The Peithologian Society was founded in 1806, four years after Columbia's first literary society, the Philolexian Society, by freshmen who were disenfranchised by Philolexian's requirement that its members be upperclassmen. Its first election of members was on April 4, 1806, and included 24 freshmen.[1]
The society's emphasis was debate, composition, and rhetoric.[1] It had a friendly rivalry with the Philolexian Society.[1] The two groups admitted the same number of members and, between them, included half of the students of Columbia College.[1]
The society's debates focused on national and international contemporary issues, but some covered education, ethics, philosophy, or religion.[1] They frequenly covered slavery in the United States and Napoleon.[1] Members also wrote and presented orations and memorized passages by notable authors.[1] The society published literary papers, written by its members.[1] It also had a sizeable library.[1]
Peithologian became so popular that on July 9, 1821, Columbia's trustees resolved that "for the accommodation of the Philolexian and Peithologian Societies, a suitable building be erected...[to] advance the literary improvement of the students."[2] This agreement brought the previously independent societies under the authority of the board of the college.[2] Although the building was never constructed, the society was assigned rooms on campus.[2]
Peithologian eventually dropped its freshman status and opened itself to all undergraduates.[3] Some students, such as John Lloyd Stephens, belonged to both Peithologian and Philolexian. In general, though, the two groups maintained a rivalry that was friendly at best and highly charged at worst. In his famous diary, George Templeton Strong recorded that a Philolexian gathering was disrupted by "those rascally Peithologians"; firecrackers and stink bombs, tossed into the midst of each other's meetings, were usually the weapons of choice.
The society began to decline in 1877.[2] Although Peithologian's alumni included such prominent names as Columbia president Nicholas Murray Butler[2](Class of 1882), Nobel laureate Hermann Muller (Class of 1910), and publisher Alfred A. Knopf (Class of 1912), both it and Philolexian suffered declining membership after the turn of the century. The society ceased to exist around World War I, although several undergraduates revived it after World War II.[4]
Philo adopted light blue as its official color, while Peithologian adopted white (Columbia later appropriated the two hues as its official school colors).[2] Peithologian's was a star. Its Latin motto was "Vitam Impendere Vero" meaning, roughly, "To devote one's life to truth."
