THE SIGMA CHI QUARTERLY VOL. XXXVI NOVEMBER 1916 Event and Comment No. I It has been our custom following Grand Chapter and Grand Council meetings to felicitate the Fraternity on the continued interest of so many mature and busy men in its affairs, but Brother Stokes, our new executive secretary, states the thing so much better in the last paragraph of his account of the meeting that we are depriving him of its use as a parting shot and lifting it bodily to this department: Grand Council "Above all else the Grand Council symbolizes the solidarity of the Fraternity. It is a manifestation of keen interest, indeed, and the magnetism of friendship raised to the nth power that draws men of mature age and experience to our very gates. It is akin to the spirit that Pericles roused in the old Greeks when he built his city on a hill, and when Phidias carved, and Pindar sang. It is akin to the spirit that prompted those same Greeks to give in times of peace what most are willing to give only in the delirium of warthemselves. So long as the Grand Council meets we are in the line of evolution-imbued with that fine sense of fellowship which Maeterlinck, the Belgian, calls the 'Spirit of the Hive.'" In an obscure place in the minutes appears the statement that the Endowment Trust Agreement is ratified and the Hibernian Banking Association named as trustee. Translated into terms of progress, this means that the latest step in the financing of the Fraternity is now a practical reality rather than a mere concept. The Fraternity is now ready to proceed with assurance and intelligence to point out to men of means this new, safe, and worthy opportunity for helpful giving. "If I had never heard of a college fraternity I should be enthusiastic about the Scholarship Endowment Fund," said Grand Trustee Joseph T. Miller to us the morning after the last Tri-Province Convention, in New York. In our own humble way we are interested in the Student Aid Fund; and so it goes. If we are to believe the convictions of John G. Bowman, Alpha Eta 1899, it is comparatively easy to strike a responsive chord in the ideals of any prospective donor if you have a really worth-while purpose for his money to accomplish and know how to tell him about it. We shall therefore expect to be able to announce important material progress in an early issue. ¶“We are glad to announce that the Sigs in the law school cleaned up in scholarship. Dave Cannon took the highest award in the Junior class, and Gerald Weikert took the highest in the Freshman class. The general average of the Sigs in the law school was 77.95, the non-fraternity average was 72.67, the fraternity average 71.48, and the second highest fraternity, 74.67."-Epsilon Chapter letter. St. Louis' Although nothing new has come to the editorial desk from the field of action in St. Louis, we must admit that we are not worrying about the kind of a time we are going to have at the Grand Chapter next June. "That man Henning," as the Nashville boys call him in their letter in this issue, has the faculty of leaving us absolutely unconcerned as to the details of the entertainment. We have a feeling that if we do not care for what he puts up (and we can say "he" without offending anyone in St. Louis), there is something the matter with our taste. We therefore again urge young alumni to arrange their vacations to fall at the time of the Grand Chapter. By the February Quarterly the definite dates will be announced, and, we hope, some good press-agent's convincing details. "Not only have we been at the head of the list in scholarship What do you do with your old Quarterlies? We venture to say that the larger part of them find their way into the wastebasket, Uses which is in every way of looking at the question the most undesirable thing to do when the country is facing a paper famine and old magazines sell for thirty-five cents or more per hundred-weight. A little bit better than this would be to save and bind each volume of four numbers and thus compile a library of contemporary Sigma Chi history. But for fear of being thought conceited we shall no more than suggest this plan as a possibility. But we have two real thoughts on the subject: If you are an alumnus, wrap this issue up when you have finished reading it and send it by parcel post to some Sig friend who has not subscribed. He will appreciate your thoughtfulness, and he may "obey that impulse," as the advertising manager of Life urges us to do; in which case you and he and the Fraternity will all profit. If you are an active man, why not organize a fraternity-magazine clearing-house at college, so that each local chapter will have a copy of the magazines of each other's fraternity represented there? This could most easily be done by the local inter-fraternity conference, but in the absence of a conference could be taken care of by an interested individual. The fruits of this arrangement would be large in inter-fraternity comity, and would tend to reduce exaggerated statements in the chapter letters from your college in every magazine represented. If you are able to try out any of these plans, please let us know the result. Our address is 740 East Forty-first St., Chicago. Zeta, Mu, Delta Delta, and Mu Mu Chapters stood second among the fraternities in their colleges during the last semester of last year, Xi and Alpha Lambda stood third, the latter with an average of 82. Associate editors may note that in this and the last number the inevitable last sentence welcoming the wandering Sig to the chapter house has been ruthlessly stricken out. By so doing we saved the astonishing total of three pages of printed text, which more than paid for the engravings in the pictorial supplement in this issue. Down in the left-hand About Your corner of our suspecter a thought has been growing that this sentence of invitation had more value as a test of originality in expression than in any increase in the number of transient visitors. We are inclined to believe that any Sig who would fail to visit a chapter on his own initiative would continue to stay away, no matter how warmly the last sentence might bid him come. If not, such brothers are hereby expressly invited to visit every active chapter of the Fraternity that they can by any possibility reach. Now don't say you weren't asked. While we are on this subject, one invitation deserves special attention: that of Epsilon to attend the Washington inaugurationweek festivities as their guests. This has a real appeal for us, but up to the present we have not figured out an adequate excuse for the trip. The active boys doubtless would make the visit a memorable one, as they are all secretaries to various lawmakers and therefore onto the ropes. We had rather hoped to see the Tri-Province Convention announced for that time, but in vain. "It might well be mentioned here that 'Bat' Hanisch, who is playing varsity football this year, ranked third highest scholastically in the university last year."-Omicron Omicron Chapter letter. Tri- As we go to press we learn that the 1917 Tri-Province Convention of the First, Second, and Ninth Provinces, to occur in Washington, D.C., has been set definitely for March 30 and 31 next. We speak of our own knowledge when we recommend attendance to all Sigma Chis who can arrange to have the firm send them to Washington on business at that time. Many in the East will be unable in all probability to make the Grand Chapter in St. Louis in June, and to those the many similar features of the Tri-Province meeting are suggested as a ' pleasurable substitute. In the interim before the next Quarterly information as to the details may be obtained from Grand Praetor E. R. Wilson, 1218 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, to whom we are indebted for the exact dates. "Sigma Chi has been awarded the inter-fraternity scholarship cup for the past semester."-Beta Kappa Chapter letter. Benjamin Piatt Runkle A Founder of the Sigma Chi Fraternity JOSEPH C. NATE Past Grand Consul, Alpha Iota 1890 ́O MESSAGE will ever come to Sigma Chi which will touch hearts and memories as did the words which passed among us following June 28, last, "General Runkle is dead." The day was the sixty-first anniversary of the founding of the Fraternity. Benjamin Piatt Runkle was in many respects the leader of that group of seven college boys who founded Sigma Chi at Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, in 1855. Through a long and eventful lifetime his devotion to the Fraternity continued deep, constant, and influential. It is not the purpose of these paragraphs to attempt to relate in any adequate degree the remarkable career of General Runkle, or his life-long activities in the Fraternity of which he was a founder. It may be suggested that these recitals might well become the subject of careful study by some qualified commission among us, to be published in serial form in some early volume of the Quarterly and to become a permanent literary possession of the Fraternity. Doubtless what we now most desire, in addition to some due reminders of the high relations of this great life and character, is the statement of the matters of those closing days at Hillsboro, the public services which followed, and the tributes of love, honor, and respect which were paid until the final taps were sounded above the soldier grave at Arlington. No one ever met General Runkle without being impressed with the striking personality, the stalwart, erect figure, the fine, expressive face, the soldierly bearing, and the sterling character of the man. On the side both of the father and of the mother there was a distinguished lineage, going back to French and German sources, and |