We at Clemson, especially those of us who worked for so many years to see it happen, are excited by the inauguration of our Phi Beta Kappa Chapter. We are especially pleased that it happens at the very moment we are celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of Thomas Green Clemson, the founder of Clemson University. In his will, Clemson left his estate, which consisted principally of the Fort Hill plantation he had inherited through his wife from his father-in-law, John C. Calhoun, to establish what he called “a high seminary of learning.” Clemson had in mind an agricultural college, an institution that would provide a practical, scientific education to future farmers and engineers, but one reflecting his own cosmopolitan background. He had been educated in Europe (as a mining engineer at the Ecole des Mines in Paris in the 1820s), was fluent in numerous languages, not only collected art but was a painter himself as well as played and composed music; in short, he appreciated the entwining of the arts and sciences.
This is very much the educational ideal Phi Beta Kappa recognizes and embodies. “No one more than myself,” Clemson wrote in The American Farmer in 1856, explaining his own educational philosophy and the objectives of the educational reformers of his day. While he promoted and had great faith in science and the benefits of a scientific education, he did not lose sight of the classics. He, like us, appreciated the value of a broadly conceived education.
The arrival of Phi Beta Kappa on our campus continues that dream and seems both fitting and fortuitous in that it coincides with the celebration of Thomas Green Clemson’s birth. We think Clemson would be pleased; we know we are.
Dr. Alan Grubb
Associate Professor of History
President, Clemson Phi Beta Kappa