Men and Days m Phi Beta Kappa 6 ?o- €mM)X Mmtx%\% ^itotg THE GIFT OF /4.;l4oX3.4 , ^'ijm.joX. 6896-3 ^ --»■- \ • s (l \ Pi ■ini M ^^^'^ PATF DUf MAR 41^44 STORAGE C . § \■-&^ lfli4 ^< o ce^v K Cornell University Library LJ85.P25 C78 olin 3 1924 030 642 676 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030642676 MEN AND DAYS IN PHI BETA KAPPA WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED FOR THE New York Kappa Chapter OF Phi Beta Kappa OF Syracuse University BY REV. ARTHUR COPELAND, D. D. President of the New York Kappa, 1903-05 " Thou •wert as some lone star, luhose light did shine On some frail bark in Winter's midnight roar: Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood Above the blind and battling multitude." — Percy Bysshe Shelley H. The Du Bois Press Newark, New York 1907 All rights reserved by the Author. THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO HIS FRIEND AND FORMER TEACHER FRANK SMALLEY, Ph. D. CULTURED, CAPABLE, COMPANIONABLE DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY BY THE AUTHOR " Atticus ita vixit, ut Atheniensibus esset cariasimua." — Cornelius Nepos CONTENTS PARTI The Fraternity at Large PAGE Preface 7 In Old Virginia 13 Phi Beta Kappa Beginnings 19 A Wider Door 25 Passing Through the Fire 29 Our Debt to Elisha Parmelie 33 Planning to Grow 37 The New Era 39 Our Badge and Symbols 42 " Mother Union " 46 Some Later Greek Letter Fraternities . 48 College Women Honored S3 Phi Beta Kappa Orators and Poets . . 57 The United Chapters and the Council . 61 Roll of Honor 67 Our Standards and the Professions . . 74 Some Contemporary Impressions .... 80 Of Times and Customs 87 Initiatory Rites 92 Roll of Chapters 95 A Specimen Day 100 Does It Pay? 106 PARTH The Kappa of New York " Where the Vale of Onondaga " ... 113 Chapter Necrology 118 With the Alumni 121 Some Works and Aims 132 Under the Emblem 135 ADDENDA The Constitution and By-Laws .... 138 ^retace " " But human bodies are sic fools, For a' their colleges and schools, That when nae real ills perplex them. They make enow themsels to vex them." ROBERT BURNS, " The Twa Dogs." BY THE request of the Kappa Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, at Syracuse University, the author has written and published the follow- ing pages. He claims nothing original in the mat- ter over others who have entered the same field. With them he has been " a borrower of the night," though perhaps with them entitled, in some small degree, to the credit, which Samuel Taylor Cole- ridge names, of "that usurious interest which genius pays in borrowing." He has used freely the valuable material gathered by Rev. E. B. Parsons, D. D., in The Phi Beta Kappa Handbook, and of Oscar M. Voorhees, in his excellent historical sketch in The Catalogue of the Alpha of New Jersey, and of another, The Greek Letter Societies, by Albert P. Jacobs. He is a debtor also to the interesting pages of Lossing, and to various magazine and peri- odical writers. [7] The author's thanks are due also to Mr. John Edmond DuBois, Ph. B., of The DuBois Press, Newark, N. Y., for his suggestions and for his aid in proof-reading; also to Mr. Burton H. Avery of Newark, Linotype Operator, for reading and setting in t)rpe the author's manuscript. All is written with the hope of awakening new in- terest in the Fraternity by giving a wider circula- tion of the facts concerning its earlier days and annals. P. 5".— The firm of R. J. F. Roehm & Company, Fraternity Jewelers, of Detroit, Mich., to whose kindness we owe the cuts of the keys published in this volume, furnish, on application, a price list and description of keys made of the best quality and highest finish. We recommend this firm to any thinking to make such a purchase. Newark, New York, 1907. [8] "My idea of American nationality makes it the last best growth of the thoughtful mind of the century, tread- ing under foot sex and race, caste and condition, and collecting on the broad bosom of what deserves the name of an Empire, under the shelter of noble, just, and equal laws, all races, all cus- toms, all religions, all languages, all literature, and all ideas." — Wendell Phillips, Boston, Oct. 4, 1859. [9] PART I The Fraternity at Large 3n 0}^ "Virginia " The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition: but at an epoch when the rights of mankind were better under- stood and more clearly defined, than at any former period." WASHINGTON. ON a peninsula, midway between the Rivers James and York, in Virginia, forty-eight miles south and east of Richmond, lies the thriving town of Williamsburg. The charm of leg- end and history combine to make it one of the inter- esting places of America, and connected with some of the niost important events in our country's his- tory. In Powell's Historic Towns of the Southern States it has a no mean place, and the historians of the Revolutionary War and of the Peninsula Cam- paign of the Civil Conflict, find in its quaint streets and on its wharves, and in its surrounding territory, much to remember and commemorate. Some future novelist will choose it as the center of a story of sur- passing interest, like some of those woven into the [13] MEN AND DAYS chapters of Hawthorne's mystic page, and so assist to familiarize it in the annals of our National life and progress. Settled in 1632, and known as the Middle Plan- tations until 1699, when it supplanted Jamestown as the capital of Virginia, it obtained a city char- ter in 1722, the oldest in the State, and until 1779 it continued to be the foremost town of " The Old Dominion," until in that year the capital was re- moved to Richmond. It was at Williamsburg that Washington first ap- peared on the theatre of public action, when at the age of twenty-one, he was summoned by Governor Dinwiddle to come to the capital city, which he did late in October of 1753, there meeting the Governor, described as " a bald-headed Scotchman of sixty- three years." They conferred together in a room in the old Williamsburg State House, and there Washington received his first State commission, which was to proceed through the wilderness, at imminent peril, to a point in the Ohio Valley and convey a letter to the French Commander, St. Pierre, inquiring by what authority French troops had presumed to intrude upon the territory of the British. It was the reply to that letter, personally brought by young Washington, which led to the opening act and public declaration of The French and Indian War ( 1754-1760) , which saved the Con- tinent to Anglo-Saxon supremacy. [14] IN PHI BETA KAPPA It was here also, in 1765, that Patrick Henry of- fered his resolution against the Stamp Act, and de- livered the famous speech in which he glorified the assassins of Caesar and Charles the First as public benefactors, and sounded that first sharp note of open war against the British Crown in defense of human rights and American liberties. Aroimd this town, a little after, surged the con- tending forces of the Revolutionary War. At a later date in her streets was opened the first serious engagement, May 5, 1862, of the Peninsula Cam- paign, between the heroic Sumner and his Confed- erate opponent, Magruder — Hooker and Hancock participating in the all-day fight, with a Federal loss of 2,280 men, and 1,560, as reported by Longstreet, among the Confederates. The visitor to its streets will be delighted to see the remains of the Bruton Parish Church, dating from 1678, and rebuilt in 1715 ; the Powder Horn building of 1714, the old Court house dating from 1769 — ^but chiefly the main feature of the city, and that which connects it with this work, the William and Mary College, the second oldest college in the United States, opened in 1693, and named after William of Orange and Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of King James, who, in 1689, were proclaimed joint monarchs of England, and with whom began the real reign of the people of that realm. Their profiles, placed on English coins of [15] MEN AND DAYS that period, are yet visible, and their prosperous and happy reign is hinted at by the famous couplet : " cooing and billing Like William and Mary on a shilling." It was in their honor that the college was named, former grants of land having been renewed, and a charter secured by Rev. James Blair, who became its first President. Blair was a man of unusual parts, a Scotchman and graduate of the University of Edinburg. He came to Virginia as a missionary in the employ of the Church of England, and event- ually held the highest ecclesiastical position in the colony, that of Commissary of Virginia. In 1690, when the whole colony had only one privately en- dowed school, and but a few field schools, he re- solved to start a college " for the education of our youth, for a constant supply of our Ministry, and perhaps a foundation for the conversion of our neighboring heathen to the Christian Faith." He widely traveled to raise money, at home and abroad, and in 1693 secured a charter. Coming back, he went about to raise funds to erect the buildings, and superintended their construction, " toiling terribly," as was said of the father of Vir- ginia, Sir Walter Raleigh. He was President of the College until his death in 1743. But this did not prevent his taking a large part in Colonial politics. It is said that he had bitter disputes with Governors [16] IN PHI BETA KAPPA Andros, Nicholson and Spotswood, and was instru- mental in securing their removal. He collaborated with Henry Hartwell and Edward Chilton in a val- uable work entitled The Present State of Virginia and the College, a book which is pronounced the best account of Virginia in the latter part of the seventeenth century. It has been said of this founder and first college president of William and Mary that he probably did more than any other man for the intellectual advancement of Virginia during the Colonial period. At the very outset, prosperity marked the career of the young institution. But the Revolutionary War wasted its income and resources, closed its class rooms for a season, filled its halls with sol- diers, at one time of the American, at another of the British forces, and so, " Where reigned Apollo, Mars, instead, held sway." But the return of peace brought back the faculty and students, and the class room work went on,, until the Civil War cloud lowered over its halls,, and Federal troops turned it into a barracks in the work of weeding out the thorns and thistles of secession and slavery, so rankly manifest in that turbulent era. Re-opened in 1869, the college was so crippled' financially that from 1881 to 1888 it was forced tO' suspend instruction, and its glory seemed a thing [17] MEN AND DAYS of the past. But Congress, appropriating it $64,000 for damages inflicted during the Civil War, and aided by State grants, it revived again, and with a student attendance of about 200, and a faculty of fifteen members and an endowment in buildings and moneys of about $250,000, it has to-day brightening skies, and ought to win the sympathy and support of all lovers of our educational history in every part of the land. On its roll of students stand some of the most distinguished men of the New World : Pe)rton Ran- dolph, President of the First Continental Congress, and Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler, Presidents of the United States — a record no other American college can, in this respect, surpass ; and as great as any of these is the name of John Mar- shall, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who discovered the American Nation in the Constitution, and outlined its future boundaries with calculations as accurate as those which define the limits and bounds of our solar system. And here, in that most memorable of all the " Years of the Modern," 1776, was established the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity. If other American colleges can glory, William and Mary can excel in glory. " Her past secure. She waits not at the crowded gates of fame. But passes in, star-crowned, elate." [18] II " Man was not made for himself alone. He was made for his country by the obligation of the social compact; he was made for the species, by the Chris- tian duties of Universal Charity; he was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his fore- fathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulses of affection for his progeny." JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Oration at Plymouth, Dec. 2, 1802. IT IS to this famous old college of William and Mary of Virginia, then, that we must go to trace the origin of Phi Beta Kappa. And from what better soil could she have come than the home of Washington? Here at Williamsburg, amid historic surround- ings and on the verge of the most important rev- olutionary wars, on December 5, 1776, was organ- ized that Society which has become the honored fraternity whose coveted key is regarded as the badge of the highest merit in the American college world. [19] MEN AND DAYS Whether its origin be owing to Trans-Atlantic models, like some of the philosophical societies of the Sorbonne, or those of Pisa and Bologna, we know not ; but that from the start it had high aims to breed a race of scholastic leaders among the thoughtful men of the " Old Thirteen " was very evident. Among the records printed in the WilUam and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine of April, 1896, is this : " On Thursday, the fifth of December, in the year of our Lord God one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six, and first of our Commonwealth, a happy spirit and resolution, of attaining the important ends of Society, entering the minds of John Heath, Thomas Smith, Richard Booker, Armst'd Smith, and John Jones, and afterwards seconded by others, prevailed and was accordingly ratified." Following this item in the record is a description of the medal of the new Society, with the Latin and Greek initials, and its index imparting a philosoph- ical design, extended to the three stars, as a part of the planetary orb ; and also the strong oath of initi- ation, with the Society's general rules of procedure. That the adoption of the three stars was significant, none can doubt who has stduied the use of this emblem, especially as at that time it was coming into prominence with our new National flag. Under this emblem, as printed in those early Minutes, came also the first rule of the new Society, [20] IN PHI BETA KAPPA most worthy of its high aim, and one which shows that true religion is ever the bride of true science, if not its source and inspiration. It was this: " That in every design or attempt, whether great or small, we ought to invoke the Deity," a rule strik- ingly like the language used in the stately ritual of another Fraternity, and one of the most powerful in the world — ^the Masonic. Thus founded upon reason and revelation did the organization begin. This College Literary Society, for such it simply was at that time, did not differ in many points from others since formed. Its meetings were held weekly, with an occasional banquet at " The Raleigh " inn, and the ideas of good fellowship as well as of intellectual development were not lacking, as the first " Minutes " show. Nor was its patriotic purpose lacking. The questions debated show that its members were not mere scholastics, im- mured " in pensive citadels " apart, but living be- ings in an era of intense political agitation. For how could it be otherwise when we reflect that in this very town where its meetings were being held, were in session, from time to time, some of the great Virginia Patriots, members of the House of Burgesses, among them the author of " The Declar- ation?" Hence, among some of the questions dis- cussed we find the following : " Whether Brutus Was Justifyable in Killing Caesar;" "Whether [21] MEN AND DAYS the Execution of Charles the First was Justify- able;" "Whether a General Assessment for the Support of Religious Establishments is Repugnant to the Principles of a Republican Government •" " The Justice of African Slavery ;" " Whether any form of Government is More Favorable to Virtue than a Commonwealth." In all these discussions there is the evidence of a living interest in the things of their present, and an educational purpose to attach the men of the college world to those of the political arena'. That these young college men should have been called to leadership in that age that tried men's souls was to be expected, and so we find it. John Heath, the first president of the Society, was in the Legislature of Virginia, when less than twenty-two years of age, and ten years later was in Congress; Archibald Stuart was member of both Hoflses of the Legislature, presidential elector and judge, and was a leading man in the South until his death; Beckley was clerk of the Convention of 1788, as afterwards he was of Congress; Bushrod Wash- ington, the favorite nephew of President Washing- ton, and the inheritor of Mount Vernon, became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and helped to mould the opinion of that distinguished body; Short, the second president of the Society, was Secretary of Legation in France when Jeffer- son was our Minister there, and afterwards became [22] IN PHI BETA KAPPA an influential diplomatist. Fifteen of these first fifty Phi Beta Kappa youngsters were in the Conti- nental Army, seventeen were in the State Legisla- ture, and most of them for several terms ; eight of them were members of the convention which ratified the Federal Constitution ; five were members of the National House of Representatives, and two of the National Senate. Nor in this list of the half-hun- dred members of the first Phi Beta Kappa, as pub- lished by President Tyler, should we pass over the names of Cabel and Clements, Fitzhugh and Hardy, and of Mason, Madison and Lee. But tow- ering above them all is the name of that man, who, by his interpretation of the Constitution, has been called the creator of the Nation — John Mar- shall — ^the great Chief Justice — ^the glory of the American bar — ranking with Solon, Papinian, D'Aguesseau and Matthew Hale in the old world, and destined to an immortality identical with the Republic whose foundation on law, as deeper than government, he made plain. [23] MEN AND DAYS "Efforts at reform by the power of action and reaction, may fluctuate; but there is an element of popular strength abroad in the world, stronger than forms and institutions, and daily growing in power. A Public Opinion of a new kind has arisen — the Opinion of the Civilized World. " Springing into existence on the shores of our own continent, it has grown with our growth, and strengthened with our strength, till now, this moral giant, like that of the ancient poet, marches along the earth, but his front is among the stars.. The course of the day does not weary, nor the darkness of the night arrest him. He grasps the pillars of the temple where Oppression sits enthroned not groping and benighted, like the strong man of old, to be crushed himself beneath the fall, but tramp- ling, in his strength, on the massive ruins." Edward Everett of Harvard, " The Scholar in Politics," on The History of Liberty, Charlestown, Mass., July 4, 1828. [24] Ill ^ Wiihtv Boor " The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, since the re-modeling of its plan, is the place where are collected together all the young men of Virginia under preparation for public life. They are there under the direction (most of them) of Mr. Wythe." THOMAS JEFFERSON, in a letter written from Paris, August 7, 1785. BUT such seed planting demands a large field for the growing and harvesting. It is evi- dent, as the records show, that Phi Beta Kappa began as an undergraduate secret literary and social society, with weekly or fortnightly de- bates, with strict regulations, and an initiation oath very binding, and with heavy fines on those who failed to meet the task of writing or speaking as assigned. There was an annual banquet at " The Raleigh," celebrating the birthday of the Society, a custom which could well be revived in every chapter. On special occasions, as when a brother sailed for Europe, there were similar gatherings, making [25] MEN AND DAYS the historic Apollo Hall melodious with song and oration. Membership, at first, was confined to col- legians who had arrived at the age of sixteen; but on December 10, 1778, it was "Resolved, That future admission to this Society be not confined to collegians." We should pause to notice this resolution as marking the liberal spirit of the Fraternity, which, at first, purposed not to become so exclusive as to shut out any whom it might deservedly honor. As Dr. Edward Everett Hale, in his essay on the Society in the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1879, en- titled, " A Fossil from the Tertiary," says : " The early correspondence of Phi ffeta Kappa shows that the young men who formed it had just such dreams of union as those fostered by clubs among the edu- cated men of Germany." Hence they planned to have issued charters for other cities and towns of the State. The new branches were to be named Beta, Gamma, Delta, and were to bear a distinct relation to the mother Alpha at William and Mary, five such branches being founded within a year, in accord with a resolution early passed, which said: " It is repugnant to the liberal principles of Socie- ties that they should be confined to any particular place, men or description of men, but that they should be extended to the wise and virtuous of every degree, and of whatever country." It was under this broadening act that John Marshall, a cap- [26] IN PHI BETA KAPPA tain of artillery, resident at Williamsburg, came into the Society, while attending law lectures at the college. Bom September 24, 1755, in Fauquier County, Virginia, he studied under a private tutor, attended an academy in Westmoreland County — and then entered the great school of the Revolutionary Army, under Washington, taking his first lesson " under fire " near Norfolk. As a captain, next he is in the New Jersey Campaign, and later in that laboratory of patient suffering and discipline, the memorable winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. And now, in 1780, he is at WilUam and Mary College. And why? Because without a command, except his own to study law, he is attracted there by the law lec- tures of the famous Chancellor George Wythe, that eminent American patriot and jurist, and Signer of the Declaration, who had been educated at Wil- liam and Mary, represented his Alma Mater in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and who drew up a remonstrance to the British Parliament against the proposed Stamp Act, and as a dele- gate to the Continental Congress became one of the most ardent and outspoken advocates for independ- ence in that body. It was this man whom we find as Professor of Law at William and Mary, from 1778 to 1789, and Chancellor in the Highest Court of Virginia, and whose character, example and abil- ity attracted from the army young Marshall to the [27] MEN AND DAYS collegiate halls at Williamsburg. And who can tell how much Phi Beta Kappa did to determine his subsequent career as a legislator, statesman and jurist? Doubtless he owed a vast debt of inspira- tion to this Fraternity, and through him the whole country is a debtor to our Society and to the liberal spirit of the founders. [28] CHIEF JUSTICE JOHiN MARSHALL IV ^asisiing Cfjrousf) tfje Jf ire " A thoroughly educated common people, with col- legiate men to be their leaders and mouthpieces, in sympathy with them, — all moving together, — is better than any society where the bottom is ignorant, and the top is educated." HENRY WARD BEECHER, at Farewell Breakfast, Manchester, England, Oct. 24, 1863. J J TT IS not known that the Virginia branches, I for whom charters were prepared, were ever established," says Mr. Oscar M. Voor- hes in his valuable Historical Sketch, published in connection with the catalogue of the Alpha Chapter of New Jersey at Rutgers. " If they were," he adds, " the progress of the Revolution proved their destruction." In fact the Revolutionay War de- stroyed, for nearly a century, the mother chapter. For, on January 3, 1781, the sinister figure of Bene- dict Arnold appears at the threshold of our history, with the British fleet, oif the Virginia coast, and college days at William and Mary were at an end [29] MEN AND DAYS for some time. On Saturday, January 6, 1781, the last meeting was held, " called for the purpose of securing the papers of the Society during the ' con- fusion of the times ' and the present dissolution which threatens the University." There were but five members present at this last meeting, and they carefully laid away the papers of the Society in a sealed box, and delivered them into the hands of the College Steward, evidently a trusty and important personage, then, as now. Not until 1849 did this box again come to light, when its contents passed into the possession of the Virginia Historical Society. They consist of twenty-five folios of rough, unsized paper, measur- ing seven and three-fourths by twelve inches. The first page, as described by Mr. Voorhes and Mr. R. A. Brock, contains a list of forty-nine members of the parent Society; the second is blank. On the third page is the preamble, and on pages four to nine the oath and by-laws are transcribed. The tenth is blank, and the minutes of the proceedings occupy pages eleven to fifty. The "Oath of Fidelity" prescribed and tried at the second meeting of the original Chapter was as follows : " I, A. B., do swear on the Holy Evangelists of Al- mighty God, or otherwise, as calling the Supreme Being to attest this my oath, declaring that I will, with all my possible efforts, endeavour to prove true, just and [30] IN PHI BETA KAPPA deeply attached, to this our growing fraternity; in keeping, holding and preserving all secrets that pertain to my duty, and for the promotion and advancement of its internal welfare." These papers were deposited with the College Steward "to remain with him until the desirable event of the Society [which] is Resurrection." The records further say, " this deposit they make in the sure and certain hope that the Fraternity will one day rise [in] life everlasting and glory immor- tal " — ^language which, while truly sophomorical and suggestive that its author was a candidate for the Ministry, has proven prophetical. The Brit- ish fleet came and sailed away, as did also the shadow of Arnold the Traitor. The sealed records were forgotten and the old College did not really revive until later. But when, in 1849, the lost records were recov- ered, it was found that Mr. William Short, the last President of the Society, and the only surviving member, was living in Philadelphia at the patri- archal age of ninety-two, and in full possession of his faculties, as a true Phi Beta Kappa man should ever be. He was communicated with. The vener- able " old grad " responded to the call most heartily. The Society was reorganized. But sad to say, its voyage, like that in its Anchisean days, was on tem- pestuous seas. Again the sound of battle was in the land, and the Civil War destroyed, for a season, [31] MEN AND DAYS the college, and the Society to which it owed its chief fame. The records went to the Virginia Historical So- ciety once more, but on the revival of the college in 1888, and of the Society in 1893, were returned, and it is confidently hoped that in this ancient and historic seat of learning this Chapter may have a new future of honor and service to men and the Republic. The Fraternity has certainly been baptized with fire, and, like the Republic with which it was born, has suffered grievous wounds, even in the house of its friends. As being a child of the Southland and an adopted one of the North, it has in it the elements of a truly National heritage. Nurtured in times of war, like the Nation, it has been marked by the spirit of the Pioneer — as described by Walt Whitman, and facing the future from its Virginia home could say: " All the pulses of the world Falling in they beat for us, with the Western move- ment beat, Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O Pioneers!" [32] V 0WC Bebt to Cligfta ^artmlie " Eminence in learning is purchased by time, watch- ing, hunger, nakedness, vertigo, indigestion and many- other inconveniences." DON QUIXOTE on "Arms and Letters." BUT although Phi Beta Kappa originated on the soil of the Cavalier, and has ever been tinged by his liberal spirit, it owes its present life and vigor chiefly to its relation with New England, to which it was early transplanted through the zeal and efforts of a Harvard graduate of 1779, Mr. Elisha Parmelie, who, it is said, had gone South for graduate work on account of his lungs. If the So- ciety had not come in contact with the bones of this modern Elisha, its resurrection and present history of renown would probably never have been a part of our National history. How, then, did Phi Beta Kappa come to pass from a Southern Society to the enjoyment of its present attainments? The answer is connected largely with the life of this son of Plymouth Rock [33] MEN AND DAYS and John Harvard — Elisha Parmelie. He it was who seems to have conceived the idea of its wider and larger growth, and who, armed with " The Code of Law " and charter, granted him by the par- ent Chapter, came to Goshen, Connecticut, his na- tive place, in April, 1780 or 1781, and there himself initiated Ezra Stiles^ Jr., Samuel Newell, Reuben Parmelie and Linde Ford into the Fraternity. These, in November of that same year (1780 or '81) went to the seat of Yale College at New Haven, and there initiated several " Bachelor Seniors and Juniors." All of this was done in accord with the directions of the parent Chapter, that Mr. Parmelie be given authority to establish Chapters at Yale and Harvard. The charter for the Harvard Chapter was granted first, the date being December 4, 1779, and that to Yale five days later. Going from New Haven to Cambridge, Mr. Par- melie conferred there with Artemus Baker, Joseph Bartlett, Seth Hastings and Samuel Kendall, of the class of 1782, and they consented to start a Chap- ter, holding their first meeting in July, 1781, though the first regular meeting was not commenced until the 5th of September following, when five more members of the class of 1782 were chosen " to be sounded for admission in Phi Beta Kappa." Here, then, on the soil of the American Cambridge, Mr. Parmelie succeeded in planting our Fraternity, a [34] IN PHI BETA KAPPA planting which has borne most noble and delectable fruit. He lived but a few years after his splendid work; and where rests his body to-day, we are not informed. But surely the Fraternity, as the last Triennial suggested, should publicly honor this founder, and at least mark the spot with a monu- ment and a public occasion that would forever leave the impress of her estimate of this her son of " Goshen," who led her out to her Canaan of en- larged privilege and prosperity. [35] VI planning to ^xo^a " All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again." ECCLESIASTES. AT first the Alpha of Virginia intended to form a close union with the new chapters, and to name the one at Harvard the Epsilon, and that at Yale, Zeta, the Beta, Gamma and Delta hav- ing been already given to the Virginia branches, which either were never started, or, like the parent Alpha, were extinguished by the Revolutionary War. These changed conditions, in the North, made for a more liberal program. The sixth clause in the charter for the Alpha of Massachusetts in- vested that Chapter " with the privileges of the Alpha in Virginia in granting charters for the estab- lishment of other Chapters, or meetings, anywhere within the State of Massachusetts Bay, which meet- ings or Chapters were to stand in the same relation to the Virginia Alpha that the junior branches of [37] MEN AND DAYS this Society stood in relation to the Alpha here." Under this law the custom obtained that lasted for a century, of allowing each Alpha to charter new branches in its own State, but requiring the consent of all the Alphas, before a charter could be granted for a Chapter, or meeting, in a new State. At this time, then, the roll of Chapters was as follows: The Alpha of Virginia (extinct), the Alpha of Massachusetts Bay, and the Alpha of Con- necticut. And so it continued to be until six years later, when another Alpha was added at Dartmouth, in New Hampshire. The application for this Chapter was made by Aaron Kinsman, of the class of 1787 of Dartmouth ; and the " foundation meeting " was held August 20, 1787, and these three Chapters formed the whole Fraternity for thirty years. It would be of intense interest to the lover of col- legiate life could that period of time be re-read in detail, from the light of our Fraternity's altar fires. But the ashes emit only a glowing ember here and there, and fact and fancy seem to sport in the half- concealing, half-revealing lights and shadows. [38] VII tE:]be i^eto €ra " Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back awhile, sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard. Nature without check with original energy." WALT WHITMAN, in " Song of Myself." WE NOW come to a period in the life of the Fraternity, the most important, to date, in its history. We refer to the time of change in its character from a senior literary society, to a graduate and honorary one, by its aboli- tion of secrecy. The " Oath of Fidelity," which we have already described, when transmitted with the Code of Laws to the New England Chapters, was accompanied with a further provision, namely, " That the Arcana of this Society be held inviolate." From the very first there seemed to be an opposition in New Eng- land to this provision, notably so at Dartmouth, where as early as 1826 all injunctions to secrecy, [39] MEN AND DAYS save as to the symbols on the medal, were volun- tarily renounced. And how did this come to pass ? The answer is largely traceable to a book on Free Masonry, published during the " Morgan craze " by a Phi Beta Kappa man, Mr. Avery Allyn, in which appears A Key to the Phi Beta Kappa. In this key he assails the Fraternity as being of " foreign manufacture," and also discloses the motto and its signification. We must remember how at this time New England was being shaken politically by the Anti-Masonic agitation, many joining in it for par- tisan ends. The cry of " Un-American " was heard, and was used against this Society, and against any like it which laid secret oaths or obligations upon its mem- bers. The cry prevailed at Harvard, where John Quincy Adams, Judge Story, and some other Phi Beta Kappa men, led in the attack; and the result was that the Chapter at Harvard, about 1831, gave up all her secrets, in obedience to public sentiment. As we read from the standpoint of these times of this furious agitation springing from the " Mor- gan Mystery," we can only smile and wonder. But to the men of that day it was a serious issue, and not without some good results. Says Dr. Hale : " All unconsciously, to the im- mediate members of the Fraternity at that time, a broadening of views and purposes now took place, that in due time brought Phi Beta Kappa from the [40] IN PHI BETA KAPPA limited range of an ordinary Greek Letter Fra- ternity into the larger ambition of a union of schol- ars." The field was then opened for the later Greek Letter Societies to enter, although the fact is true that almost one-half the Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa, now in existence, still consider themselves secret organizations. But the Senate has already decreed that it does not consider secrecy a neces- sity, and in granting new charters this condition is no longer imposed. But it is interesting to recall the controversy; and again we can see young Ed- ward Everett, when, as a delegate from the Alpha at Harvard to that at Yale, he plead with the Phi Beta Kappa men of New Haven so successfully that they were persuaded to adopt the policy of Harvard in this particular. And here we may stop for a closer study of our badge and symbols. [41] VIII 0m Pabse anb ^pmbolss " Regent of day, and all th' horizon round Invested with bright rays, jocond to run His longitude through heaven's high road." Milton's Paradise Lost, Book VII. THE Key and its symbols have a history also. At first the badge of the Society was a square silver medal, bearing on one side the letters " S. P.," the initials of the two Latin words which in the early days gave name to the Fraternity, and bearing on the other side the Greek initials of the Society watchword, which have given name to the Fraternity these later years. There have been various meanings of the letters " S. P.," as "Science and Philosophy," or " Society of Philosophers," or " Philosophical Society." On this first medal was also engraved an index finger pointing to three stars. But when the Fraternity came to New Eng- land its badge was changed, becoming a gold key, bearing the same symbols. The number of stars in the key differs according to the centre of Chapter origin. Those, for ex- [42] IN PHI BETA KAPPA ample, chartered by Union took the number of stars that indicated their distance from the Alpha. But the majority of the Chapters has now fixed upon the number seven as the symbol of perfection. The motto is 0doao