Word: kappa
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Dates: during 1910-1919
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...McMahon in his communication implies that the CRIMSON in Saturday's editorial stated that the extra ten were elected to phi Beta Kappa on a basis of character and all-round ability. As a matter of fact, the editorial said that the Society was "generally understood" to exercise a right of selection on such basis not only in choosing the extra ten, but in the first thirty. Emphasis was laid on the variance which exists between "general understanding" and the facts...
...suggestion made in Saturday morning's CRIMSON editorial that Phi Beta Kappa should be more widely advertised, and that men should be urged to try for it, is dangerous; for it aims at the basis upon which true scholarship should rest. Scholarship should be a matter of taste and innate ability, rather than a conscious striving for an immediate and tangible reward. There is already, with the numerous stipends, too much professionalization of scholarship at Harvard...
Concerning the question of Phi Beta Kappa and scholarship there is of course no unexceptionable doctrine. Certain members of Phi Beta Kappa have had their conception of life narrowed to books: certain non-members have attained a very full measure of success after graduation. But in the long run the concentration derived from attention to studies has proved the greatest benefit of a college course. To turn the attention of the undergraduate mind more surely to this fact, a number of changes would help. There are two which seem immediately feasible...
...first place Phi Beta Kappa should adopt an absolute basis of scholarship for election. Its elections at present are based, with rare exceptions when a man is known to have attained, his place dishonestly, upon marks. The leading eight men in a class compose the Junior eight; and the next twenty-two, the Senior twenty-two, actual college records determine chiefly the composition of the additional ten. The announcement of its basis, however, says that eight of the first twelve men in the class are elected in Junior year, and twenty-two of the next forty-four in Senior year...
...second place the Freshman should receive more instruction about the opportunities for and rewards of scholarship. He should be told in speeches, through the papers, and in every possible way exactly what Phi Beta Kappa is, what its standards are and what it means; the requirements for a degree with distinction and what it means; and the nature of the First and Second Groups and the innumerable scholarships. At present his advice on the subject is largely indefinite. He is told that scholarship is a fine thing, but not what it requires and what he can derive from...