Over 150 years ago two college students, William H. Letterman and Charles P.T. Moore, in the little college town of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in the hills of Western Pennsylvania were nursing and watching their stricken friends during an epidemic of typhoid fever at the college. Through the long night vigils, an appreciation of the great joy of serving others came into their lives. Calling a number of others to join them, a Brotherhood was founded on February 19, 1852. It grew, survived and gradually spread among the college men of the country. Idealists all, these founders of Phi Kappa Psi taught a new fraternity - a fraternity which should supplement the work of the university by cultivating those humanities without which the educated man fails of his greatest usefulness.

At the time of Phi Psi's founding, Jefferson College was considered part of "The Big Three" in what was known as the "Jeffersonian Cradle." The other two institutions comprising this group, Harvard and Princeton, were of very nearly equal size and equal high esteem, graduating predominantly ministers, then lawyers, then physicians, in descending numbers. Jefferson College merged with nearby Washington College in 1865, as did our Penn Alpha and Penn Delta Chapters merge coincident with their host institutions that same year.

Recognizing the need and value of education, Phi Kappa Psi urges upon her members the securing of the best and broadest education possible. But unless actuated by a proper love for and service to mankind, the educated man is too apt to shrink from the human race, to waste his talents. It is to counteract this tendency that Phi Kappa Psi was founded.

Phi Kappa Psi believes that talents should be cultivated to be used for the benefit of our fellowmen, and she seeks to develop among her members a purpose so to use theirs. But life is dreary, indeed, for him who, from a sense of duty alone, pursues an unloved task. He who would serve his fellowman must love his work and exalt those whom he would serve.

It is this heart-filling desire to serve, and this high enthusiasm for an idealized task, that is Phi Psi's mission to supply. It is when a man realizes that he is doing his part of the world's work that he can approach his task with the exaltation of soul that compels success. When education and the ability to do this is added to the desire to render loving service, and that enthusiasm which is born of high ideals, the result is the development of manhood for which Phi Kappa Psi exists.