Speculating about the Founding
 

I thought it might be useful to explore a different field of thought for a little, and besides I have a piece of news you might like to know about.

I had the delight of visiting my chapter this past week, after a long interval away due to circumstances of family and work. (Hey, to our knowledge Knox wasn't heard from between his marriage in 1845 and the famous letter of 1873.) It was good to see the brothers, and meet the new pledges.

As usual, one of the major topics we discussed was the founding of our fraternity. Our attention was called to two very interesting facts:

Beta Theta Pi was founded by four members of Union Lit and four members of Erodelphian Lit, who would in normal college life be the greatest of enemies.

She was also founded by three alumni and five undergraduates, who would in normal college life have very little in common.

Now I am not asking to begin an archeological dig through the archives, nor delve into any of the correlated, uh, secret aspects of the fraternity, especially here in an open forum. But we were wondering:

What does this suggest about the interior structure and character of the fraternity?

Also, a question for any reader who is not a Beta: Does your fraternity/sorority have any comparable characteristics?

Quid vobis videtur? (How does it seem to you?)

Hello Doctor,

Glad to hear from you, I sure your chapter enjoyed your company, Interesting topic I must say, I really had to sit back and think out it which is good because it gives me something else to think about besides "Dividend Policy"

Refering to the post however, I would agree that it is quite hard to explain this without using the obvious correlations. Our fraternity, I believe has a very strong alumni base. As well as an administrative staff unlike any other college fraternity. One aspect comes to mind when I think of the unity within our circle, "A Common Vision" I belive that our founders, despite there backgrounds and place within the university at the time came together to support an idea for which they all were passionate about. That passion still resides within our strucuture today.

I think this just about sums it up,

" What few men united in object and effort will to do can be done; and more than that, such associations teach us in thier records how far human friendships can carry us from the shrine of idol self" -John Reily Knox



Nicolas Jones