HISTORY AND IDEALS OF P. B. K. SOCIETY SKETCHED

In order that undergraduates, especially Freshmen, may understand the purposes of Phi Beta Kappa and the requirements for election to it, the following sketch of the history and ideals of the society is printed.

The Phi Beta Kappa Society was founded at William and Mary College in 1776 and is the oldest Greek letter fraternity in America. The Harvard chapter, Alpha of Massachusetts, established in 1779, comprises such men among its members as Ralph Waldo Emerson '21, James Russell Lowell '38, Charles W. Eliot '53, Le Baron Russell Briggs '75, Frederick J. Stimson '76, Abbott Lawrence Lowell '77, Theodore Roosevelt '80, Curtis Guild '81, and Gardiner Lane '81. The society endeavors to gather together those men in each class who lead in scholastic attainments, and also by the example and activity of this group of scholars to raise the intellectual tone of the whole undergraduate body. The criterion of election is always the candidates; scholarship, the ascertainment of which has come to be undertaken in accordance with a definitely formulated elective system.

Choose 40 Men From Each Class

Under the existing system about forty men are chosen from each class. At the beginning of each year the College Office sends to the active society, that is, to the eight Seniors elected as the "Junior Eight" in the previous year, the names of the twelve highest Juniors and of the forty-four highest Seniors, exclusive of those already members; from these names eight Juniors and twenty two Seniors are chosen. Thus, during the year the society is composed of thirty men from the Senior class and eight, the so-called "Junior Eight", from the Junior class. Later in the year five more Seniors may be elected; these men are those whose records for the first part of their college career may have been marred by sickness or other good causes not affecting their good character, but who have done such excellent work that their fitness for membership cannot be questioned. At the close of the Senior year the society may choose not more than five additional men who have been successful in the award of prizes and academic distinctions, and whose worth is attested to by the professors under whom they have studied.

Standard Varies Somewhat

The standard, reason of its obviously competitive basis, necessarily varies a little with the different classes; but a man who makes first group once, or second group two or three times is usually eligible for membership, that is, he will probably be on the lists banded in by the Office. He must of course be a candidate for the bachelor's degree, either A. B. or S. B.

The element of choice left to the society after the College Office has done its work, permits recognition to be accorded to the number of courses, their comparative difficulty and the progress along a general plan, in the case of each candidate.

As there have been frequent misunderstandings in the past, it is important that students be informed plainly what principles the society follows in considering each candidate's fitness. No more reliable testimony is available than the academic grades made by the student, and in fact the chief exercise of the society's right of selection is the effort to standardize the sets of grades under consideration, and in every way possible to eliminate all unfairness arising from a merely quantitative estimate of marks.

Intellectual achievement in outside activities is always given due weight, though the danger of personal bias makes this evidence less reliable. But a student's activities on extra-curriculum pursuits are not regarded as making up for deficiencies in his scholarship rating at the Office.