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Text Box:   Phi Beta Kappa Text Box:              It was in the year of 1776 that the age of college fraternities took a secretive turn (Torbenson, 1992).  That year marked the founding of the first Greek-letter society, the college fraternity Phi Beta Kappa at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia.  Although not sanctioned by or directly connected to Freemasonry, Phi Beta Kappa patterned its initiations, oaths, and modes of proliferation after those of Freemasonry (Voorhees).  Two of the founding members and a total of ten early members of Phi Beta Kappa were Freemasons (Torbenson). Similarities between Phi Beta Kappa and Freemasonry are easily seen.  First, both organizations held their meetings within a shroud of secrecy.  Freemasonry and Phi Beta Kappa both required new initiates to take voluntary oaths of fidelity.  The oaths of Phi Beta Kappa mentioned the “Holy Evangelists of Almighty God” and a “Supreme Being,” both of which are commonly referenced in Masonic lodge ritual (Voorhees, 1945, p. 1).  The three Greek letter stood for Philosophia Biou Kybernetes, “Love of Wisdom, the Guide of Life,” a parallel to Freemasonry’s reverence for “Light,” or knowledge. In the Phi Beta Kappa ritual, the founders named “friendship, morality, and literature as essential characteristics” (Voorhees, p.12).  These are closely related to the principal tenants of Freemasonry:  Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth.  Phi Beta Kappa actually replicated the manner in which they established new chapters directly from the model used by Freemasonry.  Soon additional chapters were formed at Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. In 1825, forty-nine years after the organization of Phi Beta Kappa, the Kappa Alpha Society (not to be confused with Kappa Alpha Order) was organized at Union College, Schenectady, New York.  Among its founders were several Phi Beta Kappa members.  Today, the Kappa Alpha Society holds the honor of being the first Greek-letter general college fraternity with continuous existence.             Like Phi Beta Kappa and the Kappa Alpha Society, college fraternities continued to be organized in the academic institutions of the United States.  Most of these fraternities had oaths of secrecy and modes of recognition (Torbenson, 1992).  This practice was often questioned, even within the ranks of Phi Beta Kappa; however, it would not be 19 September 1827 that the secrecy of fraternities would begin to be widely placed under scrutiny (Torbenson; Voorhees, 1945).