A HISTORY OF THE
Eclectic Society
OF PHI NU THETA,
1837-1970
WILLIAM B. B. MOODY (1959)
Published by Wesleyan University Press,
Middletown, CT 06459
© 2007 by William B. B. Moody
All rights reserved
CIP data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8195-6840-3
ISBN:0-8195-6840-6
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
1. The Founding of the Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta
2. The 1840s: The First Decade
6. The 1880s: A House of One’s Own
8. The 1900s: A Temple Grander, Lovelier
10. Eclectic in the 1920s: The Roaring Decade
12. Eclectic in the 1940s: The Crisis of World War II
14. Eclectic in the 1960s: The Coming of the Great Change
Appendix A: Six Selected “Songs of Phi Nu Theta”
Appendix B: Founders’ Prize Laureates
Appendix C: Martin Prize Laureates
Appendix D: Rice Prize Laureates
Appendix F: Professor Burton H. Camp’s Address, “Billy Rice”
Appendix G: Professor Burton H. Camp’s Address, “Uncle Johnny”
Photo galleries follow pages 48 and 146. Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are courtesy of the Archives at Olin Library, Wesleyan University.
TO THE READER
As undergraduates at Wesleyan University in the late 1950s, many of us felt our primary loyalty to the fraternity to which we belonged. It was the center of our life outside the classroom. We ate there, socialized there, and became a part of a tradition that meant a lot to many, if not most of us who joined fraternities. That was particularly the case for those of us who joined the local Wesleyan fraternity known formally as the Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta. It had a history dating back to the early days of the university and was always among the strongest houses on campus. It had a serious intellectual core, although the social aspects of fraternity life were not slighted. Every president of the university who had graduated from Wesleyan up to that time had been an Eclectic. Names famous in Wesleyan history were most often those revered in Eclectic as heroes of the House. When I graduated from Wesleyan in 1959, I remember pledging to myself that I would make my first financial contribution to the House and my second to the university.
Within ten years, the fraternity we knew as Eclectic had radically changed. Gone were traditions that had informed more than 130 years of undergraduate fraternity life. A crisis had occurred—not only in Eclectic but in a number of other houses as well. Some survived more or less intact; others, like Eclectic, continued in greatly altered form; and some disappeared completely.
This present effort is an attempt to trace the history of Eclectic from its founding to the years when it changed so radically in the late 1960s, to examine themes and patterns in the life of the Fraternity and to posit some theories as to why it ceased to exist in its old form. In the words of the old hymn, “Time like an ever flowing stream bears all her sons away,” as is inevitably happening to those who remember the old Eclectic. There should be some record for those who may wonder why there is such a grand porticoed structure at 200 High Street in Middletown and what the strange names on the badge chiseled into the lintel over the door signify.
In writing this, I am greatly indebted to the late Paul North Rice (1910),1 who was one of the grand old men of Eclectic during my undergraduate days. He continued the work of Eric McCoy North (1909), who began a history of the Fraternity for its hundredth anniversary in 1937. Brother North was obliged to give up the project because of professional obligations in Europe. Paul North Rice assumed the responsibility and covered the years through the 1860s in great detail. He relied on another grand old man of Eclectic, Professor Morris B. Crawford (1874), for the history of the 1870s. I have incorporated these manuscript works with minor changes into this present effort. Any errors are, of course, entirely my fault. From the 1880s on (and for some verification of earlier information), I am relying on the Eclectic archival collection of the Olin Library and the wonderfully cooperative spirit of the staff there, particularly Suzy Taraba ’77, University Archivist and Head of Special Collections, and her staff, particularly Patricia Stark and Valerie Gillispie. A group of stalwart alumni rescued the Society’s records from the Fraternity House and turned them over to the university archives when it appeared that little if any care was being devoted to preserving them. I am deeply indebted to those Socratic Literary Society members, too. For help with Greek titles and definitions,