largely in the direction of the organization of societies bearing Greek names among students in the departments of law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, etc., attached to educational institutions wherein the general fraternities have secured a foothold. This class of societies has developed greatly within the past few years, and they are securing a firm foothold in some professions.
Within the past decade also many so-called honorary societies have made their appearance, these being societies with Greek names inviting members on a basis of excellence in scholarship or professional attainment.
Another development of the Greek-letter idea has been among the students of preparatory schools and academies. It is not the purpose of this work to describe such societies in detail.
The important fraternities are those which are located in the undergraduate literary or scientific departments of the colleges and universities, and it is to this field that we have designedly confined our efforts.
THE WOMEN'S FRATERNITIES
The first[1] of the women's Greek-letter fraternities was ΚΑΘ, founded at DePauw University in 1870. The same year ΚΚΓ was founded at Monmouth, Ill. ΔΓ originated at Oxford, Miss., in 1872, and ΑΦ at Syracuse at nearly the same time. ΓΦΒ followed ΑΦ at Syracuse
- ↑ At Wesleyan Female College, Macon, Ga., there originated in 1851 a women's society called Adelphean, and the next year a similar society called Philomathean. In June, 1904, the second of these changed its name to ΦΜ and a year later the older society changed its name to ΑΔΦ (since altered to ΑΔΠ). These two societies have since claimed to antedate all the other women's Greek letter fraternities, a claim obviously unfounded.
