The Lehigh Junto

The Lehigh Junto was a student literary society founded on September 17, 1868. Literary societies were a standard feature of college life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At meetings, members would host readings and engage in debates. Many college literary societies also had their own libraries. The idea for the Lehigh Junto came from Eliphalet Nott Potter, Lehigh’s Professor of Moral and Mental Philosophy and Christian Evidences. The society’s motto was “Mutua Participatione Lucrum Facimus” (Mutual Sharing of Wealth). The Lehigh Junto was not the first literary society in the Lehigh Valley. Just a year earlier, students at Muhlenberg College founded the Euterpean Society and the Sophronian Society. Lafayette College also had two literary societies, the Washington Literary Society and the Franklin Literary Society, which were established in the early 1830s. By 1878, the Lehigh Junto had disbanded, and their collection of books was donated to Linderman Library.