They called it "the Pig Club" back in 1791 when it was founded, and some call it that today for different reasons. You see, the Porcellian Club--the most prestigious and mysterious of Harvard's nine final clubs--took its original name from two of its first members who enjoyed "that delicacy in roasted form," according to Cleveland Amory. The vernacular--and even the club--has changed since 1791, and Porcellian is now known to its enamored members as "the Porc."
Final clubbers constitute a somewhat anachronistic social elite within a university which has been, for most of its 341 years, even more of an elite than it is now.
By 1749. all undergraduates entering Harvard were ranked by the president according to their social standing: "to the Dignity and the Familie whereto the students severally belonged." Ranking determined room assignments, seating and serving order at dinner, chapel seating, class seating and even the marching order at college processions. This practice continued into the early 1800s, when it was terminated largely due to the outrage of families whose sons had been placed low on the list.
By this time, however, Harvard's final clubs had taken up the chore of keeping Harvard's--and often Boston's--social register. Originally organized as chapters of national college fraternities, final clubs were founded when they became wealthy enough to divorce themselves of fraternity obligations by chartering themselves as financially independent clubs. Through their 200 years, final clubs have represented prestige, wealth, and "place" in society. Even today, they exclude women. But just as the Harvard of 1749 has changed in social climate, so have the final clubs. The change has been of standards, not of concept, however.
Ours is still an age of status and symbolism. In today's America, we have lost many of the commonly unquestioned social values of the Puritan past. Surnames and father's occupation no longer define people as they once did; it is up to the individual to identify himself to the world. We now identify ourselves with words, clothes, and dinner conversations, cars--America's endless hierarchy of symbols.
Harvard's final clubs are still very much a part of Harvard's social symbols, but they are not life's "be-all and end-all" for most students here anymore. Most "clubbies" will very sincerely say something like, "Aw hell, it's not really elitism, I joined because it's just a lot of fun."
"When I was a freshman, I looked at them and I liked them," one prospective club member said.
"People arein them just to have fun. They take you out, they party, get you soused and have fun--it's hedonistic, but I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm no great moralist, but it's something you can do in college you'll never be able to do again."
Still, Harvard's final clubs--Porcellian, A.D., Delphic, D.U., Phoenix, Owl, Fox, Spee and Fly--symbolize something to everyone on campus. The standards of club membership have changed over Harvard's many years, but the clubs still carry the onus of mystery and elitism they cultivated for over 200 years.
They will always bear the onus of mystery to the innocent-bystander freshman who walked down Mass Ave to read dirty magazines at Nini's Corner only to see three liquor-brave men wearing hospital-clean tuxedos and gnawing on cigars like billowing corporate smokestacks laughing fraternally and singing the Latin chorus of "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard" out of key. The repulsion or infatuation he feels will somehow translate into his own social symbols.
And the clubs will always stand for elitism to the up-and-coming student whose ego and self-perception finds a niche in Harvard's plethora of prestige and vanity, and to the super-communist who sneers at the stodgy brick walls of the Fly Club with its fenced-in garden and throws eggs at anything resembling a starchy penguin on Halloween.
Only 16 per cent of today's undergraduates belong to final clubs. During the '30s and '40s, 40 per cent were members. During the tumultous '60s, the figure was reduced to 10 per cent. One club, the Iroquois, closed in 1970. Despite the decline in membership, the issue of final clubs arouses adrenalin in any social circle, particularly when recruiting season comes around.
Funny things happen to about 400 men during their sophomore year. They hear a knock on the door, and rising to answer it, they notice an ivory envelop which has been slipped under the door. The door is opened, and sleuth-like, the messenger is nowhere to be seen.
The envelope contains an elegant, hand-scripted invitation to a cocktail party at a final club. R.S.V.P. Some toss the "punches" in the trash, some are overjoyed and seek congratulations, and others have a vague interest in checking it out. They have been "punched," because early October is "punching season" for the final clubs.
"It's one big party," one punchee said. "They take you out to the North Shore and play touch football and drink, and I've never found them condescending or stuck-up."
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