The Greek Letter Societies of the American Universities are secret organizations of brotherhoods, who form these brotherhoods for literary and social purposes. The oldest of these organizations, the Phi Beta Kappa, was established as early as 1776, and it continued the sole society of its kind for fifty years. It now differs from all other college fraternities and occupies a unique place of its own. Its members are selected at the close of their under-graduate course, and are chosen solely on grounds of scholarship. Membership in one fraternity is ordinarily a bar to membership in another, although this is not the case in the Phi Beta Kappa.
The large place these organizations have come to occupy in the American universities can be inferred from the fact that there are now more than 800 "chapters" of these societies in our colleges and that their total membership, including their alumni, is more than 100,000.
In Germany and American students' societies form an important feature of university life. These organizations influence in no small degree the daily life of their members. They largely determine the social intercourse of students, give rise to lasting friendships, regulate conduct, shape ideals and aspirations, and influence views and habits.
We have in our American universities nothing that answers to the Corps and Burschenschaften of the German universities. The Corps are said to be recruited entirely from the wealthy and aristocratic classes, and to attach great importance to the externals of manners and expenditures, and to be characterized by a strong tendency to an aristocratic aloofness from the great mass of the students.
They are the elite of the student body. When they appear together on formal occasions they carry swords and wear a distinguishing dress. They are composed in the main of students enrolled under the faculty of law, and in less degree from those enrolled under the faculty of medicine. The Burschenschaften are said to make less of social distinctions, to be less exclusive and to have a greater number of representatives of the different faculties.
There is no element of secrecy about the Corps of the German universities. Their statutes of organization and by-laws have to be submitted to the university authorities for approval. The Corps-Kneipe is a club room rather than a "lodge," and outsiders are often invited to the meetings. A corps has no "chapters" as our American college societies have. It has no existence outside its own university. Its meetings are held twice a week, while the American college society meets once a week. The Corps students are duelists and each Corps has its Fecht-boden or fencing room, where its members meet every day for practice among themselves.
There also exist in the German universities the Verbindungen, which are mere social clubs. These also are independent organizations having no "chapters." Their fellowship is less close and exclusive than that of the Corps or of the Burschenschaften.
In the English and Scotch universities there seems to be nothing which at all resembles the college fraternities of the United States. Their societies are not secret and answer to the open literary societies of the American universities.
In the college fraternities of the United States membership is usually indicated by gold badges, which contain the name and some of the symbols of the fraternity. Sometimes they are set in diamonds and precious stones, and are quite costly. In the German universities the societies are distinguished by "color-wearing." They wear distinctive caps of a particular color, or some color emblem attached to their dress.
In the United States it has become quite the practice for the students of a particular fraternity to reside together during their college course in their chapter house. A few years ago there were said to be seventy such houses in the United States which were owned by the chapters, and three times as many which were rented. There are decided advantages in this practice, as well as some dangers that need to be guarded against. The members of a chapter thus living together learn day by day what has been called the great art of governing themselves. In Germany it is said that there are no laws in the world which are more scrupulously obeyed and more strictly upheld than the laws which the students' societies impose upon themselves. As a rule the fraternity houses in the United States are well conducted. Severe rules are established, which prohibit students from having intoxicating liquors inside these houses, and which forbid any intimate relations with their society, and are keen observers of the manner in which the under-graduates deport themselves.
Years ago, when the people were stirred to a high state of excitement against secret societies, chiefly due to their indignation with Masonry, some of the universities undertook to suppress college fraternities. The attempt led to much bad feeling and was finally abandoned. As early as 1789, however eight years after Phi Beta Kappa was established at Harvard, and long before the anti-masonic agitation, a committee of the Overseers reported to the board "that there is an institution in the university with the nature of which the government is not acquainted, which tends to make a discrimination among the students," and submitted the propriety of inquiring into its nature and design. The chairman of that committee was the John Hancock whose signature to the Declaration of Independence has made him immortal! In 1831 the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was induced, "after a long and angry discussion," participated in by Judge Story and John Quincy Adams, to throw open the secrets of that organization to the world. This society is said to constitute a kind of aristocracy of learning in a democratic country. Its name in full is, translated, Philosophy, the Guide of Life. A distinguished Harvard professor has said that this "is the only society whose right to examine the condition of our scholarship is unquestioned." All other Greek Letter societies in our colleges are secret organizations, with the exception of the Delta Upsilon, which is non-secret.
Various judgments have been pronounced upon the value of college fraternities. They have been denounced by not a few on the ground that they lead to a neglect of study and to a waste of time; that they involve considerable expense and develop habits of extravagant expenditure; that they inculcate false social standards and tend to a supercilious contempt of non-fraternity men; that they lead to dissipation and vice. On the other hand, we are told that these organizations are helpful and wholesome; that they have high ideals and hold in check evil tendencies; that the esprit de corps by which they are characterized exerts an excellent influence; that they tend to develop a pride of scholarship by requiring their members to complete their studies creditably, if for no other motive, then, for the sake of the society's reputation and standing; that they are organized for the intellectual and moral and social improvement of their members.
The truth of the matter is that societies differ just as individuals differ. There are college fraternities whose influence is not altogether wholesome, and from which a student had better keep aloof. There are also fraternities which are in a high degree in every way helpful, and to which it is an honor for any man to belong. If this were not the case, it would be quite impossible to understand the respect and affection with which mature men of the highest type, men like George William Curtis and Joseph H. Choate, have been wont to speak of their college fraternity. It would be still less possible to comprehend why such men should consent to have their sons initiated into the same society if its influences made for evil and not good. Generalizations are always dangerous. We are not to condemn college societies because some of them may be not altogether what they should be. For the same reason we should not commend them without reservation because some of them may be most wholesome and helpful. It is as necessary to discriminate between societies as it is between individuals. A student proposing to enter a college fraternity should study its membership and determine whether the men who compose it are the manner of men he wants for friends. This much, however, should in all fairness be said: No college fraternity can be wholly bad and long exist in any reputable university. It is the duty of college authorities to weed out bad men. Men who abandon themselves to dissipation and to a neglect of work, when they are found out, as sooner or later they are pretty sure to be, are set adrift. And a society composed of men inclined to dissipation would be under the necessity of reforming itself before it became very bad, or it would be liable to be suppressed by action of the proper authorities.
The fact that the universities permit these organizations to exist affords strong presumption that they are favorably regarded, and that as a class their influence is for good rather than evil. Princeton is the only institution of any particular prominence in the country in which fraternities are prohibited, and there is no reason to believe that the morale of the student body is any higher there than in the institutions in which a contrary policy is pursued. Indeed it would not be difficult to show by the utterances of numerous college presidents that these organizations on the whole simplify college government and are an aid to administrative officers in the influences which they bring to bear in favor of correct living.