Page:BairdsmanualofAmericancollegefrate8.pdf/24

4 The emblems of a fraternity are also sometimes used as the basis of ornamentation or design for sleeve buttons, rings, studs, charms, and other forms of jewelry. Most fraternities forbid the use of their badges as an ornament for articles of this character.

Small buttons of plain metal comprising a facsimile of the badge or including some of its prominent emblems constitute a novel and pleasing form of fraternity emblems.

Mention might be made in this connection of the fact that the fraternities have distinctive cheers or yells.

The first American society bearing a Greek-letter name was founded at the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg, Va., in 1776, and was called the Phi Beta Kappa (ΦΒΚ). It was secret in its nature, was formed for social and literary purposes, and held regular and frequent meetings. It was preceded at this same institution by a society called "The Flat Hat", of somewhat similar nature. In December, 1779, it authorized the establishment of branches at Yale and Harvard, and the next year ceased its own operations from the confusion incident to the Revolutionary War, then raging in the vicinity of Williamsburg.

The chapter at Yale was to have been called the "Zeta," but when it was actually established, November 13, 1780, it took the name of Alpha of Connecticut. It was quite formal in its nature, its membership was confined to the two upper classes, and it soon lost whatever of vitality and fraternal spirit has existed in the original organiza-