Tag Archives: Delta Kappa Epsilon

p. 280 – The Bryan Period, 1908-1922

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PHI GAMMA DELTA HOUSE, C. 1900
PHI GAMMA DELTA HOUSE, C. 1900

the Delta Upsilon, until 1912 when Delta Kappa Epsilon completed its building to be followed in 1914 by Phi Kappa Psi; both the DKE and Phi Psi houses are still in use though much enlarged. Fire destroyed the Beta Theta Pi house in 1921 and plans to rebuild were made and carried out almost before the embers were cold. To deal with common problems of rushing and pledging, the six fraternities on the campus in 1914 had organized a Pan-Hellenic Council to which they admitted the other organizations as they became chartered.

Colgate’s athletic program of the Bryan period was in the most spectacular and widely known phase of its development and the fortunes of its teams, especially football, often seemed to outweigh all other University concerns. The President came to recognize this as a dangerous situation and at the instigation of alumni leaders an Alumni Athletic Council and an Athletic Governing Board were set up in 1921 which provided representation for graduates, faculty and students and which were to insure that the athletic policies and practices were in harmony with the University’s educational interests. The immediate responsibility, of course, rested with “Doc” Huntington who was assisted by Graduate Managers, Asa King Leonard, ’07 (1911-14); Edwin W. Leary, ’14 (1914-1915); Frederick M. Jones, ’09, Assistant Professor of Romance Languages (1915-19); and William A. Reid, ’18 (1919-36).

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p. 237 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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minister and teacher. He wrote that he entered college “a very simple-minded boy-appreciative faculties wide awake, critical faculties asleep” and that he found at Colgate what he needed most, “stimulating personalities,” especially among the faculty. Despite his struggle over religion as part of his intellectual development, he enjoyed college life, “was in on all the fun the campus afforded,” and was one of the best dancers on the campus. He was a D.U., edited the Salmagundi and was on the Madisonensis staff but public speaking was his major activity and here he excelled, foreshadowing his subsequent eminent pulpit reputation.*

The students’ response to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War was prompt and enthusiastic. They joined the faculty and villagers in patriotic rallies and several from the Seminary and Academy, as well as the College, organized into four companies which drilled throughout the spring of 1898, Harry Fosdick serving as a first lieutenant. At the celebration the next year in honor of Admiral George Dewey, it was Fosdick, as President of the Students Association, who represented the undergraduates with a forceful and polished address, “College Students and American Life.”

The ’90’s saw fraternity life quickened and enriched. By 1894 each group was living in its own house. The D.U.’s already had theirs which had been completed in 1882. The D.K.E.’s acquired the Kern residence on the site of their present house in 1891. The Phi Psi’s built a house in 1892 on the corner of Charles and East Pleasant Streets which later became the University Infirmary. The Betas rented the old President’s House in 1893 and the Phi Gams took over the G.O.C. Lawrence residence on Madison Street. James C. Colgate pointed out to the alumni that all who contributed to the chapter house building funds helped the University in providing student accommodations; approximately half the college students were living in fraternity houses by 1894. Though there were some who questioned the value of fraternities, especially because of the bitter rivalry among them which was occasionally to be found, they were generally held to be a highly desirable feature of campus life. Many of the professors took an active part as helpful “older brothers” to the undergraduates. Among them was William Newton Clarke, ’61, a D.K.E. who believed fraternities could serve the aims of the University effectively by encouraging

*Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Living of These Days (New York, 1956), 48ff

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p. 212 – Student Life, 1869-1890

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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-

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p. 162 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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gallery with his classmates he grew so absorbed in Dr. Brooks’s sermons as completely to lose consciousness of his surroundings.

The missionary spirit which had vitalized the activities of the Society for Inquiry and the Eastern and Western Associations waned after 1850. Furthermore, the Removal Controversy had carried off many of the leaders whose ardent interest in the objectives of the organizations, students of succeeding generations did not share. Most noteworthy of the Eastern Association’s members was Jonathan Goble, Class of 1859, a Marine from Perry’s expedition to Japan, who returned to the Empire in 1860 as a missionary and subsequently achieved fame for translating the Gospel of Matthew into Japanese; he is also credited with the construction of the first jinrikisha. By 1860 both the Eastern and Western Associations had ceased to exist. The Society for Inquiry, which absorbed their activities, carried on into the 1890’s.

More closely conforming to contemporary interests was the Theological Lyceum which the Seminary students and faculty organized in 1854 to promote the “intellectual, moral, and religious improvement of its members.” Topics for essays and discussions at its meetings included: Christianity and the Crimean War, spiritualism, freemasonry, and the propriety of a minister’s resorting “to firearms or deadly weapons in defense of political rights.” The Lyceum became practically moribund in the 1860’s, but did not expire until 1871.

For many undergraduates the question of secret societies was much more absorbing than participation in those of a religious character. Despite faculty action suppressing fraternities in the 1840’s and a stipulation in the Laws of 1853 that students “shall form no organizations … except with the consent and under the direction of the faculty and … shall not become members of secret societies,” attempts to establish such groups persisted. Partly circumventing the rules, some under- graduates had themselves initiated into Phi Upsilon at Hamilton College, but this ruse was far from satisfactory to those who sought a fraternity on their own campus. Among them was Caleb H. Gallup, Class of 1856, who after discussing the problem during summer vacation with a cousin, then a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon at Kenyon College, returned to Madison fired with the idea of founding a local chapter. Gallup and a few close associates thereupon petitioned for a charter which the parent chapter at Yale granted to them as Mu Chapter, March 1, 1856.

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