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A SALUTARY INFLUENCE (Sigma Chi, Phi Delta Theta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Delta Sigma Kappa, Druids). Phi Gamma Delta replaced its chapter house on the campus with a larger structure in 1926-1927. By offering sophomore, junior, and senior members the opportunity to secure room and board in their houses, these fraternities relieved the College of the need to press for new dormitories, none of which, in fact, was built between the completion of McKnight Hall in 1898 and those which came half a century later, after World War II. Instead, available funds were used to construct three urgently needed academic buildings and to complete major renovation of a fourth. Fraternity dining facilities offered severe competition for the boarding houses, clubs, and restaurants which had flourished near the campus since the College closed its dining hall in 1860. At the same time they relieved the College of the need to consider whether, in the twentieth century, it had any responsibility to its students to resume operating such a facility.301 Finally, the operation of the quasi-hotels of the fraternities required for its success the managerial (as well as the diplomatic) skills of many students and for its continuity the increasing involvement of alumni in fraternity affairs. Not only were the latter called upon to participate in making chapter policy decisions, but also they were expected to help in paying for the house and its furnishings, as well as keeping it in repair. In the 1890s President McKnight explained that the College could not then approach the church for money to help pay its building debts because it was the seminary's turn. Thirty years later, President Hanson explained that the College could not then approach the alumni with a general financial campaign because so many of them were committed to helping their fraternities pay building debts. Early in this century the social life of students was centered in the several campus organizations to which they belonged and in the more informal personal relationships which they may have established either on campus or in the community. In spite of what one might believe to the contrary, there was no dearth of opportunities for students to associate with others in ways to their liking, although the rules and regulations in force sometimes brought the freer spirits before the faculty to answer for what they had just thoroughly enjoyed doing. In June 1899 that august body met in special session to consider, in this case, something which was about to happen, the propriety of which its members questioned. The pro- 301The dining room included in Huber Hall when it was completed in 1916 was used for academy students and, beginning in 1935, by women. Major additions to its equipment made to accommodate World War II servicemen enabled the College to offer board to summer session students in 1943 and to male students as well as female, beginning in the fall of 1944. 62