Mortar Board is an American national honor society whose purpose is to recognize outstanding students dedicated to the values of scholarship, leadership, and service. The Cornell University Der Hexenkreis chapter, founded in 1892, is the oldest and predates the national society's founding in 1918. Though many of the traditions within the society are secret, the membership of each chapter is public, which differentiates Mortar Board from many of the secret societies that were formed in the late 19th century.
Mortar Board has 226 chartered chapters nationwide and 19 alumni chapters. Since 1892, more than a quarter of a million college seniors have been initiated into the group.
Read more about Mortar Board: Mortar Board and Women, Notable Alumni, National Structure, Affiliations, The Mortar Board National Foundation
Famous quotes containing the words mortar and/or board:
“For the first time I’m content to see
What poor mortar and bricks
I have to build with, knowing that I can
Never in seventy years be more a man
Than now a sack of meal upon two sticks.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Midway the lake we took on board two manly-looking middle-aged men.... I talked with one of them, telling him that I had come all this distance partly to see where the white pine, the Eastern stuff of which our houses are built, grew, but that on this and a previous excursion into another part of Maine I had found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered that he could hardly tell me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)