No American college in the first half of the nineteenth century would have thought itself worthy of the name of college without its having at least one literary society, and Washington College was, if anything, “collegiate.” 1)
College literary societies (often called Latin literary societies because they typically had compound Latinate names) were the first collegiate extra-curricular social organizations and the precursor to modern-day fraternities and sororities.
Trinity's literary societies were borne out of a common interest among the College President and faculty. Thomas Church Brownell had been a member of the Philermenian Society at Brown University, and Professor Doane belonged to two debating clubs. In 1824, Brownell and Doane formed a committee to plan a debating society for Washington College. The fruit of this labor was named the Athenaeum Society, founded on July 4, 1825 for the purposes of “the literary improvement of its members, especially in Declamation, Composition, and Extemporaneous Debate.” In 1827, nineteen members of the Athenaeum withdrew to form a friendly rival, the Parthenon.
The literary societies, while social, were also organized, regimented, and academic in nature. Members wrote original compositions, attended regular meetings, and engaged in debate on Classical history, religion, ethics, politics, and current events, although religion was not regarded as a proper subject for debate or discussion at Trinity. It was also an opportunity for students to showcase original literature, poetry, or music with their peers and faculty during their free hours. The societies met at least weekly, from 9am to noon on Saturdays, and debated each other on Saturday afternoons. “Exhibitions” were held at the end of the academic year, consisting of Latin orations, English declamations, poetry, and satire.
Literary Societies at Trinity had their own “club rooms” or “halls” in Jarvis Hall and each club room had its own library, in which the students and faculty would amass their own materials:
By 1844, Athenaeum had accumulated well over one thousand volumes, among which were the usual religious, historical, and philosophical works and a considerable collection of poetry, dramatic works, novels, tales, and romances, areas in which the College Library was rather weak. Although the use of the society library was theoretically limited to the society membership, the College regarded the society collections as an integral part of the College Library and, until at least the Civil War, the combined society collections exceeded that of the regular College Library in size. 2)
Literary societies represented the formal, acceptable form of student social and extracurricular activity, as any new student organization had to be approved by the College Faculty. As a result, “soon secret societies found their way to campus,” the earliest of which was Theta Beta Phi in 1828. And though the heyday of Literary Societies in their original form waned after the Civil War, several of Trinity's societies persisted, being disbanded and resurrected, and still exist today.