Brown, could state in 1886 that college presidents and professors who actively opposed them made a serious blunder. The part they played in campus life can be appreciated when the proportion of students in fraternities is noted. Of the 136 students in the college in 1890 there were 117 belonging to the five fraternities.
The oldest, Delta Kappa Epsilon (1856), chiefly through the physical efforts of undergraduate members, in 1877 completed its red brick
“temple”
as a hall for meetings and fellowship. Its rival, Delta Upsilon (1866) rented a “hall”
in a village business block until 1882 when it became the first fraternity on campus to have a house which was built for its special use as living quarters and eating club.
Three new Greek letter social and literary societies came into existence in the 1880’s and, like Delta Upsilon, took rooms in business blocks in the center of the village-Beta Theta Pi in 1880, and both Phi Kappa Psi and Phi Gamma Delta in 1887. Beta Theta Pi was the transformed Adelphian Society. Its most valuable tangible asset was the Adelphian Society library of about 1,000 volumes. Phi Kappa Psi grew out of the revived Aeonian Society, some of whose members had been in the same boarding club. Phi Gamma Delta owes its origin to the efforts of Isaac D. Moore, ’90, who had been a member of the chapter at Bucknell University prior to his transfer to Madison. He induced members of the “Union Debating Club”
to join him in forming the Madison group. From 1874 to 1876 Delta Phi had a chapter at Madison but for some reason not now known disappeared.
Two underclass honorary national fraternities, whose purpose seems to have been primarily staging initiation ceremonies, also claimed student loyalty-Eta of Theta Nu Epsilon for sophomores, founded in 1882, and Beta of Beta Delta Beta for freshmen, established in 1889. Lurid accounts of Theta Nu Epsilon’s initiation in 1883, held in a cemetery vault and in a nearby village, nearly led to the society’s dissolution but it survived until 1913. Its companion expired in 1905.
Academy students, too, had their fraternities which resembled those of the college and had as their aims the promotion of literary efforts and “public exhibitions” as well as social life. They were: Theta Zeta (1867), Alpha Phi (1870), Epsilon Kappa (1881), and Theta Phi (1889); all subsequently became chapters of national organizations.
Editors of the Madisonensis repeatedly called attention to the need for physical training, gymnastics and instruction in hygiene. For stu-
