1903-04 Volume 28 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

338 THE SCROLL.size of their libraries and in the distribution of college honors. The feelingwas usually one of bitter antagonism and jealousy. Attempts made at Amherstand elsewhere to combine the work of the two societies into one harmoniouswhole uniformly failed. When only one society had been formed,it invariably split in two rival factions as soon as numbers permitted. Thebitterest hostility occurred at the beginning of the year in the struggle fornew men. At Yale a systematic campaign was undertaken; runners weresent to the preparatory schools to pledge sub-freshmen; committees of studentshaunted the trains, the New Haven depot and the hotels, in search ofnew students. The campaign culminated in the "statement of facts," apublic meetmg in which the orators from each society extolled the virtuesand eulogized the departed heroes of their own organization, while pouringcontempt and ridicule on their opponents. At Amherst on such occasionsthe whole college became the scene of exasperating strife; study was encroachedupon, and personal hostilities were excited which did not die awaywith the occasion. The historians of Williams,, Dartmouth and Bowdoingive similar testimony. In some colleges the faculty interfered, and apportionednew men to the societies by some impartial method of allotment.Even this could not- put a stop to intrigue and factional fightsThe early debating society was one of the great interests of the studentworld; its meetings were eagerly anticipated, and its exercises considered tobe of much greater importance than the regular recitations of the college, abelief strengthened by the sympathetic attitude of the faculty. We have thetestimony of a hostile critic that the champions of the debating hall wereheld in greater esteem by their fellow students then the men who gained thetraditional college honors for proficiency in their studies. The athlete hadnot yet arisen as a college hero, so the orator and writer represented the idealsof the academic youthSuch a condition of affairs was not destined to endure. A new organization,appealing more directly to the interests and sentiments of youth, enteredthe field, and the debating society lost ground before it. The fraternitystruck the older association at its weakest point. About 1830 the debatingsocieties, through increase of numbers, began to be unwieldy, and in consequencea victim to factional contests. In some colleges cliques for controllingelections in the literary societies had crystalized into formal clubs beforethe appearance of the fraternities. The fraternity greatly hastened thistendency to dissolution; the debating society became the arena in which rivalfraternities or secret and non-secret societies fought for the supremacy. Theliterary exercises were neglected while rival factions struggled for the offices.The new organization became the centre of interest while the old societiesdied slowly. The process did not take place in all the colleges at the sametime. The conflict in the eastern colleges began as early as 1840, and by1870 the old societies had become merely a tradition.An account is given of the earliest Greek letter society,* B K, which was founded at William and Mary in 1776, andwhich abandoned its secret features in 1831. The authornotes that K A, founded at Union in 1825, 'was in its externalfeatures an imitation of the * B K."The opposition of college faculties to secret societies ismentioned, and details are given regarding struggles betweenfraternity men and the authorities at Purdue, California andVanderbilt, resulting in victories for the Greeks. The an-