PBK, College Honor Society, Was Social Club

Phi Betu Kappa elected eight new Juniors to membership Monday. The Harvard chapter of the national honor society has been doing this for IGS consecutive years longer than any other chapter in any other college.

High level scholastic achievement is prerequisite to membership in Phi Beta Kappa, but it takes more than ability to grind out A's like an automatic bottling machine to get the privilege of wearing a Phi Beta Kappa Key.

Three considerations go into electing an undergraduate to Phi Beta Kappa. First, he must have a high scholastic standing. Second, his intellectual accomplishments and general promise are evaluated by the candidate's tutor. Third, his overall achievement in his undergraduate days in the line of extra-curricular activities as well as in the purely academic field is weighed by a committee composed of faculty members, graduate, and undergraduate Phi Beta Kappas.

Of the three, an excellent scholastic record bears the most weight, since Phi Beta Kappa is first and foremost "recognition of intellectual capacities well employed, especially in the acquiring of an education in the liberal arts and sciences." A student has to be among the top 12 academically, in his class before Phi Beta Kappa will even deign to consider him for election in the Junior year.

The entire undergraduate membership led by an executive board, manned this year by John M. Teem '50, First Marshal, Roy F. Gootenberg '49, Secretary, and Antonic G. Haas '44, Second Marshal and graduate members including Dean Bender '27 and Assistant Dean Judson T. Shaplin '42 begin screening the elite 12 at the end of their fifth term.

"Know Tutor"

Embarrassingly often tutors have had to report that they have known their tutees about as long as it takes to scribble a signature on a study card. Men who think they have a chance to make Phi Beta Kappa "would be wise to get to know their tutors as well as possible," First Marshal Teem suggests.

If more than one undergraduate from a single academic department of the University is being considered for membership, the department is asked to rank its candidates.

Next November, Phi Beta Kappa will add an additional 16 from the senior class to its roster. In the week before each commencement, the top ten percent of the graduating class are admitted to Phi Beta Kappa.

Back in 1781

Today in 1949, Phi Beta Kappa elects about 100 men to its ranks from each class. When the Alpha Chapter of Massachusetts began at the University of Cambridge in 1781 it had six members and none of the six claimed any particular fame as scholars. Phi Beta Kappa was, as a matter of fact, the first of the social Greek letter organizations which thrive on most college campuses in the United States today.

The first Phi Beta Kappa Society came into existence December 5, 1776 at William and Mary in Virginia. It introduced all the ritual and mysticism employed by contemporary fraternities--an oath of secrecy, a badge, mottoes in Greek and Latin, a code of laws, an elaborate form of initiation, a seal, and a special hand-clasp.

Meetings, however, were devoted to debates and the reading of papers instead of to boisterous intake of alcohol. In that respect Phi Beta Kappa at its inception distinguished itself from the run of fraternities.

Cornwallis

William and Mary's chapter didn't last long, though. It dissolved with the approach of Cornwallis' British troops after four years and 67 meetings. But one Elisha Parmele, a Harvard graduate, received characters for branch chapters at Yale and Harvard before the original Phi Bota Kappa went into extinction.

Harvard got its charter five days before another charter was voted to Yale. The Yale Phi Beta Kappa, however, was an active organization ten months before the Harvard branch organized. Which of the two chapters is the older is still a meet question.

Like the mother chapter, the Harvard branch was basically a social organization. Early records describing the iniation ceremony contain much high flown language such as, "here you are to become the brother of unalionable brothers . . . everything transacted within this room is transacted sub ross, and detested is he that discloses it."

The hocus pocus of Phi Beta Kappa meetings began to fade away in the 1830's largely as a result the work of the Harvard chapter's Edward Everett, Joseph Story, and John Quincy Adams. The Harvard chapter's change in policy probably saved Phi Beta Kappa from becoming nothing more than the oldest collegiate social organization in the United States.

Phi Beta Kappa's metamorphosis to an honor society came at no particular time--it just gradually "happened" in the middle eighteen hundreds. The society of scholars settled down to an annual routine of meeting for election and initiation of new members, holding exercises in June at which scholarly orations and poems are read, and having annual dinners.

In 1883 Phi Beta Kappa Societies all over the country organized into a National Council of United Chapters so that they could combine their "talents." At this time the long defunct Maryland chapter went on the active list again.

During its 168 years the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa has never had a permanent home but has roosted in a Cambridge Unitarian church, Massachusetts Hall, Holworth, and Boylston. It still has no permanent headquarters. Currently business meetings are held in Harvard hall, dinners are served in sundry places, and literary exercises take place in Sanders Theater.

Just Elections

For the duration of World War II, Phi Beta Kappa suspended all its functions except electing new members. It remained virtually dormant since then until this year when under the leadership of Teem, Gootenberg, and Haas the membership decided Phi Beta Kappa could do more at Harvard College than twirlkeys on gold watch chains.

Mindful of being a scholarship organization, Phi Beta Kappa proceeded to try to find its place in undergraduate life. Teem who is stumping for a revitalized. Phi Beta Kappa said, "We didn't want to become just another opinion agency. Nor did we think we ought to try sponsoring forums--the Law School Forum and other are doing that quite efficiently."

Since they were all successful scholars, the Phi Beta Kappas came to the conclusion that they could play a useful and knowing role as an advising body. They hope to set up shop at the Union after the faculty has completed its briefing of the Freshmen on choosing a field of concentration. There the Phi Beta Kappas will dispense informal advice to Freshmen trying to make up their minds.

"We're closer to undergraduate work than some faculty advisers," Teem noted, "and I think we might be able to present a viewpoint different from other undergraduate advising organizations such as the Student Council.

"One of our drawbacks is that our membership doesn't cover every field of concentration but we might work in cooperation with other groups and serve as a nucleus for an undergraduate advising body."

Besides starting its advising service, Phi Beta Kappa intends to initiate a series of dinners and to revive an old custom of publishing the cream of the theses written by its members.

These theses will be chosen from among Summas and Bowdoin Prize winners. The best will be printed at the expense of Phi Beta Kappa as a prize to the author.

Each year in addition to the undergraduates Phi Beta Kappa elects several alumni whom it thinks merit recognition for scholarly achievement; about once every three years an individual outside the student body or alumni is elected to honorary membership on the same basis a alumni members.

Broad Base

Ten fields of concentration are represented in the present Phi Beta Kappa lineup of 16 men. Of the 16 eight are concentrating in the humanities and eight in the physical and natural sciences.

The Phi Beta Kappa Key, one of the last remaining supports of the pocket watch industry, has undergone some change since 1776. Originally, it was a square silver watch-key with a hand in the lower right corner pointing to three starts in the upper left corner. This symbolized ambition.

Phi beta, and kappa are the initials of a three world Grecian motto that means, "Love of wisdom the Holmsman of Life." On the reverse side of the key the name and college of the member is engraved above the letters SP which stand for Societies Philosophiae.

The modern key still has the finger pointing at the stars but the hand shows from a twentieth century sleeve, the key itself is gold, and it has grown a tail on the bottom.

Phi Beta Kapp's current membership consists of: George R. Bird '49, Nathanlel Cohen '49, Richard H. Cromwell '49, Jack Durell '49, George Elseman '49, Walter S. Frank '49, Roy F. Gootenberg '49, Charles M. Gray '49, Ralph Gross '49, Antonio G. Haas '44, David G. Hughes '47, Immanuel I. Kohn '48, Thomas F. O'Dea '50, Irwin Opponheim '49, Horbert J. Spre '50, John M. Teem '50.