PHI BETA KAPPA GIVES OUT CHANGES IN BY-LAWS

With the time of election to the Phi Beta Kappa approaching, the Society has recently given out several amendments to the Constitution along with a brief history of the Society. The statement follows:

The Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest Greek letter fraternity in America, founded in 1776 at William and Mary College. The Harvard chapter is the Alpha chapter of Massachusetts and was established in 1779, three years after the organization of the fraternity. In the past such men have belonged to the chapter as Ralph Waldo Emerson '21, Charles W. Eliot '53, Le Baron Russell Briggs '75, James Russell Lowell '38, Abbott Lawrence Lowell '77, Frederick J. Stimson '76, Theodore Roosevelt '80, Curtis Guild '81, and Gardiner Lane '81.

The society endeavors to raise the intellectual tone of the whole undergraduate body by the example and activity of those men in each class who lead in scholastic attainments. 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.

About 40 men are chosen from each class under the existing system. At the beginning of each year the College Office sends the names of the 12 highest Juniors and of the 44 highest Seniors, exclusive of those already members to the eight Seniors elected as the "Junior Eight" in the previous year. From these names eight Juniors and 22 Seniors are chosen. Thus, during the year the society is composed of 30 men from the Senior class and eight from the Junior class. Later in the year five more Seniors may be elected, whose records for the first part of their college career may have been marred by sickness or other causes not affecting their good character, but whose work has been so excellent that their fitness for membership cannot be questioned. Five additional men who have received various academic distinctions and whose worth is attested to by the professors under whom they have studied, may be chosen by the society for membership.

The standard varies a little with different groups, because of its competitive basis, but a man who is ranked in the first group once and the second group two or three times is usually eligible for membership in the society. He must be a candidate for either the degree of A. B. or S. B.

The basis of choice on which the society makes its decision is according to the number of courses, their comparative difficulty, and the suitability of the courses the candidate has elected to take.

Intellectual achievement in activities outside the college curriculum is always considered, though the personal element makes this evidence less reliable.