A complete history is provided of the Phi Beta Kappa society, tracing its growth from a local debating club to a national organization which today boasts a quarter of a million members. The history charts the society's development and reveals the friction over the shift away from the classics toward liberal education and the electives system, the…

The origins, history, and final demise of discriminatory admissions policies at Harvard, Princeton and Yale are examined. It is reported that by the early 1920's the Big Three racial and religious quotas were fully operative in response to the influx of Jews, Catholics, and other new groups that threatened the hegemony of the old-stock Americans…