cated in England and in Rome; married Hugh Fraser, afterwards Minister to Japan; traveled with her husband in the two Americas and in the East; and was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1884. Mrs. Fraser's finest literary work has been in interpreting the new Japan, the beauty of the land and the sense of beauty in its people. In 1899 she published an account of her observations in A Diplomat's Wife in Japan and five stories, called The Customs of the Country, or Tales of New Japan. With like sympathy and charm of style she has depicted Devonshire life in A Chapter of Accidents (1897), and modern Roman society in The Splendid Porsenna (1899). FRASER, SIMON. See LOVAT, twelfth Lord. FRASER, SIMON (c.1729-77). An English soldier. He was a subaltern officer in one of the two battalions of the Earl of Drumlanrig's regiment that had been in the Dutch service for some time previous to 1749, and in that year was pensioned upon the reduction of the two battalions to one. In 1757 he was appointed a captain-lieutenant in the Second Highland Battalion (later the Seventy-eighth Highlanders), and was soon after promoted to the rank of captain. He was present at the siege of Louisburg and at the action at Quebec. He afterwards served in Germany, at Gibraltar, and in Ireland, and rose to be lieutenant-colonel of the Twenty-fourth Foot. With the rank of brigadier for America, he accompanied Burgoyne in the pursuit of the American forces retreating from Fort Ticonderoga under the command of Saint Clair, and at Hubbardton (July 7, 1777) he won a complete victory over them. He participated also in the first battle of Saratoga (September 19), and in the second (October 7) was mortally wounded.

An

FRASER, THOMAS RICHARD (1841-). English physician, born at Calcutta, and educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated in medicine in 1862. He was assistant physician in the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh (1869-74), a member of the Admiralty committee on Sir George Nare's Arctic expedition in 1876-77, and in 1877 became professor of materia medica at Edinburgh, and of clinical medicine in the year following. He was dean of the faculty of medicine from 1880 to 1900, and was president of the Indian Plague Commission. He became an authority on the action of poisons. His more important scientific writings include: An Investigation Into Some Previously Undescribed Tetanic Sumptoms Produced in Cold-blooded Animals (1867-68); An Experimental Research on the Antagonism Between the Action of Physostigma and Atropia (1870); The Character, Action, and Therapeutic Uses of Physostigma (1883), a work which won him the Cameron Prize at the University of Edinburgh, and the Barbier Prize from the Academy of Sciences, Paris; and the Dyspnea of Bronchitis and Asthma (1887).

FRASER, Sir WILLIAM (1816-98). A Scottish genealogist, born in Kincardineshire. He became deputy keeper of the records at Edinburgh in 1880. In this capacity he obtained access to the valuable material which enabled him to prepare his numerous genealogical works, which though somewhat dry in style are of high importance to the student of Scottish history. Fraser was distinguished for his numerous charities, and left more than £60.000 for educational and benevolent purposes. Among his rather vo

luminous genealogies and histories may be mentioned: History of the Carnegies, Earls of Southesk (2 vols. 1867); The Chiefs of Colquhoun and Their Country (2 vols. 1869); The Lennox (2 vols. 1874); The Douglass Book (4 vols. 1885); and The Elphinstone Family Book (2 vols., 1897).

FRASER, Sir WILLIAM AUGUSTUS (1826-98). An English politician and author. He was born in 1826, the eldest son of Col. Sir James John Fraser, who fought at Waterloo, and was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1849. Entering the army two years before receiving his degree, he rose to a captaincy in 1852, but resigned his commission and entered Parliainent in the Conservative interest. He represented Barnstaple (1852 and 1857), Ludlow (1863), and Kidderminster (1874-80). In 1862 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and subsequently was a member of the Queen's bodyguard for Scotland. Fraser became famous in London society for his stories and anecdotes concerning Wellington and Disraeli. He published: Words on Wellington (1889); The Waterloo Ball (1897); Disraeli and His Day (1891); Hic et Ubique (1893); and Napoleon III. (1896). He died in 1898. By his will he left a valuable collection of Gillray's caricatures to the House of Lords and a like collection of Doyle's caricatures to the House of Commons. His library was sold at auction for above £20,000.

FRA'SERA. A genus of North American plants of the order Gentianace, named after John Fraser, an English botanist. The species are strong-growing, single-stemmed, usually biennial herbs. with thick bitter roots, opposite or whorled leaves, and bluish, white, or yellowish, generally spotted flowers in cymose clusters. They are rarely seen in cultivation.

FRA'SERBURGH. A seaport in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on a branch of the Great Northern Railway, 42 miles north of Aberdeen (Map: Scotland, G 2). It is the chief seat of the Scotch herring fishery, and besides cured herrings and cod, exports oats, barley, meal, and potatoes. It has three tidal harbors, and its shipping includes 14 sailing vessels, 8 steam vessels, and a fleet of 700 fishing-boats. The town possesses a handsome cross, town hall, and spacious customhouse; the streets are wide and clean, with substantial dwellings. Its site is immediately south of Ptolemy's Promontorium Taxalium, now Kinnaird Head, on which stands Fraser's ancient castle, utilized as a lighthouse, with its mysterious wine-tower and a cave beneath. Population, in 1891, 7466; in 1901, 9000, with a large increase during the fishing season in July and August.

FRASER RIVER. The principal stream of British Columbia, comprising in its basin of 138,000 square miles the greater part of the province (Map: British Columbia, E 4). The Fraser River proper has its origin in the union of two branches, the more important of which receives its waters from a series of lakes that lie in latitude 54° to 55° N., longitude about 124° 50′ W., and flows in a general southeast direction for 260 miles, where it unites with the other branch, 200 miles long, which has its source near Mount Brown, in the Rocky Mountains. The point of confluence is near Fort George, and thence the Fraser River flows in a generally

southerly direction through nearly the whole length of the province, and, after a total course of 740 miles, empties into the Gulf of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the mainland, just north of the international boundary of 49° of latitude. Its chief affluents are the Stuart and the Chilcoten on the right, and the Thompson on the left. Between the Stuart and the Chilcoten, and on the same side, the Fraser River is joined by an affluent of historical interest-the West Road River-which took its name from its having been ascended by Sir Alexander Mackenzie on his adventurous journey of 1793 from the Hudson Bay territories to the Pacific Ocean. The Fraser River is navigable for small and powerful steamboats as far as Fort Hope, and at high water to Yale, 190 miles from its mouth, while to about half that distance-as far as New Westminster-it is navigable for large ships. Above Fort Hope the river sweeps through Big Cañon, which is traversed from Lytton down ward by the Canadian Pacifie Railway. From April to August the river is subject to floods, caused by the melting snow on the 'mountain ranges. In the narrow mountain valleys the

river rises as much as 60 feet above its normal height, and in the lower valleys covers 150,000 to 200,000 acres of rich land. The Canadian Government has under consideration a comprehensive engineering plan of dams and dikes to mitigate this evil.

In 1857 the Fraser River, in its auriferous diggings and washings, began to stand forth as the rival of California and Australia. The discoveries, originally confined to the lower basins, have become more extensive and more productive, and eastward on the Thompson and northward among the upper waters of the great artery of the country the precious deposit has sometimes given almost fabulous returns. After 1862 washings and surface diggings were succeeded by systematic mining and steady labor. The Fraser River, its tributaries, and the numerous lakes communicating with them, furnish great facili

ties for the transport of timber. The lower Fraser country especially is densely wooded. The salmon of the Fraser River, of which there are five species, are justly famous, and the fishing and canning industries are of considerable importance. The river takes its name from Simon Fraser, who, in spite of the hostility of Indians and the natural difficulties to be overcome, explored it to its mouth in 1808.

FRASER RIVER SALMON. A species of salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), called 'blueback,' 'redfish,' etc., which is the most common and valuable one in and near the Fraser River, B. C. See SALMON; REDFISH; Plate of SALMON.

FRA'SERVILLE, or RIVIÈRE DU LOUP, rê var dụ 100 (EN BAS). A town, summer resort and important railway centre of Temiscouata County, Quebec, Canada, picturesquely situated on elevated ground at the confluence of the Rivière du Loup with the Saint Lawrence, 125 miles northeast of Quebec (Map: Quebec, G 3). It is on the Intercolonial Railway, and is the terminus of the Temiscouata Railway. It has the Fraser Institute and other educational establishments, and carries on a considerable general trade. It is much frequented for its shooting, angling, boating, bathing, and its scenery. Population, principally French-Canadian, in 1891, 4175; in 1901, 4569.

FRASIER, frā'zher (OF., Fr., strawberry. plant, from fraise, strawberry, from Lat. fragum, strawberry-plant). In heraldry, a strawberryflower appearing in the arms of the Scotch family of Fraser, as identical with a cinquefoil. See HERALDRY.

FRAT ERETTO. One of the evil spirits by which Edgar pretends to be possessed during his mad scene in the third act of Shakespeare's King Lear. The name of this demon, as well as of some others in the same act, Shakespeare took from a book by Dr. Samuel Harsnet on Popish Impostures, published in 1603. In this Harsnet says: "Frateretto, Fleberdigibet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, were four devils of the round, or Morrice, whom Sara in her fits tuned together, in measure and sweet cadence. These four had forty assistants under them, as themselves do confess."

FRATERNAL INSURANCE. The characteristics which distinguish fraternal insurance from other forms are not to be sought in any.peculiarity of the insurance itself, but rather in the nature of the body which grants it. There is no single feature of fraternal insurance which is not to be found in other systems of life insurance. Fraternal insurance is insurance granted by a 'fraternal beneficiary' society or order to its members. The essentials of such a society, as laid down by the National Fraternal Congress, are, that it should be organized in a system of lodges, that it should have a ritual and a representative form of government, that it should pay benefits, and should not conduct its business for profit. Such societies have almost invariably collected their premiums by means of assessments; but the assessment principle is not essential to their business, and on the other hand its use is by no means confined to such organizations. A great deal of undeserved odium has

attached to fraternal insurance societies owing to the failure to discriminate between them and commercial assessment companies. The history of the latter is for the most part a record of inefficiency or dishonesty on the part of the managers and credulity on the part of the members, ending in a large proportion of cases in financial disaster.

HISTORY. The early American fraternal societies were established somewhat on the lines of the English friendly societies, several of which founded branches in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. Both the English and the early American societies paid benefits of various kinds, often including funeral benefits and payments to the survivors of the deceased members, but none of them established a system of payments deserving the name of life insurance. The first person in. the United States to recognize the possibilities of developing on a large scale coöperative relief in the form of death benefits or life insurance through a system of affiliated lodges was John Gordon Upchurch, who founded in 1868 the Ancient Order of United Workmen. This society is still in existence and contained in 1902 420,000 members. Several other benefit societies, organized on the lodge system, were established during the next decade. Some of these introduced the insurance feature at once, led to it by the high rates charged by the old-line companies and the harsh provisions of their policies. A more powerful impetus toward the introduction of insurance into such societies came in the seventies,

FRATERNAL INSURANCE.

when more than sixty legal-reserve old-line companies failed, creating a feeling of distrust and hostility toward them. Under the influence of this feeling fraternal societies already established introduced the insurance feature, new societies providing for it were formed, and nonfraternal assessment insurance companies appeared in large numbers. In the decade 1881-90, many additional fraternal insurance companies were organized. The eleventh census reported that on December 31, 1889, there were in the United States 298 such orders with 40,342 subordinate lodges. Owing to unsound financial methods, the term of life of many of these orders was very short, so that, in spite of the founding of many new orders, since 1890 there has probably been no increase in the total number in existence. It is impossible to compile a complete list of existing fraternal insurance societies, or to collect full statistics about them, since in many States they are exempted from the duty of making reports to the Insurance Department. Many of the largest companies, however, are federated in the National Fraternal Congress, and for these companies it is possible to obtain complete statistics. In December, 1900, the congress included 47 orders, with 2,855,774 benefit members. The net gain in members for the year had been 327,513. The protection in force at the end of the year was $4,585,579,982, and the net gain for the year $401,952,932. It is probable that other orders not affiliated with the congress had approximately 1,000,000 members, with at least $1,000,000,000 insurance in force. It is interesting to note that on the same date, December 31, 1900, the old-line life insurance companies reporting to the New York Insurance Department -companies which carried at least 95 per cent. of the life insurance in force in old-line companies in the United States-had policies in force amounting to $4,076,283,539.

ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITIES. The forms of organization of the fraternal orders are various. Their government is representative, and is vested in a supreme body consisting of an executive head and certain official associates. In some orders State lines are observed and State officers exercise immediate jurisdiction in many matters over the local lodges in the State. While nominally subordinate to the general body, they are more or less masters of the order in their own territory. Some orders have no intermediate State organization; the local associations are directly affiliated with the supreme body. The Ancient Order of United Workmen may be cited as an illustration of the former class, the Independent Order Sons of Benjamin of the latter. The activities of the different orders are also very various. It is unnecessary to speak of the social features which constitute so important a part of their life. These are entirely under the control of the local bodies, and manifest little approach to uniformity. In the matter of benefits also there is very great diversity. Some of the societies give only death benefits; others give benefits of many other kinds, such as disability, accident, sickness, burial, and monument benefits. These miscellaneous benefits are usually sup ported and managed by the local lodges. The death benefits, on the other hand, are usually under the control of the supreme national body; in a few orders they are maintained by the general State organization. Three federations of fra

FRATERNAL INSURANCE.

ternal beneficiary associations have been formed: the National Fraternal Congress, the American Fraternal Congress, and the Associated Fraternities of America. The National Fraternal Congress was formed at a meeting held in Washington in 1886, at which delegates from 17 orders were present. The orders represented at the congress of 1901 numbered 47. In the constitution the objects of the congress are "declared to be the uniting permanently of all legitimate fraternal benefit societies for the purposes of mutual information, benefit, and protection." In recent years it has devoted a large part of its time and energy to the attempt to accomplish two objects. The first is the voluntary increase of assessment rates by the affiliated orders for the purpose of accumulating reserves, or, as they prefer to call them, emergency funds; the second is the securing of uniform legislation by the various States on matters affecting frater nal insurance. Some of the specific measures advocated by them will be referred to later on.

The American Fraternal Congress was organized at Omaha, Neb., in 1898, by representatives of 18 fraternal orders. The purpose of this organization was to work for the establishment of reserve funds by the fraternal societies. No society without a reserve fund was eligible to membership. The National Fraternal Congress has done so much work along the same line that the more recent federation has little occasion to act and has not become very prominent. The Associated Fraternities of America was organized at Chicago in 1901 by representatives of the younger fraternal orders in opposition to the National Fraternal Congress. Forty-two societies were represented at the meeting. The first annual meeting was held in July, 1901, 24 associations being represented. The point of conflict between the two organizations will become apparent on considering the nature of the legislation sought by the National Fraternal Congress. It is in brief the enactment of a minimum assessment rate for all fraternal insurance organizations. The purpose is to prevent the appearance of new companies with low assessment rates to draw away the 'new blood' from the old established companies, in which the advancing deathrate has made necessary an increase in assessments in order to pay losses. Such legislation the younger orders naturally resist.

TECHNIQUE. Assessment insurance was organized largely in protest against the methods of the old-line life insurance companies. It was generally believed that the cost of insurance in those companies was unnecessarily high. A reduction in cost was anticipated from two sources. In the first place, it was proposed to reduce the expense of management to a minimum, and in this way to cut down the heavy loading' which the old-line companies added to the natural premium. In the second place, it was proposed to do away with the enormous surpluses which the old-line companies were held to be continually accumulating and never paying out. "Pay your losses as they occur and keep your reserve in your own pockets," was the maxim of the advocates of the assessment principle. No financial craze recorded in history has affected more peo ple, or people with sounder judgment in ordinary business matters, than did the assessment craze. Its culmination was reached in the estab lishment of a large number of assessment endow

ment societies, which guaranteed to every member a certain stipulated sum at the end of a fixed period of time in return for a number of periodical payments to the company. The Iron Hall was the first and most notorious of these associations. This organization virtually promised its members that in consideration of the annual payment to the society for seven years of 18 assessments of $2.50 each, making a total contribution of $315, each member should receive from the society $1000 at the end of the seven years. For a few years such payments were actually made, the endowment of the early members coming out of the contributions of the new members. Only by a steady increase of membership at a continually increasing geometrical ratio could such a system be maintained. The Iron Hall and all its imitators came to grief within a few years, bringing loss upon millions of people in the United States.

The assessment life-insurance companies were managed on no sounder principles than the assessment endowment societies. At the beginning all of them, whether fraternal or non-fraternal, raised their funds by assessments after the death for which indemnity was to be paid. In the early days of an assessment company, while the average age of the members was low and the benefit of medical selection was still felt, these assessments were very small. Knowledge of the scientific principles of life insurance was not to be found among the promoters of these companies. The need of mortality tables and the desirability of accumulating a surplus during the earlier years to prepare for increasing mortality were both denied. It was the general claim that the continual accession of new members would prevent any advance in the average age of the members or in the death-rate. This might have been the case if a company had been started with a membership whose age distribution was properly related to a sound mortality table. It could not possibly be the case in a company which started, as all these companies did start, with a great preponderance of young members. In such a company it is clear on a priori grounds that the average age of members must increase. Experience soon demonstrated the same fact. The average age of members and the death-rate increased, and the inevitable increase in the rate of assessment kept new members out of the society, and on the other hand the lapse rate continually advanced, through the withdrawal of members who were unwilling to pay the increased assessments, or desired to join new societies in which the average age, death-rate, and assessments were still low. The vast majority of non-fraternal assessment societies and a large number of fraternal associations were in this way forced out of business.

The greatest enemies of an old established fra ternal insurance society are unreasonable expectation created by unjustifiably low rates at the beginning, and new companies with low mortality and small assessments. Realizing this fact, the old societies which are federated in the National Fraternal Congress have adopted two lines of action to protect themselves. In the first place, they have undertaken a campaign of education among their own members. Year after year they analyze the returns of the constituent orders, and point out the inevitable advance from year to year in average age, in death-rate, and in cost

of insurance, as well as the tendency of the members to desert the old companies and flock to the new. A comparison of the average annual death-rate in different years for the entire congress has no significance, since old companies with a high death-rate are continually passing away and new companies with low death-rates coming in. At the meeting of the congress in 1899 the report of the committee on statistics pointed out that while the average death-rate for the whole body was 8.65 per 1000 in 1898, as compared with 9.32 in 1897, if allowance was made for the influence of the new orders in lowering the rate (it was impossible to make allowance for the similar effect of the withdrawal of the older orders), the figures would be 8.87 in 1897 and 8.89 in 1898. The committee also compiled the death-rates for 21 companies for each of ten years. In 1888 the average had been 7.22, in 1893 9.34, and in 1898 10.84. As to the effect of these changes upon membership it was shown that of the 46 orders reporting that year 19 had a death-rate above the average for the group, and 27 a rate below the average; that the 19, with a membership at the beginning of the year of 869.862, had made a net gain during the year of only 2415; and that the 27, with a menibership at the beginning of the year of 1,192.811, showed a net gain of 217,282. The rate of gain in the former group was 0.28 per cent., and in the latter 18.26 per cent.

In a similar way the committee demonstrated that average age and cost of insurance both increase as the society grows older. Thoroughly aroused by such revelations, the congress authorized the appointment of a committee to prepare tables of rates by applying to a proper extent the principles of a reserve or an emergency fund. This committee first prepared a new mortality table, after investigation which convinced it that the tables of mortality in use by the old-line companies were higher than experience justified. The divergence between the old tables and the new ones is brought out by the following comparison of the death-rate per 1000 living at different ages:

While the mortality experience of every oldline life-insurance company which exercises due care in the selection of its risks shows a rate of loss below that indicated by the American Experience Table, the degree of difference between the two tables here outlined gives reason to think that the Fraternal Table is very close to the margin of safety. At the same time it is a great advance over no table at all, and experience will soon test its validity.

On the basis of the new mortality table, and on the assumption that the reserve will earn four per cent. interest, the committee prepared sev eral tables of minimum rates. Besides the level annual rate, such as is commonly used by oldline companies for whole-life policies, the

com

mittee prepared a table of rates peculiar to the fraternal and assessment societies, the so-called step rate. The step rate advances with advancing age, but not from year to year as the natural premium rate does, but at stated intervals, usually every five years. By a modification of the step-rate plan a slight addition is made to the premium rate during the earlier years, in order to make possible a reduction of the rate in old age. All the rates prepared by the committee presuppose the abandonment of the system of assessing after the occurrence of the loss and the accumulation of a surplus at least for one year. The congress has urged its members to adopt as minimum rates those prepared by the committee, with such loaning for expenses as each association finds necessary. Some organizations have done this, but the extent to which changes have been introduced is very unequal. The result is a high degree of diversity of rates. At the National Congress for 1899 there was exhibited a table of rates actually charged for the same kind of insurance at the same age in different fraternal societies. At age fifty, for example, no less than 41 rates for the same protection were in force in different companies, varying by moder

ate differences from a minimum of 65 cents to a maximum of $3.80.

Despairing of its ability to secure the adoption of the new rates through the voluntary action of the orders, and dreading the effect of the competition of new orders with low rates, the congress has begun the attempt to secure the adoption of these rates through legislation. In the session held in 1901, the president reported that legislation requiring the establishment of these minimum rates as conditions of doing business in the State had been secured in five States, viz. North Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Vermont, and Indiana. Similar legislation will doubtless be secured soon in other States. Whether the low rates thus established will be found high enough to maintain the companies permanently in a sound financial position it is impossible to say.

Rates in the fraternal companies can be legitimately kept below rates in the regular companies in only two ways: either by making such a selection of lives that the rate of mortality is lower in the former than in the latter, or by keeping expenses of management below those of the old-line companies. To a greater or less extent both these aims are accomplished. There can be no doubt that the close personal scrutiny which every individual undergoes before being admitied to a lodge is a valuable supplement to the medical examination. If it is found that the mortality schedule adopted is sufficiently high, rates may legitimately be put below the old-line level. Moreover, the expense of management in the fraternals is reduced to a minimum. Not to speak of the large amount of gratuitous service rendered by the members of many associations, the entire absence of agents for soliciting business is a source of great economy to the companies. The amount paid agents by the old-line companies is approximately one-third of the amount paid to policy-holders. It is clear, therefore, that there are great opportunities for economy by the fraternal companies, and it may fairly be expected that those among them which take to heart the lessons of experience and put their business on a sound basis so far as the matter of surplus is concerned, will continue their

usefulness indefinitely, furnishing insurance in comparatively small amounts at low rates to those most in need of it and least able to pay for it at high rates.

COLLEGE.

FRATERNITIES (Lat. fraternitas, brotherbrother; connected with Gk. párnp. phrater, hood, from fraternus, brotherly, from frater, clansman, OChurch Slav. bratrů, OPruss. bratis, Lith. brolis, Ir., Gael. brathair, Corn. bredar, Skt. bhratar, Goth. bropar, OHG. bruodar, Ger. Bruder, AS. bropor, Eng. brother), AMERICAN all the colleges and universities of the United Societies of students found in nearly acter; but this secrecy is largely nominal, conStates. In general they are secret in charsisting chiefly of extreme care in protecting their constitutions and mottoes from outside knowl this they do not cultivate mystery in their methedge, and in holding secret meetings. Aside from ods or work. The fraternities are composed of branches called 'chapters,' situated in the various colleges. But no fraternity has more than one chapter in any one college. Usually the students of all collegiate departments are eligible to membership, though the academic department has uniformly furnished the largest part of fraternity membership. Fraternities are variously termed by lege Secret Societies,' but among themselves the outsiders, 'Greek-Letter Fraternities,' and 'Colterm 'Fraternities' is universally used.

NOMENCLATURE. The Greek alphabet is generally employed to name both the fraternity and the chapter. Usually a Greek letter is assigned to a chapter according to the order of its establishment; but in some fraternities the name of the State may be added, and infrequently the chapter takes its name from the college or town in which it is placed. An extremely rare instance is known of one chapter, which is named after a prominent individual. When chapters have used all the letters of the alphabet, it is customary to start anew, and add the word 'deuteron' to the letter, thus signifying second. The badges of the fraternities are of three types. One is a plate of gold, which displays the fraternity name and one or more symbols of special significance. A second form is a monogram of the letters of the fraternity, while the third is a symbol, as a key, a skull, or a scroll.

ORIGIN, ETC. The first Greek-letter society, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in 1776. "The promotion of literature and of friendly intercourse among scholars" was its given raison d'être. Its origin is legendary. Three stories of its birth have been handed down by tradition. One gives Thomas Jefferson the honor of founder, one asserts that it sprang from a lodge of Free Masons, the third claims that it was brought from Europe. The first meeting was held in the Apollo room of the old Raleigh Tavern at Williamsburg, Va., a spot made famous by the historic speech of Patrick Henry. In December, 1779, branches were authorized at Yale and Harvard, and in 1780 the meetings of the parent chapter ended amid the vicissitudes of the Revolution, then raging in the immediate vicinity of Williamsburg. The Yale chapter was established in 1780, and that at Harvard in 1781. In 1787 these two chapters united to found a chapter at Dartmouth College. In 1831 the Harvard chapter gave up its individual secrets, and in that year its motto, 'Philosophy, the Guide of