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Organized in the winter of 1906–07
Sixty gentlemen and a paper: South Bend's literary club for men stands whole in Howard, rules and all. "The membership of The Round Table is limited to sixty gentlemen, residents of the city," meeting the first Wednesday evening of each month from October to June over a table d'hôte dinner, after which a member read a paper and the table discussed it under strict rules — speeches limited to five minutes, no member called upon to speak, no personalities, and a member absent three consecutive meetings ceased to be a member. "The club was organized during the winter of 1906-7, chiefly through the efforts of Wilbert Ward. The first meeting was held in March, 1907." Timothy E. Howard himself sat on its board of governors — the historian inside his own census. The club's later course was not reached; it stands as the documented type of the city's literary-club layer, beside the women's clubs below.
Sources:
- Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. I (1907), pp. 460–461 — the Round Table's limit of sixty members, its rules as printed, its organization by Wilbert Ward, and its first meeting, March 1907.