resolution to claim the legacies of the peithologian society and barnard literary association

WHEREAS the Philolexian Society is the oldest student group at Columbia, having been founded in 1802 for the purposes of improving its members in “Oratory, Composition and Forensic Discussion,”

WHEREAS the Philolexian Society is first, oldest, and sole remaining non-greek lettered literary society of Columbia, having outlasted competition from the Peithologian Society and Barnard Literary Association, both having been founded as offshoots of Philolexian,

WHEREAS the existence of multiple societies at an institution of higher education was normal for a great deal of the 19th and early 20th century, based on the competitive ‘rival societies’ model, such as the Whig and Cliosophic Societies of Princeton, the Philomathean and Zelosophic Societies of the University of Pennsylvania, the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies of the University of North Carolina,

WHEREAS in nearly each of these cases the Societies ultimately united or were absorbed into the folds of a single society,

BE IT RESOLVED that the Philolexian society hereby asserts its claim as the inheritor of the legacies of the Peithologian Society and Barnard Literary Association, for the sake of preserving and promoting their illustrious histories as well as that of the literary culture at Columbia University

This 7th day of April, 2005

*proposed by Raza panjwani