should keep their pledges “to labor for God among the heathen.” In 1834 four had gone to the Orient, and in 1835 five went, but thereafter the number declined, and in some years none responded to the “call.” The failure of so many to keep their pledges and a waning interest on the campus in foreign missions led to a sharp decline in membership. Early in 1842 the pledge requirement was removed. A few months later the Eastern Association and the Western Association, the analogous organization for students intending to do missionary work in “the Mississippi Valley, joined the Society for Inquiry in an auxiliary status.
The first literary society, Gamma Phi, seems to have been founded prior to 1833, while the second, Pi Delta, probably originated in 1834. Little trace of their activities remains except the names of their orators on commencement programs. Competition between them for members led to faculty intervention, with the result that both seem to have been dissolved in 1840 when the Adelphian and Aeonian Societies came into existence. For two or three years, amicable relations seem to have prevailed but in 1844 difficulties arose relative to their joint public exercises. The faculty had scarcely restored harmony when rivalry over the selection of members again brought official action. Some Adelphians, refusing to abide by arrangements which had been agreed upon, attempted to form their own society in the village so that they might be free to admit freshmen of their own choosing. Within a week, however, they gave up the plan.
Both societies had rooms in the “attic story” of the present East Hall. The Aeonians devoted their weekly meetings to orations and the reading of original essays, plays and poems. A critic, appointed from their own number, passed judgment on these efforts. The essays and other contributions were collected by three editors who bound them together as the “Aeonian Casket.” The Adelphians occupied themselves in much the same way as the Aeonians. The faculty considered that both groups stimulated the development of oral and written expression, which were phases of the curriculum badly in need of expansion. The Institution, however, was probably no further behind current standards of instruction in speech and rhetoric than other colleges of the day. The Aeonian and Adelphian Societies and their predecessors were following, consciously or not, patterns of earlier and contemporary literary societies on other campuses.
The fraternity movement, a natural outgrowth of literary societies,
