothes. She will be the dandiest rusher and the men will be dead over her. We must have her."
No. 4. "What couse doe she take?"
No. 3. "Let me see. Why I forgot to put that down. I think it's classical, but that really don't matter, girls; she'll shine in any course. There there's Roberta Robertson. Isn't her name just fetching? The Fos are after her big. We'll have to work tooth and nail for her. Her father is the great Mogul of his town. He's got more 'dot.' The family is awfully dead well. She as a sister coming next year, one of the quiet kind, but we can arrange that if we only get Roberta. She'll cover up a heap of sins. We must take her on a drag ride, and she plays golf, too. That's a poser, but I'll tell you -- we'll get Bob Twitchel. He plays, and he'll do anything for us, you know. We must meet her at the train, get her a boarding place, keep her in tow every minute and not let her see a Fo say nothing of a Fum. O dear, I wish it was all over! I'm dead tired just thinking about it."
No. 1. "But that tea, girls! We must have the swellest thing yet. There must not be one sticky thing about it."
No. 4. (The only womanly girl of the quartet.) "Don't you think, girls, we ought to be careful of expense? You know last year's rushing bills are not all paid. It isn't quite fair to all the others for a few to plan such expensive things."
No. 3. "Why, Goody-two-shoes, where is your frat spirit? We've got to keep up appearances and we can't ge these dead swell girls if we don't have dead swell affairs. We can pay up after awhile I guess."
Here the trains stopped at S------------. The four left the car, never thinking that an alumna of the Fums had been their traveling companion.
If any chapter of Alpha Phi has produced this "dead swell" variety, let that chapter seek with body, soul and mind to eradicate it. The lack of breeding, culture and refinement in many fraternities makes them the laughing stock of thiking women. Better a chapter dead than a chapter "dead swell." The term and all that it implies is odious in the extremem to sany thinking woman, and the chapter tha follows such a policy as the above conversation indicates, will find itself in due time robbed of every attribute that makes a fraternity valuable and beautiful."
__________________
ALPHA PHI
|
Register Now for FREE!
It took forevah!
Linear Mode
