1905-06 Volume 30 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

®1|^ ^rrnll nf f l|t irita ®l|?taVol. XXX FEBRUARY, 1906 No. 3THE HISTORY OF PHI DELTA THETA, 18484906,THE HISTORY OF THE PHI DELTA THETA FRATERNITY. By WalterBenjamin Palmer, Emory, '77; Vanderbilt, '80. With a foreword by JohnWolfe Lindley, Miami, '50, sole surviving founder; and an introduction byClarence LaRue Goodwin, Indianapolis, '83; Indiana, '83. Printed byGeorge Banta, Franklin, '76; Indiana, '76. Published by the Fraternity inits fifty-eighth year, 1906. 8 vc, pp. I-xxxvi, 1-930.Many of ourbest histories, critical and impartial analyses ofinstitutions and movements, are the work of authors ofanother time and alien blood. Some crises in politics, someaspects of-society, can be properly dealt with only by those farremoved from all relations that foster prejudice. A study ofthis kind, a history written thus, however, lacks certain vitalelements. The genius of Mommsen, of Curtius, of Carlyle,of Von Hoist, of Bryce may reconstruct the setting with precision,a sympathetic brush may color and shade the background,the historic imagination may even put motion andpassion into the actors that people the scene, but this lifemay be but the shadow of the real, it may miss wholly thepitch and quality and strength of the original, if the man whoputs it there be not of the chosen race, not of the native stock,not of the inspired inner circle whose plans and activitieshave crystalized into deed and fact and institution.Walter Benjamin Palmer has written the history of Phi DeltaTheta not as an outsider, as a foreigner with the student'scuriosity or the historian's ambition. He has the instinct todelve and search, the ability to weigh and measure, the gift ofimpartial judgment, the conscience which is satisfied only withproof that is full and conclusive, the industry that nothingcan slacken or discourage. But beyond and above this, hehas the understanding of the spirit of his fraternity, which onlyhis thirty and more years of devotion to it and work in it andfor it could give. ^Quorum magna pars fuit" should be writtenover his record of the trium phal progress of Phi Delta Theta.