The name of the California high school fraternity, Hi Tow Tong Honor societies and fraternities are a fixture in U.S. colleges. Most often they use Greek letters for their names, and some have names in English. However, the men's honor society of Santa Cruz High School (Santa Cruz, California) is called "Hi Tow Tong".

The word "Tong" is well explained as a neighborhood hall or benevolent association. In light of the origins of most of the Chinese in California at the time, I suspect, but am not sure, that the spelling is a Wade-Giles spelling of Cantonese. There are lots of other local tongs (not high school clubs) listed in Wikipedia's article on the Tong Wars.

According to a blog post containing much later text from the school student newspaper,


  Hi Tow Tong Men’s Honor Society was organized in 1910. The first initiation ceremonies were adopted embracing the sentiments of Confucius, Jesus and other world leaders to emphasize the thought that leadership ability carries with it the responsibility to serve.


What does "Hi Tow" mean? Are several readings possible?
"tow tong" means "道堂", without doubt. e.g.:



堂 (u+5802) should be interpreted as "association"

道 (u+9053) means "tao", the proper way.

about the first character "hi", my best guess is, in sequence:

凱 (u+51f1) roughy means "victory", that "hi tow tong" would be "the association of the tao of victory"

second is 開 (u+958b) roughy means beginning, that "hi tow tong" would be "the association of the tao of beginning"

have fun :)