Читать книгу A History of The Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta, 1837–1970 - William B.B. Moody - Страница 11

Eric North and Paul North Rice turned to Professor Morris Barker Crawford (1874) to draft the history of the 1870s. His is a more personal account, since he lived what he was writing. He contributed much to the writing of the history of the early years and was described by the joint authors as knowing more about the history of the fraternity than any other person living at the time that they were drafting the history, just prior to the Centennial celebration of 1937. He knew many of the founders and lived until 1940.

At the beginning of the 1870s, meetings of the Society were held in the building belonging to Meech & Stoddard on Main Street (which was torn down in 1929, to be replaced by a building for the W. T. Grant Company at 404 Main Street). According to the 1908 Catalogue, Eclectics moved into this building on Main Street in 1853, but the Catalogue appears to have been in error, for the minutes of the Society show that the Society occupied these rooms only from August 5, 1856. They left them to occupy the first clubhouse on College Place (later Wesleyan Place) in 1882.

According to records and photos, the Meech & Stoddard spaces (1856–82) comprised three rooms on the second floor of the building: a large front room where the regular meetings were held; a “good-sized” room at the rear, which was used for suppers and miscellaneous purposes; and a “fair-sized” room in between, into which opened the entrance door at the head of two flights of narrow stairs. This middle room served as a coat room, assembly room for initiates just before their initiation ceremony, charades play room, room for extra tables for supper at annual meetings, and so on. Discussion of the possibility of an Eclectic House must have begun by the beginning of the 1870s, for the Socratic Literary Society (“the Socrats” or “SLS”) was formally chartered by Act of the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut on July 5, 1870. The alumni arm of Eclectic was formed to support the broad goals of the Fraternity, but more particularly to provide a means to acquire real property and build endowment funds. The incorporators were Brothers John M. Van Vleck (1850), George G. Reynolds (1841), Gilbert Haven (1846), William N. Rice (1865), Stephen H. Olin (1866), and Rhys B. Gwillim (1866).¹ The first Annual Meeting of the Socrats was held on July 17, 1872, and the custom existed from the beginning of electing all living members of the rising senior delegation to membership in the Socratic Literary Society.

The program of the regular meetings of Eclectic during the decade following 1870 was, except as noted below, much the same as it was when Professor Crawford wrote his description in the mid-1930s. Literary exercises consisted of two analyses of essays, two essays, and two criticisms of essays. Time was then allowed for criticism from any member present who felt so moved. An “extemporaneous review” of some article or book took the place of the so-called “special topic” of later days. Also usually included in regular meetings through the 1870s were two “declamations,” a popular pastime and academic exercise of the day. Once a month, these regular exercises were replaced by a debate for which the question of debate and four debaters were appointed in advance. Following the formal debate, the question was thrown open to the floor, and the resulting discussions often became quite animated.

At that time the meetings were held on Friday evenings. As Professor Crawford phrased it, there was only one “appointment” for each college class on Saturday morning, and it was either a lecture or something which involved a minimum of preparation on the students’ part. There was therefore no pressure of college work to interfere with attendance at the fraternity meeting or with prolonging the meetings, as the members might choose. Nor was there any such itch to get away over the weekend then, as the days of the automobile were still to come. Professor Crawford commented, however, that faithful attendance at the meetings and punctual fulfillment of appointments were more successfully maintained in the 1930s than in his years in college sixty years before.

After the regular meetings, many brothers remained to sing or otherwise amuse themselves. George Ingraham (1871), son of Richard Ingraham (1842), was a fine musician with an exceptionally good voice. Squeezing the best accompaniment he could out of an old melodion, which was part of the modest furnishings, he used to lead the assembled in rousing songs. Later, James Nixon (1875), with a powerful tenor voice, became the song leader. One of the most popular songs that he introduced was “The Patriotic Glee.” The fraternity song “With Joyful Songs We Come” was set to this tune for the Quadrennial of 1875. Professor Crawford modestly omitted to state that he was the author of the words to this song, still popular with Eclectics in the 1950s. In the 1870s, there were practically no college songs. Professor Calvin S. Harrington’s “Beside a Noble River’s Tide” was in the old Carmina Collegensia (as well as in The Wesleyan Song Book of 1953) but was almost never sung. There were relatively few fraternity songs, and even those that existed—like S. H. Olin’s (1866) “There’s a Temple Grander, Lovelier,” Professor William North Rice’s (1865) “Phi Nu Theta Floreat,” and Edward H. Rice’s (1870) “’Tis Pleasant to Clasp the Warm Hand of a Brother”—were not sung with the frequency they were later. C. F. Rice’s (1872) “Greeting from our Mystic Union” was as appropriate in the 1870s as it was later,² but it was not the custom to sing it to welcome Eclectic’s “last adopted sons” in those earlier days. Surprisingly, there was no systematic effort to teach the freshman delegation fraternity songs.

Besides singing, the undergraduates would often amuse themselves with impromptu charades; on occasion, they would dance the Virginia reel. Professor Crawford commented that these terpsichorean enterprises were “much more merry than artistic.”

Annual meetings were far smaller affairs than in later years, since there were fewer than thirty undergraduates and also fewer returning alumni. Refreshments served were far less elaborate, and the venue was usually confined to the rear room mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, with some expansion into the middle room, if necessary.

It is interesting to read in Professor Crawford’s cover letter forwarding his draft of the Fraternity’s history in the 1870s the following comment: “As to the later seventies, I am quite sure that I am correct as to the general fact that Eclectic slipped back from its best standards during that period.” In supporting this assertion, he cites the fact that only one Eclectic was elected to Phi Beta Kappa from the class of 1880, and in the manuscript he points out the declining percentage of Eclectics elected to the prestigious scholastic honorary society—from 65 percent in the first five years to 42 percent in the second half of the decade. Professor Crawford had to admit that, during the latter half of the 1870s, Psi Upsilon, always Eclectic’s rival, shone brighter.