A History of The Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta, 1837–1970. William B.B. Moody
record of such an Eclectic, but there was a Rev. Daniel A. Whedon (1845), who resided in Utica, New York, and was probably the Eclectic with whom the earnest Genesee undergraduates were in contact. The Alpha Chapter wanted no part of such an irregular arrangement and said so. A year later, the Genesee group, this time numbering seventeen in the classes of 1865 to 1868, again petitioned to become a chapter of the Society. This time they stated, “We have the assurance that it will meet with no opposition from the faculty, and it will for a long time have no opposition, save from a rapidly declining league called ‘The Mystical Seven.”’ The petition goes on to say that the members already exist as a private secret society, strong, although unknown to all but themselves. It recounts the academic prowess of its members and begs reconsideration of the previous rejection. The pleas were in vain. There was not to be a Delta Chapter.
There had been a Beta Chapter, however, and it existed for over ten years with a fair degree of success. It was founded at the urging of the Rev. Hermann M. Johnson (1839), one of the founders of the Alpha Chapter, who succeeded twice in aiding in the establishment of other chapters of Phi Nu Theta. He taught first at St. Charles College in Missouri (1839–42), from where he wrote the letter quoted in chapter 1 concerning the founding of the Fraternity. He then taught at Augusta College in Kentucky for two years (1842–44). While at Augusta, his counsel was sought on the Constitution being drafted for the Society. He urged provision be made for other chapters and stated in a letter of October 5, 1844, that he expected to be called to a professorship at Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio. He appears to have been thinking of establishing a Beta Chapter at Augusta, but opined that the new university in Ohio offered better soil for planting another branch of the Eclectic Society. He was indeed called to teach at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1844 and spent the next six years there. He wasted no time in laying the groundwork for the Beta Chapter of the Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta. The Wesleyan archives now possess the “Constitution and Rules of Government of the Eclectic &N@ Association Ohio Wesleyan University” dated November 4, 1844, and signed by John W. Beach (1845), president of the Alpha Chapter and later president of Wesleyan University. This Constitution limits the number of members of the Beta Chapter to fifteen undergraduates and refers to “chapters,” clearly indicating that other chapters were contemplated. The initiation ceremony parallels exactly the ceremony used by the Alpha Chapter at the time. The first meeting of the Beta Chapter was held on January 4, 1848, in Professor Johnson’s rooms under authority of the 1844 charter. The report of the corresponding secretary of the Alpha Chapter for the year ending August 7, 1850, indicates that the Alpha Chapter had officially recognized the Beta Chapter earlier in the school year and that the Beta Chapter was “flourishing” and counted fourteen members.
The minutes of the Alpha Chapter of August 1, 1856, state that R. F. Crowell (1857) and Nathaniel Fellows (1858) were appointed to wait upon Burwell F. Goode to ascertain whether he was a member of the Beta Chapter at Ohio Wesleyan and, if so, to inform him that he was recognized as a member of the Alpha Chapter and invite him to attend meetings of the Middletown Chapter. Brother Goode was apparently one of two members of the short-lived Beta Chapter who transferred his membership to—or visited—the Alpha Chapter (the other being W. F. King in the summer of 1858). This appears to represent the only documented personal (as opposed to written) relationship between the two chapters.
In a letter dated April 9, 1859, W. F. King, corresponding secretary of the Beta Chapter, gave an account of the condition of the Beta Chapter eleven years after its founding. The report is glowing. Scholarship is highly regarded; every alumni tutor has been an Eclectic; literary exercises are “creditable”; and “brotherly concord is without exception.” In contrast to the Alpha Chapter, the Ohio Eclectics did not use a meeting hall but had always met in one of the tutors’ rooms. Brother King concluded his letter with an inquiry as to whether the founding of other chapters was under consideration and whether it would be considered appropriate to allow the faculty to inspect the chapter’s Constitution.
This last comment suggests that the Beta Chapter may have been under some pressure from the faculty. The attitude of the faculty of a number of colleges of the time was not friendly to secret societies. It is quite likely that such an attitude contributed to precipitous collapse of the Beta Chapter. Despite the optimistic words of Brother King, collapse it did in little more than a year. The last initiates were recorded on June 7, 1859, and the last recorded minutes of the Beta Chapter are dated June 21, 1860. An accounting of the last days of the Beta Chapter was penned by one of its former members, W. L. Whitlock, in a letter dated May 6, 1866, to Warren L. Hoagland (1866) of the Alpha Chapter in response to earlier inquiries. Brother Whitlock states in his 1866 letter that “the Society was not continued and has now no organization.” He then gives specifics:
About the year 1860 (I do not remember the exact time), the Beta Chapter felt that if the organization was to be made profitable and as agreeable as possible to its membership, additional chapters should be formed, and its influence extended. The chapter located in this institution corresponded with the Alpha Chapter on this subject, and the latter would not agree to an extension. Some of the members became disaffected and formed a chapter of another organization. The rest met for a time and then meetings and business were informally suspended, and but little has been said since and nothing done.
He goes on to say that up until the time of de facto dissolution, the Beta Chapter had enjoyed a superb reputation, but any chance of a revival appeared remote. Further, in view of his faculty colleagues’ unfriendly attitude toward secret societies because of the activities of other organizations, he (Whitlock) was not in a position to lend his name to any effort to revive the Beta Chapter.
One wonders what would have happened if the Beta Chapter’s founder and founding member of the Alpha Chapter, Hermann Merrills Johnson (1839), had remained at Ohio Wesleyan University. After six years in Ohio, he accepted a position in 1850 as professor of English at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He again began efforts to establish a chapter of the Eclectic Society on another campus. His efforts met with success, for on May 12, 1852, the Gamma Chapter of the Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta became active at Dickinson with three students as members. It was the first Greek letter fraternity at Dickinson. H. M. Johnson’s success was short-lived. The Gamma Chapter fell victim to faculty hostility to fraternities; it was suppressed after a mere two months of existence. Dickinson’s Web site in 2005 explained, “The faculty condemned any group that would not allow them immediate access at any time, and forced the organization to disband.” It is ironic that the newly elected president of Dickinson just after the forced dissolution of the Gamma Chapter was Charles Collins (1837), one of the four founders—or perhaps, more precisely, “prefounders” —of Eclectic. In the account of his life on the Dickinson College 2005 Web site, this comment is offered: “The number of students enrolled in the College rose under his administration even though Collins himself was not widely popular with the student body. This was largely due to his response to independent student activities like secret fraternities and ‘rough and tumble’ football.” Charles Collins’s successor as president of Dickinson was none other than H. M. Johnson, who held that office from 1860 until his death in 1868. The effects of the Civil War and the financial woes of Dickinson occupied his attention during these years, and there is no indication he attempted to revive the Gamma Chapter when he succeeded his fraternity-unfriendly “frater in Eklektos” as president.
The last serious attempt to found another chapter of the Society was the previously discussed effort by Genesee College students in 1864 and again in 1865. Eclectic was wooed on several other occasions (notably by Delta Upsilon in June 1884) to join existing national fraternities as their Wesleyan chapter, but by the end of the 1860s, it was fairly well established as a policy that the Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta would remain a local fraternity, unique and dedicated to Wesleyan. Eclectic’s flirtation with “going national” was at an end.
CHAPTER 5
ECLECTIC IN
THE 1870S
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.