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

IOTHE HISTORY OF PHI DELTA THETA.etc.-—and on various matters of semi-confidential character relativeto the Society." A handbook and catalogue of $ B K, issuedby Dr. Parsons, 1900, shows that then there were fifty chapters(including one established at Vassar, 1898) and nearly 11,000living members. According to "American College Fraternities,"the total membership in i8g8 was 19,334, living and dead.THE INTER-COLLEGIATE FRATERNITY SYSTEM.PHI BETA KAPPAAbout the middle of the eighteenthcentury, students at Yale, Harvardand Princeton began to form associations,which were intended mainlyfor intellectual improvement. Literarysocieties or debating clubs becamecommon in all American colleges.Most of them had a secretcharacter, more,, or less. Usuallytwo were organized at each institution,and they divided between themthe entire body of students. Theyflourished in eastern colleges untilKAPPA AI.E-HA.(Northern.)about the middle of the nineteenth century, when their popularitywaned, as the Greek-letter fraternities became more widely extendedand more firmly established. In western and southern collegesliterary societies continued to flourish until a later time, and theystill have considerable prominence in the South.** The earliest society the record of which has been preserved was the Crotonian Society ofYale, which had a brief existance, and made way for Linonia, tbe oldest permanent society, and theBrothers in Unity (1868). Contemporaneous with Crotonia and Linonia at Yale were the Plain-Dealing and Well-Meaning Clubs of Princeton. A fierce rivalry, involving the interchange ofscurrilous pamphlets, led to their suppression by the faculty. A year after this action, were foundedthe American Whig and Cliosophic Societies, the most venerable and powerful of college debatingclubs in America, and the only organizations of this early period which still survive in their originalcapacity. During the middle decades ol the eighteenth centurj', the Harvard faculty took particularpains to improve the public speaking of the students, a move which led to the formation ofspeaking clubs. The Calabogus Club was organized as early as 1758, the Whitefield Club in 1759.We are left to conjecture the programmes of these early societies. The Institute of 1770, the mostfamous of the debating clubs of Harvard was founded by John Phillips, John Warren and othermembers of the class of 1771It was the wave of political interest produced by the Revolution which made the debatingsociety for fifty years the strongest force in American student lifeWhile secrecy ofmeetings was a recognized principle with all the early literary societies, this feature was a distinctlyminor one. The same may be said of initiation ceremonies; they were merely incidental andwithout special significance. Many of the societies adopted badges, colors and mottoes. . , : .Another form of society activity was thp society libraries, which were frequently valuable supplements to the regular college library, which was likely to be weighed down with theological andLatin tomes' "Another important element was the rivalry between the two sociedes which divided studentinterest. They competed in the selection of members, in the size of their libraries, and in the distributionof college honors. The feeling was usually one of bitter antagonism and jealously. Attemptsmade at Amherst and elsewhere to combine the work of the two societies into one harmonious wholeuniformly failed. When only one society had been formed, it invariably split in two rival factionsas soon as numbers permitted. The bitterest hostility occurred at the beginning of the year in thestiuggle for new men. At Yale a systematic campaign was undertaken; runners were sent to thepreparatory schools to pledge sub-freshmen; committees of students haunted the trains, the NewHaven depot and the hotels, in search of new students. The campaign culminated in the 'statementof facts', a public meeting in which the orators from each society extolled the virtues andeulogized the departed heroes of their own organization, while pouring contempt and ridicule ontheir opponents. At Amherst on such occasions the whole college became the scene of exasperatingstrife; study was encroached upon, and personal hostilities were excited which did not die away