By GEORGE STARR LASHER Among the hundreds of collegiate organizations that today are functioning throughout the higher education world, fraternities are not only the oldest, but they are the most influential and will remain so if they retain their unique character in providing those elements which have enriched the lives of their members and have made them the most effective agency in equipping their members for life in a democracy after college days are over. It is certainly desirable to analyze the fundamentals which made fraternities strong and effective, for unless there is a definite return to those fundamentals, the college fraternity as we have known it through recent decades will cease to exist. Just what are the fundamentals to which we need to return? FAMILY PATTERN. The thing which has made a college fraternity chapter different from the numerous other campus organizations is that members by oath, training, and experience become brothers in a very real sense, sharing each other's lives to a degree that always approaches and sometimes surpasses the close intimacy that exists between blood brothers. It is difficult for the individual who has never been a member of such a group to realize that men in working, planning, playing, and living together under the same roof become very close to each other and form ties that are as permanent as any outside the human family. Similar interests in their daily campus life, social activities, chapter programs and proiects, the exchange of ideas, common interest in the welfare of the agency which has brou~ht them together, the fraternity. All provide a basis for mutual understanding and the development of lonq:- enduring friendships. Another unifving influence i" the facing together of financial problems that are a part of s uo to the ide~ of fraternity soon br::.nrls a chapter. Today there is no col]eoe or university administration of fraternity school on record as being anything but friendly to existing campus chapters. That situation will not change as long as the chapter as a whole and its members prove that they have a sense of responsibility. In order to insure the continuance of that att.itude the chapter officers must give evidence that their leadership is sound, constructive, and effective. On one of THE TR IAD