The like is true of college fraternities as of college
sports, but with a difference. The latter are chiefly an
expression of the predatory impulse simply; the former are more
specifically an expression of that heritage of clannishness which
is so large a feature in the temperament of the predatory
barbarian. It is also noticeable that a close relation subsists
between the fraternities and the sporting activity of the
schools. After what has already been said in an earlier chapter
on the sporting and gambling habit, it is scarcely necessary
further to discuss the economic value of this training in sports
and in factional organization and activity.
But all these features of the scheme of life of the learned
class, and of the establishments dedicated to the conservation of
the higher learning, are in a great measure incidental only. They
are scarcely to be accounted organic elements of the professed
work of research and instruction for the ostensible pursuit of
which the schools exists. But these symptomatic indications go to
establish a presumption as to the character of the work performed
-- as seen from the economic point of view -- and as to the bent
which the serious work carried on under their auspices gives to
the youth who resort to the schools.
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