Phi Beta Kappa

Phi Beta Kappa, by far the oldest of the American college Greek letter societies, takes its name from the initial letters of its motto, said to be Φιλοσοφία Βλου Κυβερνήτης—'Philosophy is the guide of life.' The society, 'founded on literary principles,' and intended to embrace the 'wise and virtuous of every degree and of whatever country,' was an outcome of the desire for national union, and sprang into being in the somewhat chaotic period when the old colonies had become states, but had not yet adopted a federal constitution. It was founded in 1776 (the same year as the Illuminati, q.v.), in the old 'Raleigh Tavern' at Williamsburgh, Virginia, by forty-four undergraduates of William and Mary College, of whom John Marshall was one. Branches were established at Yale in 1780 and at Harvard in 1781; and to-day there are nearly a score in the principal colleges and universities of the Union. The Phi Beta Kappa is now simply 'an agreeable bond of meeting among graduates;' since 1831 its innocent mysteries have been open secrets. At Harvard there is an annual Phi Beta Kappa dinner, oration, and poem; the earliest and one of the most striking of Edward Everett's great orations was delivered before the society, with Lafayette for a guest, in 1824; and among the poets may be mentioned R. T. Paine ('The Ruling Passion,' which brought him $1200 on its publication in 1797) and Oliver Wendell Holmes (1829).—In colleges where the first third of a graduating class are admitted to Phi Beta Kappa there is a burlesque of the society, the Kappa Beta Phi, for the consolation of the third at the other end of the class, generally in the order of demerit, the winner of the Wooden Spoon (q.v.) ranking first. See an interesting paper by Dr E. E. Hale, in the Atlantic Monthly (July 1879).