Literary societies records

As in other colleges of the time, the literary societies provided a chief extracurricular outlet for student energies. The first was the Platonean Literary Society, formed in June 1838 under the direction of Professor Cyrus Nutt. Two years later, on President Simpson's advice, it split into two groups, the second taking the name first of the Ciceronian, and finally, the Philological Literary Society. Plato and Philo, as they were generally known, persisted throughout the Asbury period, each with a membership of from 50 to 100 students. After women entered the university in 1867, they formed their own literary society called the Philomathean, and the preparatory department at times had its own, less well developed, society. Most students were to join one or the other of the societies, which were highly competitive but not as exclusive as social fraternities became in later years. [from Clifton Phillips and John Baughman, DePauw A Pictorial History, 1987]