SORREL 



5443 



SOUND 



Development. As the idea of the higher edu- 

 cation for women became popular, women be- 

 gan entering the universities to share the edu- 

 cational advantages of their brothers. It was 

 only natural that they should come to feel the 

 same need of sympathetic companionship and 

 a definite outlet for their social instincts as the 

 men had felt and met through the organization 

 of their fraternities. The latter furnished a 

 ready-made model after which the women 

 could pattern. 



The first secret society for women was the 

 Adelphian, which in 1851 was organized at 

 Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia. Although 

 this did not begin existence under a Greek 

 name, it followed the fraternity idea in its 

 other features, and in 1905 the name itself was 

 changed to Alpha Delta Phi sorority. Kappa 

 Alpha Theta is usually spoken of as the first 

 sorority, since it was the first to use the Greek 

 letters ; it was founded at DePauw University in 

 1870. In the same year Kappa Kappa Gamma 

 was started at Monmouth College, in Illinois. 



Several of the honorary fraternities admit 

 women as well as men to membership. Among 

 these are Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest of the 

 fraternities; Sigma Xi, similar to Phi Beta 

 Kappa, but confined to students following sci- 

 entific lines; Phi Kappa Phi and Alpha Omega 

 Alpha. 



Consult Baird's American College Fraternities; 

 Stevens' Cyclopedia of Fraternities. 



SORREL, sahr' el, the name applied to sev- 

 eral plants belonging to the buckwheat family, 

 whose juicy leaves and stems contain oxalic 

 acid and have a sour taste. In Europe, par- 

 ticularly in France, the plant is cultivated ex- 

 tensively and is used in soups, salads and for 

 greens. Several varieties to which the name 

 is applied are mountain, Indian, switch, wat.er 

 and sheep sorrel, the latter a weed which grows 

 in barren soil and spreads rapidly. Indian sor- 

 rel, grown in tropical countries, is used in mak- 

 ing jellies and refreshing drinks. The common 

 American species is a low-growing plant with 

 three-parted leaves on long stems, and bears 

 small white, pink or yellow flowers. Almost all 

 of the sorrels are useful for allaying fever and 

 as a remedy for scurvy. The name is derived 

 from an old French word meaning sour. 



SORREL TREE, or SOUR 'WOOD, a beauti- 

 ful tree of the heath family, growing plentifully 

 in the woods of the Southern United States and 

 also found as far north as Pennsylvania, In- 

 diana and Ohio. The names refer to the taste 

 of the leaves and twigs, which hunters and 



woodsmen sometimes chew to quench 'their 

 thirst, sorrel being derived from an Old French 

 word meaning sour. The tree often reaches a 

 height of sixty feet, and has reddish-gray bark 

 and smooth, oblong leaves. In summer it bears 

 graceful clusters of small, white, bell-shaped 

 flowers, which are followed by little, downy 

 capsules. In spring the foliage is bronze-green, 

 but in autumn it turns a brilliant scarlet. The 

 wood is used for turning articles such as tool 

 handles and bearings for machinery, while the 

 leaves furnish a black dye. 



SOTHERN, EDWARD HUGH (1859- ), an 

 American actor, born at New Orleans, La. His 

 father, who was a player well known both in 

 America and Great Britain, was opposed to his 

 child following the same profession, and there- 

 fore took the boy to England at the age of 

 five and began to train him in the fine arts, 

 especially painting. In 1879, however, Edward 

 refused to continue art work, and in September 

 commenced his theatrical career in New York. 

 He then played unimportant characters in Bos- 

 ton, and in 1881 toured America as an actor of 

 comic parts with John McCullough. After a 

 brief tour of England he again joined the Mc- 

 Cullough company. 



A period of struggle and poverty followed, 

 and Sothern thought at times of abandoning 

 the stage. But in 1884 his future began to look 

 brighter when he became leading man in such 

 popular dramas as Sardou's Scrap of Paper and 

 Howard's One of Our Girls. Three years later 

 he took the most important role in The High- 

 est Bidder, an old comedy found among his 

 father's papers. Sothern 's work was heartily 

 praised by the critics, and early in 1888 Daniel 

 Frohman, the New York theater manager, en- 

 gaged him for a long term of years as the lead- 

 ing man in the Frohman Stock Company. In 

 that position he made notable successes of such 

 dramas as Belasco's Chumley; The Prisoner of 

 Zenda, adapted from Anthony Hope's novel, 

 and Justin McCarthy's // / Were King. In 

 1900 he began his acting of Shakespearean 

 tragedies, and soon associated Julia Marlowe 

 with him in productions which for years set 

 the American standard for such plays. He 

 married Miss Marlowe in 1911. In 1916 ap- 

 peared his autobiography, The Melancholy 

 Tale of "Me;" it is a complete presentation of 

 the actor's personality and career. 



SOUND. If you touch a gong while it is 

 sounding you can easily feel that it is vibrating, 

 and if you press against it to stop the vibra- 

 tions you bring the sound to a sudden end. 



