p. 16 | And Now Ann Arbor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 30, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 26.

And Now Ann Arbor.

The Voice is still waging its earnest and brave warfare against the great institutions of learning which are manufacturing drunkards. It should have the sympathy of all parents who are educating their sons in any of these great centers of influence. The Voice of June 9 tells us (1) that there is a healthy temperance sentiment in Ann Arbor, there being an anti-saloon league numbering more than 500 undergraduate students, with a number of the younger members of the faculty; and (2) that in the secret fraternities unblushing iniquity is carried on. In the words of the report: “All that is foul in the dark side of college life here is represented in the secret fraternities. All but two or three of the chapter houses bear a most disreputable reputation. Some are commonly classed as houses of assignation, pure and simple. Many of them have telephones, which are used in making appointments with loose women around the city. The chapter houses are located in various parts of the city, off university property, and are completely ignored by the faculty, unless the boys are caught by the police in some of their drunken scrapes.” Many of the professors, especially the leading ones, are indifferent. And yet it is said that Ann Arbor is superior to Yale, Princeton, and Cornell. These are big, sad blots on our boasted civilization, to say nothing of Christianity.