e most characteristic avenue for
self-expression outside the class room. Many, if not most, of these
organizations have had only a brief existence. Others, in one form or
another, have continued through long periods, and have often exercised a
strong, though not always an obvious, influence in the whole fabric of
university life. Within the last twenty-five years, too, athletics have
come to have a predominant interest, but this aspect of student life at
Michigan will be discussed in a separate chapter. Aside from the
organizations which have accompanied this overwhelming preoccupation of
the masculine student, probably the most conspicuous evidence of the
gregarious tendencies of the undergraduate have been the fraternities,
and following the introduction of co-education, the sororities, as they
soon came to be called. After the great struggle between the Faculty and
the fraternities which culminated in 1850, the fraternities came to have
an acknowledged place in undergraduate affairs. New chapters soon
followed after the first three had made their place secure and within
thirty years or so several of the older societies had grown sufficiently
in prestige, and particularly in alumni support, to begin the practice
of owning their own fraternity houses that has now become the rule. The
first thought, nowadays, of any newly established fraternity is to find
ways and means for building or buying a chapter house.

At first, nearly two-thirds of the students were fraternity members; but
the extraordinary growth of the University soon reduced the proportion
of fraternity men. This came partly as a result of the relative slowness
of the national bodies to establish new chapters in competition with the
societies already on the ground, and partly because of the reluctance of
the fraternities themselves to increase the size of their chapters or to
take in students from the purely professional schools. For these reasons
the percentage of fraternity men was reduced to about one-third the
total number of students, a proportion which remained fairly constant
for many years. The rise of fraternities in the professional schools and
the comparatively recent establishment of many new fraternities,
however, has brought the percentage up somewhat, though the growth in
general attendance during the same period has prevented any marked
increase in the relative numbers of fraternity members over the
"independents."

Following the establishme