College Fraternities

FRATERNITIES, COLLEGE, a variety of student organ izations peculiar to the colleges and universities of the United States and Canada, usually named from letters of the Greek alphabet ; hence frequently called "Greek latter societies." They are nominally secret, each with its individual badge, coat of arms, flag, colours, flower, motto, grip and passwords and having other common characteristics. They have a central governing body, each fraternity having branches, of which only one is established in any college, called "chapters," which are also usually designated by Greek letters, although they sometimes bear the name of the institutions where they are located. As a rule each chapter admits its new members from the lowest or freshman college class. Members cease to be active when they leave college. In a rela tively small number of institutions admission of freshmen is forbidden by college rule. In some of the large universities there are chapters of 6o or more fraternities. All of the fraternities aim to be select and to choose their members carefully from the mass of- incoming students, the "rushing," as the process of selection is called, being well organized and supervised by the older members.

The fraternities play a prominent part in American college life and have a marked influence upon their members. These join in the impressionable years of their youth ; they retain for their organizations a peculiar loyalty and affection, and contribute freely toward their advancement. At commencements and on other home-coming occasions former active members of the chapters return to the chapter-houses and help to foster the pride and loyalty of the undergraduates. The chapter-houses usually are owned by corporations made up of alumni, who provide com mittees of their own number to manage the property and to super vise and regulate scholarship, financial affairs, conduct of the undergraduate members and the relationship of the chapter to the college administration and to college affairs. This brings the undergraduates into contact with men of mature age and often of national fame, who treat their membership as a serious privi lege. Young men living together in the intimate relationship of daily contact in the same house, having much the same back ground, tastes and aspirations, naturally form among themselves enduring friendships and develop an esprit de corps leading to great pride in the achievements of members of the house in compe tition with members of similar organizations on the campus in scholarship, athletic contests or in other student activities.

Phi Beta Kappa.

The first of these fraternities was Phi Beta Kappa, founded at the College of William and Mary, Williams burg, Va., on Dec. 5, 1776. It was a social club of five students, John Heath, Richard Booker, Thomas Smith, Armistead Smith and John Jones. It had all the features which characterize the modern fraternity, a ritual with secret obligations, a motto, a grip and a badge in the form of a square silver medal displaying on one side the Greek letters of its name and on the other side the monogram SP for Societas Pcilosophica. In 1781 the College of William and Mary was closed, its buildings being occupied for military purposes in turn by British, French and American troops. The society would have ceased to exist had it not been for a grant made in 1779 to Elisha Parmele, one of its members, to establish "meetings" or chapters at Yale and Harvard. This was done, at Yale in 1780 and at Harvard in 1781. By these two. chapters were started at Dartmouth in 1787, at Union in 1817 and at Bowdoin in 1826. But in 1826 the society changed its character, becoming non-secret and purely honorary, admitting to its membership a certain proportion of the scholars of highest standing, usually in the classical courses and members of the graduating class. In 1926 this society, with over a hundred chap ters and a total membership approximating 6o,000, celebrated its sesquicentennial by presenting to the College of William and Mary an administration building containing memorial features and by raising an endowment fund of more than a quarter of a million dollars. Its golden key badge is a coveted award of Ameri can college life.

History and Growth.--In

1825, at Union college, Schenec tady, N.Y., Kappa Alpha was organized, copying many of the features of its predecessor. In the same college, in 1827, two other societies, Sigma Phi and Delta Phi were founded. In 1831 Sigma Phi established a branch in Hamilton college, and the next year Alpha Delta Phi was founded there. In 1833 Psi Upsilon was organized as the fourth fraternity at Union. That same year Alpha Delta Phi carried the idea into the West by establishing a chapter at Miami university in Ohio, and, in 1839, Beta Theta Pi, the first western fraternity, resulted. And so the system spread until in 1928 there were upwards of 7o such undergraduate societies among men students in American colleges. Two of these had more than a hundred chapters each. The ten largest, each of which in 1928 had over 7o chapters, are Kappa Sigma, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Phi Delta Theta, Sigma Nu, Alpha Tau Omega, Sigma Chi, Beta Theta Pi, Delta Tau Delta, Lambda Chi Alpha and Pi Kappa Alpha. In 1927 66 of the fraternities had 2,43o active chapters all told, with a total membership of 554937• They owned 1,576 chapter houses valued at $52,980,155, these houses for the most part being college homes affording room and board to members. In addition to these real estate holdings many of the fraternities had substantial endowment funds. Beside these chaptered fraternities for men there were in 1927 over 400 local societies acting as independent units. Some of the older of these are permanent in character, owning chapter houses and competing successfully with the fraternity chapters for members and for college honours, but the majority of them are temporary, designed to maintain an organization until the local society becomes a chapter of one of the national fraternities.

The fraternities are well organized. The usual plan includes a legislative body composed of delegates from the different chapters, and a small executive or administrative board elected by the delegates. A number of the fraternities maintain central offices with a permanent staff giving its entire time to administration.

Few of the fraternities have any judiciary. The financial methods are sound. The conventions of delegates, either annual or bi ennial, held in various parts of the country attract large numbers of members. Most of the fraternities have an inspection system by which these chapters are visited periodically and are kept up to a certain level of excellence. The fraternities publish maga zines, usually from four to eight times during the college year. The earliest of these was the Beta Theta Pi, established in 1872 and published continuously since. The older and more prosperous have published histories and most of them have song books, sheet music, handbooks and other local and ephemeral publica tions. Many of them have substantial revolving loan funds for aiding their members and trophies of permanent value which are used as awards for distinct achievement.

The alumni of the fraternities are organized into clubs or asso ciations of somewhat loose constitution having headquarters in centres of population. Some of them own and maintain fine club houses. They exert much influence upon their fraternities on occasion, and through their meetings for luncheon or dinner they keep up the interest of the members. Often they render much aid to the college chapters through recommendations of likely candidates for membership.

Satellite societies in large numbers, both for men and women students, most of them bearing Greek-letter names, attend the fraternity system. These include the professional fraternities, as in medicine, law, dentistry, pharmacy, education and agri culture. They maintain chapter-houses, hold conventions, publish magazines, have alumni associations, and in most respects function along the lines of the undergraduate societies. There are many honorary societies where membership is granted for distinction of varied sort in separate school, department, or class. There are the nationally distributed honour societies, membership in which is highly prized through life, such as Phi Beta Kappa in general scholarship, Sigma Xi in science, Tau Beta Pi in engineering, Phi Kappa Phi in general ability, the Order of the Coif in law and Alpha Omega Alpha in medicine.

There are a few colleges and universities which never have permitted fraternities to exist, this ban ordinarily resulting from fundamental religious or denominational opposition to secret societies. Curiously enough, too, while the fraternity system is practically uniform throughout the United States, at Harvard, Yale and Princeton it differs in many respects from its character elsewhere. At Harvard there are chapters of a few fraternities but their influence is small compared with that of local societies of long standing. At Yale the fraternities have chapters of the ordinary type in the engineering department (Sheffield Scientific school) ; but in the college or classical department the fraternity chapters are called "junior societies," because they limit their membership to the three upper classes and allow the juniors each year practical control of chapter affairs. Senior societies, of which the oldest is Skull and Bones, which are inter-fraternity societies admitting freely members of all the fraternities, are more influ ential at Yale than the fraternities themselves. Princeton has only local social clubs, without Greek names, and unaffiliated with organizations in other colleges.

Inter-fraternity Relations.

In earlier years the sharp rivalry among fraternity chapters fostered clannishness and led to much bitterness of feeling, but in 1909 representatives of the organizations met in New York and formed the Inter f raternity Conference, which has held annual meetings since and has had wide influence. It has secured acquaintanceship and cemented friendships among leaders of the co-operating societies, improved relationships among the fraternities, and secured common action in needed advances. It has stimulated the expansion of existing fraternities and the formation of new ones, so as to offer frater nity benefits to a larger number of students. Its influence has extended among the graduate members who have organized inter fraternity clubs in the cities, binding together in fellowship college men who have the common tie of Greek-letter society member ship. An inter-fraternity quarterly, Banta's Greek Exchange, in 1928 in its 16th volume, has been a valuable medium for the exchange of ideas and information among workers in a common field. A select library of fraternity literature, based upon the extensive collection of the late William Raimond Baird, is maintained by the New York Public library. This interfraternity movement has practically wiped out opposition to the fraternities, the sincerity of purpose of the leaders having made strong appeal to college administrators, as the common interest of college and fraternity has been emphasized in friendly conference and co operation. (For women's societies see SORORITIES.) (F. W. SH.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The standard authority on the fraternities is Baird, Bibliography.-The standard authority on the fraternities is Baird, Manual of American College Fraternities (iith ed., 1927). See also Dean Thomas Arkle Clark, The Fraternity and the College (1916) and The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1917).