A Commons Club is a type of social organization whose membership is "open" rather than selective based on personal introduction and invitation. It may also refer to the lodge or other meeting facility associated with such a club and used for its activities. Usually, Commons Club refers to a type of men's social organization which flourished at institutions of higher education in North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Principles Commons Clubs both emulated and differentiated themselves from fraternities and other competing social institutions. They provided a social network, but membership was usually open to anyone interested in joining. The resources of a large organization could be put to sponsoring events and activities, as well as providing dining and housing, beyond the means of an individual student. Commons Clubs over time came to identify their chief ideals as Democracy, Service, and Brotherhood. History Greek-letter literary and philosophical societies, starting with Phi Beta Kappa (est. 1779), rose at American universities as an outlet for students frustrated with the traditional curriculum centered on the classics. Some early organizations to use the phrase "commons club" were of this type, their name referring to the democracy and debates of the British House of Commons. In the mid-19th century, general or "social" fraternities supplanted the literary fraternities, to the point where "independent" students became disadvantaged in campus awards and activities as opposed to "Greeks" and considered to occupy a lower position in the social hierarchy of the time. Four Commons Clubs federated in 1906, with clubs at Wesleyan University, Dartmouth College, Middlebury College, and Norwich University, and began the equivalent of a national organization that any of the college fraternities would have, and from this initial point, the federated organization began to grow. The Wesleyan Commons Club was the oldest, founded in 1899. Wesleyan President Bradford Paul Raymond met with a group of non-fraternity students, to discuss the possibility of all non-fraternity students rooming and boarding together in a Wesleyan-owned building. Together, they would constitute a 'college commons'. This new organization was announced in the official Wesleyan University Bulletin of June 1899 : "Two conferences have been held recently by President Raymond with students interested in the formation of a commons, under the direction of College authorities. At each meeting the details of the proposed scheme were discussed at some length, and at the close of the second session the President announced