I. The societies may possess truths of value,

political, religious, scientific, social, or of some other kind. " There are mysteries within the INNER veil of our altars," writes a member of one organization,*^ ^' that none except the mem- bers of the fraternity are permitted to behold. Solemn and sublime truths are there inculcated, that have never reached the ear of any save those who have proved themselves worthy of the sacred trust." But when the origin of most of these societies is considered, their possession of such truths seems rather improbable; and in view of their limited membership, the claim of including either all or any large part of those able to ap- preciate them, seems equally unfounded. It is hard to see why such truths would not be as val- uable to the w^orld at large as to the societies; and if they would, the spirit which withholds them is wrong, and contradicts the very nature of truth, which is for all, like the sunlight. Says Lieber, " In the early stages of society it can be easily imagined that the ignorance and vehement superstition of the whole people at large should make it necessary to make of some great religious truth, for instance the belief in one God, perhaps introduced from some distant and more advanced region, a mystery, for fear that if not kept as such it would soon be entirely
^ American Pamphlets, Yale Library, Vol. 3, Constitution of Lodge, I. O. O. F., p. 7.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. 1 3
eradicated. So likewise may certain scientific truths, militating with the common belief, be ex- posed to total extirpation by fanaticism, if not kept within a circle of initiated persons; but it seems that knowledge and religion with the white race have become so diffused that no such mysteries are any longer necessary, and that we are thus likewise spared the dangers to which these societies must always expose themselves as well as others." ^
2. Secrecy may be used to create and strength- en friendship. The binding force of a common secret is a well-known fact ; it rouses the in- stincts of fidelity and honor, and marks off its possessors as a circle by themselves, more or less distinctly according to its nature. Never- theless, though usually incidental to friendship, it is not its true foundation ; which is virtue, first, as Cicero repeatedly insists in his Essay on Friendship, and, second, adaptability of char- acter and purpose. The sharing of a secret makes a bond, but it is a very different one from that of a generous friendship. It is like the ex- ternal force which holds two soldiers together in the ranks, while they may be hating each other in their hearts. Neither does an artificial secrecy, as distinguished from the keeping of spontaneous confidence, materially strengthen friendship If the inward and spiritual bond exists, it will unite ; if it does not, the external and mechanical contrivance of secrecy can never take its place.
3. The secrecy may be employed to exert the power of mystery over the outside world, the
^ Political Ethics, 2d edition, Vol. II, p. 196.
14 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
societies thus becoming '' invested with a facti- tious importance." ^ There is a wonderful power in mystery which makes the human mind sub- ject to its spell. Let it be known that Dick and Harry have a secret, and immediately all the other boys are agog to find out what it is. If it be very mysterious, it even holds their minds in a sort of awe under its power, until they can solve the mystery, when they are content. Bvit this operation does not often reflect any credit on the two boys; and if this is the purpose of the college secrecy, it is certainly an unworthy device to gain the dignity for an association which should be won by its own character and purpose ; for the importance here would depend entirely on the concealment, and not at all on the thing concealed. This might be commen- surate in dignity to the impression made, but it might also fall very much below it; and Presi- dent Porter therefore calls this importance ** fac- titious/'
4. Secrecy may be intended to conceal doings which will not bear the light. To this Baird ^ replies that the concealment in college frater- nities is not sufficient. Certainly their secrecy is far from complete, but there is more than enough to meet the above purpose. His second reply is, "Given a number of college students, whose tastes, habits, antecedents and prospects are known, to determine what would be their actions when assembled together for their own purposes. The dullest college officer, the oldest trustee, could solve it immediately. We thus see this
^ Porter's American Colleges, p. 195.
2 American College Fraternities, pp. 196-197.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. I5
great bar of secrecy removed and vanishing." But, unfortunately, we do not. For some insti- tutions this answer is satisfactory. It could not be supposed for a moment that the men who compose them would be united for such an ob- ject ; but this does not hold in many cases, and there is always the question as to which element of an organization controls. There can be no doubt that this is the use made of some secret organizations, and the opportunities afforded by secrecy are such as to make this in some in- stances its probable object.
5. The secrecy may simply aim to secure the privacy required for social purposes. " To the question why any secrecy.?" Ex-Gov. Hawley replies,^ "why do even two friends habitually seek occasions to converse with each other only.?" It is true that privacy is usually a con- dition of society, and sharing of confidence, of friendship; but the condition is not the founda- tion, in either case. Whereas the secret society theory carries the principle too far, and so per- verts it, first by carrying the privacy and confi- dence over into an artificial secrecy, which is distinct from either of them, and second, by making this, apparently, the foundation of so- ciety and friendship. It is further urged that families and all other organizations hold secret conferences. In reply, if the societies resorted to secrecy as families and most organizations do, no objection could be made; but they do not. The family resorts to secrecy as an occas- ional expedient, dictated by circumstances; it has secrets, but it is not essentially a secret soci-
^ Psi Upsilon Catalogue, p. xi.
1 6 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
ety. Should it become such, the social life of the community would be spoiled. The secret society takes a true principle and perverts it. Instead of holding an occasional secret confer- ence, as circumstances require, it makes secrecv a ruling principle. Its secrecy is not occasional and temporary and natural, but artificial and permanent; which makes a wide difference. While the great proportion o experiences in family and friendship may be freely talked of, no mention of society experiences must be made. Further, the privacy is an ostentatious privacy; as if two friends should publish a no- tice that they were about to exchange confi- dences, and warn everybody off; thus violating the very spirit of privacy. The mistake rebuked by our Lord, in the case of those who sought divine communion on the corners of the streets, is paralleled in this method of seeking earthly communion.
Now some of these objects are perfectly nat- ural and right : but to artificial secrecy as a means of obtaining them, there are grave ob- jections, on social grounds alone. Secrecy is not calculated to preserve that student character, "frank and transparent, open and fearless," around which friendships gather, and which President Porter apparently commends.^ There is a certain charm and romance about mystery, but it has also a strangeness and repression which chill and deaden social feeling. " Secrecy and concealment ever afford grounds for suspi- cion," a feeling most fatal to friendship. Our honored Ex-President Woolsey declares the
^ American Colleges, p. 175.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. 1 7
secret system *' averse to the English character." In view of such considerations, the social value of an artificial secrecy is certainly open to very serious question.
A second characteristic of this social system is its exclusiveness. On this point Ex-Governor Hawley says, " all men around us " have not " a right to complai^ that each does not freely bare his heart to all others."^ "It is not expected that " '' cordial, mutual pledges *' " shall be made to all; it is right to choose those to whom they shall be made." It is true that every social rela- tion must have its limits; but, speaking gener- ally, there are great natural principles which will mark them off without the use of exclusive- ness. " Birds-of a feather flock together," runs the proverb, and under the operation of this principle society will naturally adjust itself. Exclusiveness is a perversion of these princi- ples. As selfishness in the individual life per- verts the true principle of selfness, or proper regard for one's self, so exclusiveness makes precisely the same error in the social life, by making a selfish use of the social capacities. It is harder to detect, perhaps, because it is on the higher plane of social relations. But error is possible in every sphere of action, and because social relations are on a higher level than personal relations, error in them is none the less real. In general society, exclu- siveness is considered a wrong characteristic either of a. person or a set, and it should not be regarded more favorably when it is the charac- teristic of an organization. In this kind of or-
^ Psi Upsilon Catalogue, p. xi.
l8 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
ganization it does not spring altogether from smallness of numbers, which would characterize almost any circle of friends; but from want of flexibility ^nd naturalness in the method of choice, and from the secrecy which isolates its members. Hospitality, that great principle which throws the warmth and kindness of the family life around its guests, and diffuses those beneficent influences which make the atmosphere of a home, is offered by the societies most scan- / tily, or not at all ; in fact, is essentially contrary to their principles. The secret society is exclu- sive because it is inhospitable and uncommuni- cative, while its methods of choice almost always break the natural lines ot affinity and friendship. A third question may now be raised, perhaps reaching more deeply into the social relations of this subject than either of the others. Is a formal association of any kind, for social pur- poses, based on true principles ? A social object seems legitimate, and a formal association a proper method of attaining it; nevertheless, in most cases, I conceive this method to be an un- necessary and mistaken one. Ex-Governor Hawley says, ^ "There is a great positive value in the cordial, mutual pledges of confidence, assistance, trust, encouragement, equality, fidel- ity and honor." But as to social value, formal pledges are hollow, and cannot promote friend- ship, except as they express natural relations; as in that famous friendship which has charmed the world, ''Jonathan and David made a cove- nant, because he loved him as his own soul."*
^ Psi Upsilon Catalogue, p. xi. 2 I Samuel, xviii : 3.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. I9
The covenant, however, sprang out of the friend- ship, not the friendship out of the covenant. The difference in the positions of the two friends, also, was a special reason for a covenant in their case. This can rarely be made on such a foun- dation of fitness for lasting friendship, and when the sorrowful discovery is made, as it frequently is, that such fitness does not exist, such a cove- nant forms a most awkward bond. The general truth is that the spiritual bond is the true one, and that covenants of friendship are unneces- sary; the compacts are to be made for different ends. In a social club, it is very hard, in the first place, to make the formal lines correspond to the natural, relations, a difficulty much in- creased when the club is formed not by those whom it is to unite, but by others ; and, secondly, an element of selfishness easily creeps in which tends to demoralize the organization. I believe that in many college organizations now defunct, the first step to destruction was taken when the social element took the reins to the dethrone- ment of the intellectual. " I hate the prostitu- tion of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances," writes Emerson.^ "So- ciety is spoiled, if pains are taken, if the asso- ciates are brought a mile to meet." As living for happiness certainly defeats its own object, and the rule is to live for God, when happiness will come incidentally, so in most cases friend- ship thrives best without a formal organization, as an incident to associations for other purposes. These considerations have special force in a col- lege, whose very aim is to develop the highest
^ Essays, ist Series, p. 188, 122.
20 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
and truest character and relationship. It should be noted, however, that the argument against the present system does not depend on this last point. Even if the value of purely social organ- izations were admitted, many of the objections to this form of association would still hold.
The three points already named properly de- fine a secret society as a secret and exclusive league. This may exist for several objects ; but I have considered it first in its social aspect, be- cause in this country, and particularly in the colleges, I believe this to be on the whole the prominent feature of the system, though it has also political and intellectual relations of im- portance. These organizations are essentially the same in college and out of it. There is much confusion of mind on this point; and many regard college societies as different from those without. So they are, in some respects. They do, to some extent, make homes instead of breaking them up, and they are much more intellectual. Nevertheless, these are only mod- ifications, not essential differences. In the great essentials above named the two are the same, and they have also many other characteristics in common.
The working of this, as a social system, in college, may now be considered. Only those who have lived under the class system can un- derstand its power over the lower classes. With the sight of the pins, at the beginning of the course, curiosity is awakened, and already men begin to feel those influences which cast their mysterious shadow over the college life. *' Still waters run deep," and though an observer might not suspect it, many men are entirely subject to
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. 21
this mysterious power. They must form natural friendships, but they look for a day of separa- tion, and the shrewder ones are seeking to ar- range for that. Thinking that popularity has a high value, they are led to use their friends as stepping-stones. The tendency is to use the sacred relation of friendship in a struggle for position. If a man has good prospects, men count him their friend ; if not, they neglect him : and the hollowness of such friendship with the bitterness of such neglect need not be described. " Selfishness, an eye to business, vanity, frivolity, gluttony, and a love of mystery-mongering, con- cealed under the specious pretense of brotherly love, and longing for instruction — these are the motives that lead men into the lodge." ^ Give ambition a leading place, and omit one or two of the others, and these are the motives w^hich this system makes powerful in under-class life. When such motives control, as they often do, selfishness becomes supreme and friendship in- sincere. "Could the continuity of many of these societies," says President Porter,'^ *^from one college year to another, be broken up, the college life would be greatly ennobled." The principle of "every man for himself," ahvays too strong, is much intensified. A cordial, friendly spirit is killed, and many men graduate with an under-consciousness that they have never felt at home in college, and that a great part of the happiness of their college days has been somehow lost; natural results of a social system which I believe inherently selfish. A
^ Heckethorn's Secret Societies, Vol. I, p. 389. ^ American Colleges, p. 195.
22 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
Yale paper once said editorially, ^ the societies *' furnish the chief incentive to that trickery which seams under-class life through and through, dividing it into castes, and engender- ing in it bitter and undying alienations." Any competition might develop something of this, but the insincerity and personal bitterness are largely due to the societies.
Under the class system, fraternal feeling be- tween the classes is very much diminished. Class distinctions would always limit this, but many a friendship which would give pleasure and profit to both parties, is either prevented or put on such awkward terms as to make it really worthless. The under-class man, however dis- interested may be his regard for his society friend, feels as if he were somehow galvanized whenever he comes near him. Between the temptation to seek favor, and his resolve to main- tain his own self-respect, his real friendship has a hard time of it, and can get little or no devel- opment. If a society man takes an honor, his under-class friend feels that his position will not allow him to congratulate him. Moreover, if he thinks himself a candidate, and it is a sin- gular fact that most men privately do, he imag- ines himself the constant object of a critical inspection, which is quite enough to complete the galvanizing process above referred to. This is very unnatural, and there is here a general loss for which it is very doubtful if any gain wuthin the narrow society lines can atone.
It would seem that the men in the societies could hardly fail to derive great benefits, both
1 Va/e! Courayit, March 23, 187S.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. 23
in development of social qualities and of friend- ships, and in acquaintance with graduates. *' One of the most valuable adjuncts of a college life," says Ex-Governor Hawley, of his *' dearly beloved Psi Upsilon brotherhood." ^ But — and this point must be emphasized, for it is not un- derstood— graduates mistake in thanking the secret society for many friendships which they do not owe to that, essentially, but to natural relations in the college life. The society is largely the occasion, not the cause ; some other occasion would do nearly or quite as well. Drawbacks must also be found in the diversities of character often united. " Men have confessed to me," said a graduate of a Southern college, '' that they had as much love for the devil as for some of their fraternity associates." The feeling of what would be required by honor and loyalty to the fraternity would keep most men from be- traying any such sentiment ; but it seems certain that it must often exist. A college president writes, the societies *' put men socially, in regard to each other, into an artificial and false position. Their tendency is to lead men to associate only with a small number with whom they may have been thrown by accident, and to narrow the intellect and the feeling."^ There is also a loss in the isolation from the uninitiated. Tenny- son's verse, —
— " he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be Shut out from Love,"
is fulfilled, both in the individuals who support
^ Psi Upsilon Catalogue, p. x.
^ Hitchcock's Reminiscences of Amherst, p. 323.
24 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
this system, as society men, and in their organi- zations. There is, indeed, mutual forbearance, whereby many friendships with neutrals con- tinue; but never without some loss, while many are weakened and some broken. Some of this would exist under any system; but the societies are responsible for much jealousy and hatred in what should be an open, generous rivalry. Many men are not specially affected, but the general influence is to create a spirit of bitter- ness. "They have led to greater unkindness and ill-feeling than almost anything else in col- lege," says a college president. ^ It may be remarked here, that one feature helping to cre- ate the bitterness which prevails, is the wearing of badges; which is generally a violation both of good taste and good manners. Of good taste,, because manhood needs no badge of its nobility^ nor friends of their friendship; of good man- ners, because it is a constant reminder to others of distinction which they have failed to win. Said a Yale paper, though in a year of high feel- ing, "the popular attitude toward the senior societies is either bitterness or idolatry; ^ ^ bitterness if you did not go, idolatry if you did.'"^ With class societies, this is modified by old friendships, and much suppressed by pride and the consciousness of nearly every man, that he would have gone if he could. But a great deal of it exists. " The whole university of Cambridge," declares a Yale graduate, who spent five years there, "does not contain as much hatred, envy, malice and uncharitableness, and general ill-feeling, as an American college."^
^ Hitchcock's Reminiscences of Amherst, p. 324.
2 Couj^ant, March 23, 1878.
^ Bristed's Five Years in an English University, p. 415.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. 25
The class system is also responsible for the heart-breaking disappointments which sadden the college on election days, and for the general depression resulting from an exclusion so utter and so hopeless; while friends and classmates are gone in, each man feels himself left out in the cold, and forever. I do not regard this ar- gument as conclusive, because disappointment is incidental to a large part of life ; but an arti- ficial system must be judged by all of its effects, and this one is both deep at the time and far- reat:hing in its consequences.
To the alumni there is both gain and loss, for another element in these organizations is their perpetuity. The distinctions made in college are life-long, and the element of secrecy must always keep them considerably marked. Such a fraternizing as that of Linonians and Brothers, at the former's Centennial in 1853, is inconceiv- able under the secret system. Outside the col- lege town some benefit may derived from the chaptered fraternities, and doubtless, as the years go by, the societies diminish and the college in- creases in importance with the graduates; but it seems evident that harmful barriers must long exist. Graduates living in their college town^ or returning to it, must find their societies pleas- ant. There is a legitimate demand for some- thing of this kind ; but limited and exclusive societies are certainlv very inadequate for meet- ing it, to say nothing of the positive harm done by reviving the old unpleasant feelings in the minds of neutral classmates. Many, per- haps, revisit their college who would not do so if it were not for the societies; but it is said that on the whole they have in this college di-
26 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
minished the attendance at Commencement:. I can only speak generally here, but it seems very natural that the memories of exclusion, and the knowledge that it would still exist, should influ- ence many, perhaps unconsciously, to stay away, and indications have led me to believe that such is frequently the case. ''One alumnus of Yale cannot come back to his college with the same freedom and pleasure as" another, says a recent graduate, in reference to this system. Whether the loss overbalances the gain, in this particular, I do not undertake to say.
Taking a general view of this as a social sys- tem, it has some advantages, but also grave de- fects; and many of these are not incidental, but spring from its very nature. In general, even if the advantages to the members are incalcul- able, as it is said in some instances they are, a system which works good only to its members, and evil to the non-members, cannot be based on right principles. Such a system must con- tradict the principles of reciprocity and mutual helpfulness, on which life is founded. A literary or athletic association usually comes into rela- tions of mutual advantages with the public ; and, moreover, diffuses certain beneficial impulses. But a secret society diffuses nothing whatever; its very essential principle is to diffuse nothing. Again, if the friendship within were the greatest conceivable, the gain due to the society would be far less than the general loss. If one great object of this system is to promote fraternal feeling, as Baird says it is, taking its effect as a whole it signally fails.