Phi Beta Kappa in American life : the first two hundred years
Phi Beta Kappa is America's foremost honor society, the forerunner and prototype of all other such groups as well as all Greek-letter fraternities and sororities. This is a history of the society, tracing its growth from a local debating club to a national organization which today boasts a quarter of a million members. Of course, the history of Phi Beta Kappa is in many ways a history of education in America, and as the author charts the society's development he also provides an intriguing portrait of American universities: the friction over the shift away from the classics toward liberal education and the electives system, the growing respect for scholarship among students (in 1917, he reveals, the most socially acceptable grade was C, the so-called "gentleman's grade"), and the unprecedented enrollment after World War Two. But as he outlines the society's many achievements and its continuing influence on liberal education, he does not whitewash its past: he examines its grudging admission of women and blacks, the uproar over Paul Robeson's selection for the editorial board of American Scholar, and many other controversies
Libro impreso, English, 1990
Oxford University Press, New York, 1990