Editing Phi Beta Kappa (section)

===Origins===
[[Image:PBKclose.jpg|thumb|[[Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall]] entrance at the [[College of William & Mary]]]]
The Phi Beta Kappa Society had its first meeting on December 5, 1776, at the [[College of William & Mary]] in [[Williamsburg, Virginia]] by five students, with John Heath as its first President. The society established the precedent for naming American college societies after the initial letters of a secret Greek motto.<ref>{{cite web |title=PBK History |publisher=Phi Beta Kappa Society |website=www.pbk.org |url=https://www.pbk.org/History |access-date=2019-12-10 |archive-date=December 19, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191219191722/https://www.pbk.org/History |url-status=live }}</ref>

The group consisted of students who frequented the [[Raleigh Tavern]] as a common meeting area off the college campus. A persistent story maintains that a Masonic lodge also met at this tavern, but the [[Freemasons]] gathered at a different building in Williamsburg.<ref name="Brinkley, M. Kent Brinkley">{{cite web |author=Brinkley, M. Kent |date=March 1, 1999 |title=Freemasonry in Williamsburg: An overview history of Williamsburg Lodge #6, A.F.& A.M. of Virginia |place=Williamsburg, VA |publisher=Acacia Lodge No.&nbsp;16 A.F.&A.M. |url=http://www.acacia16.org/GL/History |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723112953/http://www.acacia16.org/GL/History |archive-date=July 23, 2008}}</ref> (Some of the original members of Phi Beta Kappa did become Freemasons, but later in life).<ref name = Hastings>{{cite book |author=Hastings, William T. |year=1965 |title=Phi Beta Kappa as a Secret Society with its Relations to Freemasonry and Antimasonry Some Supplementary Documents |location=[[Richmond, Virginia]] |publisher=United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa}}</ref>{{rp|5}}

Whether the students organized to meet more freely and discuss non-academic topics, or to discuss politics in a Revolutionary society is unknown. The earliest records indicate only that the students met to debate and engage in oratory, and on topics that would have been not far removed from the curriculum.<ref name=Hastings/>{{rp|83–85}}<ref name="Fleming, Bill">{{cite web |author=Fleming, Bill |date=May 6, 1996 |title=Phi Beta Kappa |series=Brief history of fraternities |publisher=[[Sam Houston State University]] |url=http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_wpf/frat_hist.html |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 13, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513091007/http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_wpf/frat_hist.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In the Phi Beta Kappa Initiation of 1779, the new member was informed,
: "here then you may for a while disengage yourself from scholastic cares and communicate without reserve whatever reflections you have made upon various objects; remembering that everything transacted within this room is transacted ''[[sub rosa]]'', ... here, too, you are to indulge in matters of speculation that freedom of inquiry which ever dispels the clouds of falsehood by the radiant sunshine of truth...".<ref name=Hastings/>{{rp|5}}