Page:BairdsmanualofAmericancollegefrate8.pdf/22

2 Phi (ΧΦ), Alpha Delta Phi (ΑΔΦ), Beta Theta Pi (ΒΘΠ). These letters commonly represent a motto, supposed to be unknown to all but the fraternity's members, and which indicates briefly the purposes or aims of the organization. The lodges situated in the various colleges are affiliated, and are, with one or two exceptions, termed "Chapters."

The chapters receive various names, sometimes of the Greek letters in the order of their establishment, as Α, Β, Γ, Δ, etc.; sometimes without any apparent order, as Θ, Δ, Β, Γ, etc., in which case the chapter letter is generally the initial of some word peculiar to the college, or of a motto adopted by the chapter. Sometimes they are named from the colleges, as Union chapter, Hamilton chapter, or from the college towns, as Waterville chapter, Middletown chapter or after some individual prominent in relation to the field in which the organization is extending its ranks.

Several of the fraternities have adopted the State system, naming the first chapter established in a State the Alpha of that State, the second the Beta, and so on. When chapters have become so numerous that the letters of the alphabet are exhausted, they are combined, either arbitrarily, as ΘΖ, ΒΧ, or by design, in addition of supplemental letters, as ΑΑ, ΑΒ, ΑΓ, or ΑΒ, ΒΒ, ΒΓ, or ΓΑ, ΓΒ, ΓΓ, etc. In other cases a regular system is employed, and some word or combination of words used to denote the repetition, as Alpha deuteron, Beta deuteron, or in case the alphabet is being used for the third time, by Alpha triteron, Beta triteron, the supplemental words