Princeton University is an academic institution. It has a charter, a budget, and board of trustees. Its story can be told in institutional terms - enrollment, curriculum, endowment - and is so told, year after year.
But Princeton is more than an institution; it is a very human place. Telling its story is like telling the story of an old family, a sage of hope and achievement, of joy and sorrow - with enough mistakes along the way to keep it modest.
The campus is the family homestead. Many generations have lived and studied here. Each has added to the heritage, and each part of the story told briefly in the pages that follow in terms of the lives of the individuals who were most closely identified with the University: the presidents of Princeton.
Jonathan Dickinson was the leader of the little group that, in his words, "first concocted the plan and foundation of the College."
After graduating from the Collegiate School of Connecticut (later known as Yale), Dickinson studied theology and became minister of the Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He served this church all his life, ministering to his flock as pastor, lawyer, physician, and, in later years, instructor of young men preparing for professional careers.
In 1739, Dickinson became one of the leaders of a movement to found a "seminary of learning" for the middle colonies. He was disappointed by Harvard's and Yale's opposition to the "New Lights" of the Church and by Yale's harsh treatment of his young friend, David Brainerd, a student who was dismissed because of outspoken opposition to the faculty's conservative religious views. He considered the only other college in the colonies, William and Mary of Virginia, too Anglican and too far away. So, with the help of three fellow pastors (Ebenezer Pemberton, Aaron Burr, Sr., and John Pierson) and three laymen from New York City )William Smith, Peter Van Brugh Livingston, and William Peartree Smith), he secured a Royal Charter for the College of New Jersey dated October 22, 1946.
Princeton's founding charter made no reference to any specific faith or denomination. From the beginning, the college was open to students of all persuasions.
Classes began in Dickinson's parsonage in Elizabeth, with eight or ten students. the only decent library in town was Dickinson's; his parlor was probably the classroom and his dining room was probably the refectory. Upon his death, the College moved to the Newark parsonage of his friend, Aaron Burr, Sr.
During Aaron Burr, Sr.'s decade as Princeton's president, a curriculum was devised, the student body was increased tenfold, and the College's permanent Princeton home was established.
On November 9, 1748, Burr presided over the first commencement exercises in his Newark Church. According to the New York Gazette, the president spoke to the graduating class in Latin, reminding them of "the manifold Advantages of the liberal Arts and Sciences, in exalting and dignifying the humane Nature, enlarging the Soul, improving its Faculties, civilizing Mankind, qualifying them for the important Offices of Life, and rendering them useful Members of the Church and State."
Five of the six members of the Class of 1748 went on to become Presbyterian ministers, and the sixth, Richard Stockton, became a lawyer and signed the Declaration of Independence.
Burr served for three years without salary. He filled the offices of both pastor and president until finally, at the request of the Church, he was relieved of his pastoral duties to devote full time to the College. He drew up the first entrance requirements, the first course of study, and the first set of rules and regulations; in 1756, he led the move to Princeton into the College's first building, Nassau Hall.
Nassau Hall was named for King William III, England's Prince of Orange-Nassau. The largest stone building in the colonies, it housed the entire College: classroom, dormitory, chapel, library, and refectory. It became a model for buildings at Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Rutgers, and North Carolina.
A commemorative stamp issued by the federal government marked the 200th anniversary of Nassau Hall. Now designated a national landmark (because it served as the Capitol of the United States in 1783), it is still the administrative center of the University. President Burr occupied Room Number 1; his successors still do.
Sadly, Aaron Burr, Sr. had little opportunity to enjoy the fruits of his endeavors. Borne down by the multiple duties of administrator, teacher, and fund-raiser, he died at the age of 41, a year after moving into Nassau Hall. His son, Aaron, Jr. graduated from Princeton in 1772 and became the third vice-president of the United States.
Jonathan Edwards, elected president five days after the death of his son-in-law, Aaron Burr, Sr., was a popular choice. He had been a friend of the College since its inception and was the most eminent American philosopher-theologian of his time. But he was reluctant to take on "such a new and great business in the decline of life," explaining he considered himself deficient in health, in temperament, and in some branches of learning.
As author of the celebrated work, The Freedom of the Will, he was respectfully received by the undergraduates, who spoke of the "light and instruction" he communicated. He died only two months after taking office, of a fever following an inoculation for smallpox. He was buried in a special corner of the Princeton cemetery called "the Presidents Lot."
Samuel Davies came from Virginia, where he was known as an advocate of civil and religious liberties. Davies' association with College of New Jersey began when, at the age of 28, he helped raise funds for the school's move from Newark to Princeton. During his first assignment - an 11-month trip to Great Britain and Ireland in search of donations - he helped raise enough money to build Nassau Hall and a house for the president, with enough left over to endow a charitable fund "for the education of pious and indigent youth." (One of the first students to benefit from this fund was James Leslie, Class of 1759. After graduation, he left his frugally guarded savings to the College to endow a permanent scholarship in his name. Since then, Princeton has received gift for more than 700 "named" scholarships.)
Davies' election to the presidency was greeted with joy. "I believe there was never a College happier in a president," said one trustee. "You can hardly conceive what prodigious, uncommon gifts the God of Heaven had bestowed on that man." But the joy was short-lived. Eighteen months later, Davies died of pneumonia after being bled for "a bad cold."
During his brief tenure, Davies drew up the first catalog of the College library, then housed on the second floor of Nassau Hall: 1,281 books in all. He was an ardent promoter of the library - "A large and well-sorted collection of books is the most ornamental and useful furniture of a college," he said. He urged students to go beyond the "narrow limits" of their assigned reading and encouraged them to continue to read widely after graduation so they would continue to "investigate Truth; and guard against the stratagems and assaults of Error." He also believed that reading good books by authors with differing points of view would keep them modest.
Samuel Finley, a Scots-Irishman who came to the united States with his parents when he was 19, attended the "Log College" in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, a school for ministers (1726-45) and a precursor of Princeton.
His early career as an evangelical preacher was marked by an energetic, contentious, and sometimes acrimonious spirit that was not uncommon in the 18th-century religious revival known as "The Great Awakening." As one of his students said later, his sermons "were calculated to inform the ignorant, to alarm the careless and secure, and to edify and comfort the faithful."
During his pastorate in Nottingham, Maryland, he also headed an academy renowned for its standards of scholarship. In recognition of his work, he was given an honorary degree by the University of Glasgow, the second American divine to receive an honorary degree abroad. His interest in higher education led him to become one of the original trustees of the College of New Jersey; when he was elected its president in 1761, he was regarded as "a very accurate scholar, and a very great and good man."
Finley's presidency was marked by steady growth in enrollment. He hoped his students would grow up to become "good Scholars and useful members of society" - and many did, including the Rev. James Manning, Class of 1762, founder and first president of Brown University; William Patterson, Class of 1763, governor of and first senator from New Jersey, and Oliver Ellsworth, Class of 1766, chief justice of the United States.
The two sycamores he planted in front of the President's house (now called Maclean House) are still growing.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the telegraph, was Finley's great-grandson; he gave the school a portrait of Finley that hangs in the Faculty Room in Nassau Hall.
John Witherspoon was the only clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration of Independence.
A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Witherspoon gained a reputation in the Church of Scotland as a leader of the left wing "Popular Party." His works made him well known in the American colonies.
He first declined the call to Princeton but eventually he sailed for America, bring his wife, five children, and 300 books for the College library. the students welcomed him by "illuminating" Nassau Hall with a lighted tallow dip in each window.
Despite the warmth of his reception, Witherspoon soon found a number of disturbing conditions in the College. Many students were inadequately prepared; the enrollment from the southern colonies had declined; and, most worrisome of all, the College's finances were in a sorry state.
Witherspoon moved to shore up the place. He began a series of highly successful trips throughout the colonies to preach, recruit, and gather funds, making Princeton known as a national center of learning. While traveling through Virginia, he encouraged the Madisons of Montpelier to enroll their son James; later, he persuaded his friend George Washington to give 50 gold guineas to the College. (Washington was a longtime advocate of the place. "No college has turned out better scholars or more estimable characters than Nassau," he said in a letter to his adopted son, a member of the Class of 1799.)
Witherspoon called the College's pastoral setting a "campus," thereby introducing that word into the American vocabulary.
In addition to managing the College's affairs and preaching twice on Sundays, Witherspoon had a heavy teaching load. To the College's faculty of five (three tutors and two professors), he added a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, leaving him responsible for providing instruction in moral philosophy, divinity, rhetoric, history, and French.
He quickly broadened and enriched the curriculum of the College. He introduced English grammar and composition and added to the teaching equipment of the College, especially books for the library and laboratory apparatus for science instruction.
Witherspoon saw no conflict between faith and reason; he encouraged students to test their faith by experiment and experience. He applied the test of common sense to any proposition, reducing it to its simplest terms. His name is identified with certain attitudes and assumptions known as the "Common Sense Philosophy," important in the development of our national character.
Witherspoon was careful not to protect students from exposure to ideas that differed from his own strong convictions. The many books he added to the library gave access to a wide range of contemporary literature, including authors with whom he had engaged in public dispute.
Witherspoon's administration was a major turning point in the life of the College. He put fresh emphasis on the need for a broadly educated clergy. He did not hesitate to teach both politics and religion. He gave wholehearted support to the national cause of liberty and became a leading member of the Continental Congress; many of his students entered government service. In addition to a president and vice-president of the United States, he taught nine cabinet officers, 21 senators, 39 congressmen, three justices of the Supreme Court, and 12 state governors.
Largely because of him, Princeton became known as the "seedbed" of the revolution. Six months after he signed the Declaration of Independence, the College became the site of a strategic victory as Washington surprised the British in the Battle of Princeton. six years later, Washington was again in Princeton, at the invitation of Congress assembled in Nassau Hall to accept the official thanks of the nation for the successful conclusion of the war. During the visit, he also attended commencement exercises for the Class of 1783.
Washington sent a formal letter to Witherspoon, praying that "every temporal and divine blessing may be bestowed on the President and Faculty of the College of New Jersey, and that the usefulness of this Institution in promoting the interests of Religion and Learning may be universally extended."
"Washington at Princeton" was commissioned by the trustees of the College and painted from life. It has hung in the Faculty Room of Nassau Hall for more than two centuries.
Witherspoon's later years were difficult. During the war, the College suffered extensive damage to its buildings and instructional equipment, and its finances were left in disarray. He had lost his son James, Class of 1770, at the Battle of Brandywine. Two years before his own death, he went blind. But until the end, the reputation he had won as a clergyman, educator, and patriot remained - and remains today - a noble part of Princeton's heritage.
Samuel Stanhope Smith, salutatorian of the Class of 1769, was the first alumnus of the College to become its president.
After graduation, Smith became a teacher and preacher in Virginia and was instrumental in founding the two academies that became Hampden-Sydney College and Washington and Lee University. Through sermons and writings, he helped prepare the way for the "separation of church and state," a radical doctrine then being advanced by his fellow Princetonian James Madison, Class of 1771.
Smith returned to Princeton as professor of moral philosophy and as President Witherspoon's son-in-law. Fifteen years later, when Witherspoon died, he succeeded him.
During his presidency, Smith increased his reputation as a scholar. Elected to the American Philosophical Society, he delivered "An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species" in which he argued that all mankind belongs to the same family, and that diversity within the species should be attributed to environmental influences. He firmly believed in the compatibility of science and religion.
Smith promoted the study of science and modern languages, without challenging the place of classical languages and literature, as disciplines important to training for the ministry. His early appointments to the faculty included John Maclean, the first professor of chemistry to teach on a college campus in the United States.
Princeton's quick recovery after a disastrous fire in 1802 was testimony to the strength of his standing among alumni and friends. the constituency of the College rallied to his call, and funds were raised not only for the reconstruction of Nassau Hall but also for a new building to house the library. (A hundred years later, this building was named Stanhope Hall in his memory.)
Although Smith's standing with the public was secure, he slipped badly in the estimation of students and trustees. the students resented his accusation that they had set fire to Nassau Hall; in a clumsy effort to assert his authority, he expelled over a hundred of them. (He had previously expelled the adopted son of George Washington "for meanness and irregularity.")
The trustees felt Smith's educational reforms had gone too far. They were concerned that Princeton was becoming too secular in its curriculum and that its general climate was not conducive to the ministry. In 1812, many directed their support toward the newly founded Princeton Theological Seminary. In that same year, Smith and four members of the faculty resigned. It was the beginning of a bleak period for the College.
Ashbel Green, valedictorian of the Class of 1783 (the year George Washington and members of the Continental Congress attended the commencement ceremony), was the second alumnus to serve as president of Princeton.
Green had become a prominent clergyman, serving as minister of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and chaplain to the united States Congress.
He became a trustee of the College, representing the conservative "Old Side" and taking a leading role in the opposing liberal draft in the faculty and curriculum. He became president in 1812, after helping engineer the removal of his predecessor. That same year, believing that Princeton was no longer serving the church as it should, he helped establish a theological seminary next door.
Green approached his p[residential duties as a stern but kindly pastor. He introduced vigorous disciplinary rules and imposed a heavy religious tone on the College. From his raised dais, he took a lordly view, often saying, "I consider every member of the faculty a younger brother, and every pupil a child."
"My first address to the students," he later wrote, "produced a considerable impression, insomuch that some of them shed tears. this greatly encouraged me; but the appearance was delusive or fugitive. Notwithstanding all the arrangements I had made, and all the pains I had taken to convince them that their own good and the best interests of the institution were my only aim, I had the mortification to find that the majority of them seemed bent on mischief."
Reaction to his authoritarian regime came quickly, and several major student outbursts occurred during his presidency. during one, a gunpowder charge was set off in the main entrance of Nassau Hall, cracking the walls from top to bottom. In this case, instead of retaining jurisdiction, Green asked the criminal court of the state to prosecute the suspects. the following year, he was heartened by a religious revival that swept through the College but was cast down again by the "Great Rebellion," a riot of unprecedented proportions during which Nassau Hall became a fortress of discontent. Students barricaded themselves within it for several days and the militia was summoned to remove them, but the troops failed to appear.
It was not a happy administration. after a dispute with the trustees over the tenure of his son, a member of the faculty, Green finally resigned.
James Carnahan, a member of the class of 1800, served Princeton no longer than any other president. He also served the College during its lowest ebb.
After graduation, Carnahan served as a tutor in the College, studied theology with President Smith, and then preached for six years. He left the pulpit because of a throat ailment and established a classical seminary in Georgetown, D.C. He had been there for 11 years when notified of his election to the presidency.
Carnahan was unprepared for what he found on his return. A courtly schoolmaster, he didn't know what to make of the near anarchy that had resulted from the conflicting views of students, faculty, and trustees. He watched sadly as the enrollment dropped from 148 to 66. He considered closing the institution; his young vice-president, John Maclean, saved the day by proposing a plan for strengthening the faculty with the help of the alumni.
Under this plan, the venerable James Madison, Class of 1771, was invited to become the first president of the alumni association. In his reply, Madison expressed "best wishes for the prosperity of the College, of which I am one of the most grateful Alumni, and for the success of every measure that may add lustre to its reputation, and enlarge the scope of its usefulness." Years later, remembering that Madison had stayed on for a year of graduate work, the Alumni Council gave his name to medal awarded annually to an alumnus of the graduate school.
With the funds raised by the alumni, Carnahan strengthened the faculty with the addition of three distinguished professors: mathematician Albert B. Dod; John Torrey, professor of chemistry and botany; and Joseph Henry, the inventor and physicist who became the first head of the Smithsonian Institution.
Modern languages became permanent features of the curriculum during this period, but the study of law - introduced with much fanfare at the centennial celebration of the College - withered for lack of funds.
the college began to prosper again. Student enrollment doubled and the faculty tripled. Two dormitories - East and West Colleges - were built. the two literary and debating societies, which had long provided the only extracurricular outlet for undergraduates, were housed in their own halls, Whig and Cliosophic. with confidence in their own abilities, the students founded the Nassau Lit, the second oldest college literary magazine in the United States. for the first time, they showed "college spirit," a form of chauvinism peculiar to campus life, as they marched to Rutgers to recapture the Revolutionary cannon that was dragged away during the War of 1812. Back in Princeton, they planted it muzzle down in the center of the quadrangle behind Nassau Hall, where it remains to this day.
John Maclean, Jr., the son of America's first professor of chemistry, was born in Princeton and served the College all his life.
Princeton's only bachelor president, he gave the time and energy a father ordinarily expends on his children to the students of the College for whom he stood, quite literally, in loco parentis.
In addition to his many other duties, he undertook the role of proctor and patrolled the campus, vigilant in detecting wrongdoing. but after making an arrest he was always sympathetic. Frequently he would intercede on behalf of the culprit, asking the faculty to allow him simply to withdraw for a time to a nearby farm, a light and rather pleasant sentence. One student reported he had spent three weeks of his confinement fishing in a stream and "thinking what a good man Doctor Maclean was."
Students recalled seeing "Johnny" in his long cloak, bringing food and a kettle of tea to a sick boy. In cases of serious illness, the patient was brought to the President's House, now named for Maclean. One student, who broke his leg in a fall from the window of his dormitory room after a boisterous Senior Ball, was taken in for six weeks.
Maclean was not without muscle. He outlawed Greek fraternities that, in his opinion, had begun to have an injurious effect on campus life. At his urging, the faculty issued an ultimatum that any student joining a secret society would be dismissed. Freshmen were required to sign a nonfraternity pledge before entering the College. A few "Greeks" who continued to operate underground were rooted out by the next administration.
Maclean added more distinguished scholars to the faculty, including Swiss geographer Arnold Guyot. As a general policy, he sought a balanced curriculum, believing there was a fundamental body of cultural studies that every educated person should be required to pursue before preparing for a chosen profession.
Just before the Civil War began, after Nassau Hall had been gutted by a fire a second time, Maclean rallied alumni and friends to contribute funds toward rebuilding it. He augmented these funds by operating the College on an austerity budget during the war years, and helped liquidate the debt that remained by giving up part of his own salary.
When the Civil War began, Maclean was anguished by the sight of students leaving the campus to join the armies of the North and South. the toll of 70 Princetonians lost in battle was borne by the Federals and Confederates - and borne doubly by Maclean because he knew and loved each one. In this bitter time, Princeton offered the degree of Doctor of Law to Abraham Lincoln. In accepting the degree, Lincoln wrote Maclean: "The assurance conveyed by this high complement that the course of the government which I represent has received the approval of a body of gentlemen of such character and intelligence in this time of public trial is most grateful to me."
Although his main concern was the College, Maclean is credited with a major role in founding New Jersey's public school system. the state legislature adopted his plan for a state normal school, local boards of education, and a nonsectarian common school system supported by public taxation. He also took an active interest in the state's penal system. As a member of the New Jersey Prison Association, he sometimes walked 10 miles to Trenton on Sundays to conduct services in the State Prison.
When he retired, Maclean wrote a two-volume history of the College. (Typically, he assigned the royalties to a fund "for the aid of indigent and worthy students engaged in seeking a liberal education.") Since that history does not cover the years of his own administration, it does not mention that he saw the beginning of baseball at Princeton, heard the first singing of the alma mater, "Old Nassau"; and voted to adopt orange as the official color of the College - soon to be joined with black. (He could never have imagined these colors would be carried to the moon a century later by Charles F. ("Pete") Conrad '53, commander of Apollo XII.)
James McCosh took office exactly a hundred years after his fellow Scot, John Witherspoon. He came to Princeton from Queens College, Belfast, and was already well known throughout the English-speaking world as an author, philosopher, and Free Churchman.
One alumnus, who had been a freshman in 1870, compared the new president's influence to "an electric shock, instantaneous, paralyzing to the opposition, and stimulating to all who were not paralyzed."
McCosh gathered a distinguished faculty; revised and modernized the plan of study; developed elective course options; and instituted graduate work. He founded schools of science, philosophy, and art, and began an ambitious program of building and planting that greatly enhanced the formerly bare campus.
"I remember," wrote McCosh, "that some critics found fault with me for laying out too much money on stone and lime; but I proceeded on system, and knew what I was doing. I viewed the edifices as means to an end, at best as outward expressions and symbols of an internal life."
A strong proponent of the Greek idea "sound body, sound mind," he included a gymnasium and a library in his building program.
He was a teaching president, holding regular classes in the history of philosophy and in psychology. He conducted seminars in "Prospect," the new presidential mansion. When Darwin's Origin of Species threatened to overturn age-old beliefs in God's creation and government of the world, McCosh stood out almost alone among American clergymen in defending evolutionary doctrine, insisting that the Darwinian hypothesis, far from denying the existence of God, only served to "increase the wonder and mystery of the process of creation."
Like John Witherspoon, McCosh took a common-sense position on the curriculum of the College, liberal yet firm. He wanted to reject "all that was factitious and pretentious," and to continue "the good old solid course of study handed down from our fathers." At the same time, he recognized the enormous advances being made in the physical sciences, as well as in philology, history, and psychology. From these branches of knowledge, students were encouraged to choose a wide range of electives to be taken side by side with obligatory and disciplinary courses, mathematics "to solidify the reasoning powers" and classics "to refine the taste."
An energetic campaigner, McCosh made an extraordinary impression on American thinking in his day. He and his great opponent, President Eliot of Harvard, were the two dominant figures in American education. in the winter of 1885, the two met in New York to conduct a debate on the ideal college curriculum. McCosh was highly critical of Eliot's scheme that allowed students to choose, virtually ad libitum, among some 200 courses. This, said McCosh, encouraged dilettantism, everything being "scattered like the star dust out of which worlds are said to have been made." Matters were more sensibly ordered at Princeton, he argued. Most Princetonians believed that McCosh won the debate handily.
McCosh enriched the extracurricular life of the campus, making the "four long years" more enjoyable. during his time, many undergraduate activities began to assume their present form. three publications were established: The Daily Princetonian, an independent, student-run campus newspaper; Tiger Magazine, a humor magazine; and Bric-a-Brac, a supplement to the Nassau Herald, the senior yearbook. The Glee Club, the Dramatic Association (later known as the Triangle Club), and the first intercollegiate football team were born under his benevolent gaze. And, although he disapproved mightily of secret Greek fraternities, he allowed a group of upperclass students to form the first permanent eating club.
Eating clubs were established because the College was unable to provide adequate dining facilities for its growing student population. Most students had to take their meals in village boarding houses. Some of these formed temporary associations and took on sporting names like "Knights of the Round Table," "Knickerbockers," and "Epicureans." (Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, ate with the "Alligators.") In the autumn of 1879, a group of upperclass students ranted Ivy Hall on Mercer Street - the erstwhile home of Princeton's law school - and four years later, calling themselves "The Ivy Club," they built a permanent clubhouse on Prospect Avenue. this was the first of 20 private eating clubs which eventually settled on the edge of the campus.
Throughout his life, McCosh shared credit with his wife Isabella. "She advised and assisted me in all my work," he said. Daughter of an eminent physician, Mrs. McCosh was Princeton's unofficial nurse, the one and only medical presence on the campus. Later, when the trustees built an infirmary, they named it for her.
In his parting words to the College, McCosh said, "I am reminded keenly that my days of active work are over. But I take the step firmly and decidedly. The shadows are lengthening, the day is declining. My age, seven years above the threescore and ten, compels it, Providence points to it, the good of the College demands it...I leave it with the prayer, that the blessing of Heaven and the good-will of men may rest upon it, and with the prospect of its having greater usefulness in the future than even that which it has had in the past."
Francis Landey Patton, a native of Bermuda, began his teaching career at McCormick theological Seminary in Chicago. A conservative Presbyterian, he achieved national recognition in a heresy trial. He was called to the seminary in Princeton, where his reputation as a teacher and a theologian - and his popularity as an after-dinner speaker - grew rapid;y. Even those who disagreed with his rigid orthodoxy admired his intellect and wit.
His election as McCosh's successor did not meet with unanimous enthusiasm. Many had hoped not only for a devout educator, but also for an experienced administrator who would bring efficiency to the expanding College.
Faculty accounts indicate that Patton lacked initiative in important policy matters, resisted meaningful curriculum reform, was lax in matters of discipline and in scholarly standards - in short, as one colleague said kindly, he was "a wonderfully poor administrator."
But the students of the nineties were unanimous in their affection for him. After becoming alumni, they built Patton Hall as a tribute to him. They appreciated his willingness to trust them in examinations through the Honor System introduced in 1893, and they sang his praises in their first faculty song:
"Here's to Patton, our President
In Princeton College he pitched his tent,
An now he's boss of this wonderful show
Here's to Francis Landey O."
During the "golden nineties," the social life of the students changed as eating clubs proliferated. these clubs, together with the surging interest in athletics, particularly football, created a new campus atmosphere, augmented by the glamour of Gothic towers. there was an emphasis on "college life" rather than college studies.
In 1896, four members of the track team sailed for Athens to take part in the revival of the Olympic Games. they were the first college athletes to represent the United States abroad, and they outscored most of the nations represented.
In the fall of that year, Patton proclaimed a three-day holiday to celebrate the Sesquicentennial of the College and to confirm its new official name, "Princeton University." In the process, he changed the wording of the seal from Collegii Neo-Caesariensis to Universitatis Princetoniensis, retaining the open Bible at the center and returning to the ancient motto: Dei sub numine viget (Under God's power she flourishes).
the new name, hailed as the beginning of a new era, marked the beginning of the for the Patton administration, for it brought sharply into focus the president's failures as an administrator.
The time was at hand to take concrete measures toward making Princeton what its name declared it to be. With little help from the president, the University took an important step forward with the establishment of the Graduate School. In the school's administrative structure; the dean, Andrew Fleming West, was given nearly autonomous powers. In the undergraduate college, the faculty labored in vain to reform the curriculum; Patton shunted all proposals aside.
Eventually, the efforts of the faculty reformers gained the attention of the trustees who, though they continued to admire Patton as a teacher, preacher, and public speaker, worried about his leadership and administrative inadequacies.
This concern reflected a change in the board of trustees itself as the traditional clerical majority was reduced by the election of more alumni in business and professional fields.
The climax came during the spring of 1902 when several trustees and members of the faculty proposed the formation of an executive committee to assume many of the president's powers. Patton protested, but even his friends on the board gave him scant encouragement. Finally, after some negotiation, he resigned. The trustees immediately chose Woodrow Wilson to succeed him, and Patton moved back to the seminary.
Woodrow Wilson entered Princeton as a member of the Class of 1879. In college, "Tommy," as his classmates called him, was an eager student and an acknowledged leader. Not satisfied with the courses offered by the College, he supplemented the formal curriculum with an ambitious program of independent reading. Still feeling less than fully occupied, he became managing editor of the Daily Princetonian and organized a student club for discussion of public affairs. His classmates elected him speaker of the American Whig Society, one of two principal campus groups. Pursuing athletic interests, he became secretary of the Football Association and president of the Baseball Association.
After graduation he went to law school at the University of Virginia and practiced in Atlanta. Disillusioned by the tedium and materialism of legal damage suits, he returned to the academic world for graduate work in political science and history at Johns Hopkins. His doctoral dissertation, "Congressional Government," led to teaching positions at Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, and finally Princeton.
As a professor of jurisprudence, Wilson built up a strong prelaw curriculum. He was soon voted most popular teacher and counselor to countless students attracted by his warmth and high-mindedness. He wrote two best-selling books, a biography and a history, and he spoke to audiences far and near. During the sesquicentennial celebration of 1896, he delivered the keynote address: "Princeton in the Nation's Service."
When President Patton was persuaded to retire, the trustees elected Wilson. In his first report to them, he proposed a $12.5 million program to transform Princeton into a full-scale university. At that time, this was a staggering sum, almost 25 times greater than the annual budget, but the trustees approved it immediately.
He began by creating an administrative structure - departments of instruction with heads directly responsible to him - and later arranged the creation of new deanships and took over the effectual power of faculty nominations from the trustees. these innovations were a prelude to more far-reaching changes, and he soon led the faculty in sweeping curricular reforms. In place of the aimless elective system that had prevailed under Patton, he substituted a unified curriculum of general studies during freshmen and sophomore years, capped by concentrated study in one discipline (the academic "major") during junior and senior years. He also added an honors program for able and ambitious students.
Wilson tightened academic standards so severely that enrollment declined sharply until 1907.
He also revolutionized the teaching system. Supported by the first all-out alumni fund-raising campaign in Princeton's history, he doubled the faculty overnight through the appointment of almost 50 young assistant professors, called "preceptors," charged with aiding students through guided reading and small-group discussion. With a remarkable eye for quality, he assembled a youthful faculty of unusual talent and zest for teaching.
In strengthening the science program, Wilson called for basic, unfettered, "pure" research. In the field of religion, he made biblical instruction a scholarly subject. He broke the hold of conservative Presbyterians over the board of trustees, and appointed the first Jew and the first Roman Catholic to the faculty.
He was instrumental in the addition of three buildings for instruction (McCosh Hall, Palmer Laboratory, and Guyot Hall), four dormitories (Seventy-Nine, Patton, Campbell, and Holder Halls), the gymnasium, Lake Carnegie, the FitzRandolph Gate, and the Mather Sundial. In his time, the University acquired the Springdale Golf Course, 221 acres of greensward on the west side of the campus.
Before the end of his term, he authorized his classmates of 1879 to cast two heroic bronze tigers for the front steps of Nassau Hall. (Tigers first appeared as Princeton's mascot during the McCosh era).
After modernizing the administration, curriculum, and teaching methods, Wilson took on the social life of the undergraduates, which, in his opinion, was detrimental to the intellectual and democratic spirit of the University. About two-thirds of the upperclass students belonged to the eating clubs on Prospect Avenue; Wilson believed these clubs were becoming an unhealthy preoccupation for those who joined them and those who did not. the clubs, in his view, encouraged snobbishness and false values among their members, while those who were left out lived in isolation and frequently felt ostracized and humiliated.
To improve the situation, Wilson proposed the creation of quadrangles, or "colleges," in which undergraduates of all four classes would live with their own recreational facilities and resident faculty masters. Membership would be by assignment or lot, and the clubs would either be absorbed into the quads or abolished.
The trustees approved the quad plan in principle, but it aroused considerable opposition among alumni. Many said it would deprive undergraduates of freedom of social choice and destroy class spirit. As opposition grew, benevolence declined. Bowing to the storm, the trustees withdrew their approval but Wilson did not give up the fight. Indeed, it heightened his awareness of social injustice and moved him toward more political activism.
Soon he was embroiled in another controversy. This time his antagonist was Andrew Fleming West, Class of 1874, founding dean of the Graduate School.
Dean West had a dream - almost an obsession. He wanted to erect a graduate college of medieval splendor. At first, he seemed willing to have the buildings located at the center of the campus, and Wilson heartily concurred. the president believed the graduate community should be the energizing force in the intellectual life of the University. To this end, he had been working hard, and successfully, to add distinguished professors to enrich the graduate area of the teaching program.
Relations between Wilson and West deteriorated abruptly as West changed his mind about the location of his graduate college and decided to gather his gentlemen scholars on the other side of the golf course, a mile west of Nassau Hall. Wilson disapproved such a distant site but capitulated when West found financial support for his plan.
Twice-thwarted on campus, Wilson was receptive to political leaders who had been urging him to run for governor of New Jersey. He accepted the nomination, won the governorship in 1910, and the presidency of the United States in 1912. The passage of time only increased the appreciation of Wilson's lasting impact on the intellectual and social life on campus. twenty-five years after his death, the trustees named the School of Public and International Affairs after him. Sixty years after the defeat of his "quad plan," they carved out an area of the campus - six dormitories and a dining and social center - as a distinct residential complex know as Woodrow Wilson College.
The highest honor the University can bestow upon an alumnus in recognition of distinguished public service is the Woodrow Wilson Award.
John Grier Hibben, from Peoria, Illinois, was valedictorian and president of the Class of 1882. He continued his studies in Berlin and at Princeton Theological Seminary.
After four years as a parish minister, he returned to the University as a graduate student in philosophy. Later, he became professor of logic and also taught psychology and the Bible.
The search for a successor to Woodrow Wilson was long and painful. The University had become sharply divided during the Graduate School controversy, and Hibben's election came at the hands of trustees who had most resisted Wilson's reforms. This posed a special problem for the new president, and his most urgent task was to bring the factions together.
"My administration must make for peace," he said. "I represent no group or set of men, no party, no faction, no past allegiance or affiliation--but one united Princeton!"
Hibben practiced what he preached. One of his first acts was to seek out faculty members who belonged to the Wilson faction and urge them to cooperate in continuing the work begun by Wilson. In time, even Wilson's strongest supporter, Professor of Mathematics Henry B. Fine, came to feel that Hibben was a "singularly happy choice." He was more a coordinator and mediator than a dynamic leader.
Soon after taking office, he presided over the opening of the new Graduate College, the monastic compound for scholars set on a hill beyond the golf course. At the dedication ceremony, he made special reference to the high-soaring Gothic tower built by popular subscription as the nation's memorial to Grover Cleveland--who, after leaving the White House, retired to Princeton and became a trustee of the University.
When American entered World War I, Hibben, a strong advocate of preparedness, place the University's resources at the disposal of the government. Army, Navy, and aviation training schools were established on the campus. Laboratories and operational programs. By the fall of 1918 all but 60 undergraduates were in uniform. In all, more than 6,000 Princetonians--faculty, alumni, graduate and undergraduate students--served in some branch of the armed forces. Of these, 151 died in uniform, and their names are inscribed in the atrium of Nassau Hall along with those who have died in all the nation's wars.
During the booming postwar years, Hibben was distressed by what he called the "hypocrisy attending the Eighteenth Amendment [prohibiting the sale of liquor], by false standards of living growing out of our period of fictitious prosperity and by a skepticism toward old concepts of morals and religion."
Harold Willis Dodds, son of a professor of Bible at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, grew up in the company of teachers and students. After receiving his bachelor's degree at Grove City and teaching public school for two years, he did graduate work in politics at Princeton and Pennsylvania. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Food Administration and afterwards became secretary of the National Municipal League. As an expert in the problems of local government, with experience as a troubleshooter in Latin America, Dodds joined the Princeton faculty in 1925 as professor of politics and was later appointed the first chairman of the School of Public and International Affairs (now the Woodrow Wilson School). He had been a leader in the establishment of the school, a cooperative enterprise of the history, politics, economics, and later sociology, departments.
Dodds became president in the depths of the Great Depression and served through the Second World War and the Korean Conflict. He didn't have what might be called "a normal year," with an adequate budget, sufficient faculty, and neither too few nor too many students, until close to the end of his tenure.
During the war years, Princeton adopted an accelerated program to give students an opportunity to graduate before entering the armed forces. At the same time, the Army and Navy sent hundreds of young men to the campus for general or specialized training. The number fluctuated widely from month to month. A faculty depleted by enlistments or calls to government service had to teach unfamiliar subjects at top speed. When peace came, the University absorbed the flood of students returning under the G.I. Bill.
The 200th anniversary of the founding of Princeton was celebrated over a two-year period (1946-1947) with an almost continuous series of scholarly conferences and three major convocations. Over a thousand scholars and leaders from all over the world attended, including three presidents of the United States (present, past, and future): Truman, Hoover, and Eisenhower.
"Princeton enters her third century with certain convictions," said Dodds at the final bicentennial convocation. "We shall strive for quality rather than quantity.
"As a residential university, we shall emphasize the community of students and teachers, believing that the life of the campus is a potent supplement to formal study.
"We shall always see to it that our students represent a democratic cross section of American youth, geographically and with respect to economic circumstance.
"We shall not forget that moral proficiency must be cultivated as well (as intellectual).
"We shall seek to advance learning as well as disseminate it."
As a continuing memorial of the anniversary, Bicentennial Preceptorships were established to enable promising young members of the faculty to spend a year in uninterrupted research.
Despite wars and the Depression, Dodds doubled the size of the faculty, adding 30 endowed professorships. This permitted an increase in the size of the student body (graduate and undergraduate) by more than a thousand while maintaining the University's distinctively high ratio of faculty to students.
During the Dodds years, music and the creative arts were introduced into the curriculum. The Office of Population Research was established. Three new departments were added: religion, aeronautical engineering, and Near Eastern studies.
Although physical construction was curtailed, there were two noteworthy additions to the campus: Princeton acquired a large tract of land three miles east of the main campus subsequently named for James Forrestal `15, first secretary of defense. This second campus, symbolic of the postwar expansion in research sponsored by the federal government, has since been developed into one of the nation's major research centers for plasma physics and fusion energy. It is also the site of a government laboratory for meteorology and oceanography. (In recent years, Forrestal campus has been encircled by a University-sponsored office, commercial, and housing complex.)
A new intellectual center for the University, Firestone Library, was opened in 1948 as a "laboratory for the humanities and social sciences." In Princeton's "open stack" tradition, it brought books and readers together with particular grace and efficiency.
Not forgetting the constraints and uncertainties of the Depression years, Dodds felt the need for an additional, ongoing source of funds. Beginning in 1940, with his encouragement, Princeton alumni began to go out to their classmates each year seeking "unrestricted" funds for the University. Their fist appeal netted $80,000 in cash. Their 16th appeal--the year Dodds retired--netted 16 times as much. Since the, Annual Giving has continued to increase.
Though he could never be called a revolutionary, Dodds led the University through some swiftly changing times. He was proud of Princeton's past but knew that resting on it "would lead only to decay and destruction." So he kept moving forward, but not without some pain. As he use to say about higher education: "When young people start to think for themselves, they always cause pain to their elders."
Each year at commencement, the name of Harold Willis Dodds gives meaning to the award presented to the senior who best embodies his qualities of "clear thinking, moral courage, a patient and judicious regard for the opinion of others, and a thoroughgoing devotion to the University and to the life of the mind."
Robert Francis Goheen came to Princeton from India, where his father was a medical missionary. He graduated with the Class of 1940, Phi Beta Kappa, with highest honors in the humanities. Scholar, athlete, and campus leader, he was co-winner of the Pyne Prize, the highest general distinction conferred on an undergraduate.
After completing a year of graduate study in the Department of Classics, Goheen entered the Army. He served in the Pacific with the First Cavalry Division, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel.
When the war was over, Goheen returned to Princeton to continue his studies in classics. After further work at the American Academy in Rome, he became a member of the Princeton faculty and, at the same time, director of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Program, a nationwide effort to encourage young men and women to undertake careers in higher education.
In 1956, while an assistant professor of classics, he was elected to the presidency by unanimous vote of the trustees. When he assumed office at the age of 37, he was the third youngest president in the history of the University (after Aaron Burr, Sr., and Samuel Davies).
Goheen's administration was, in his own words, a period of "growth and change...in almost every part of the University." It was also a period of severe challenge as Princeton, along with her sister institutions across the land, reflected the tumult of a national community coping with civil strife, emerging social forces, and the agonies of the war in Vietnam.
Although he repeatedly disclaimed any ambition to be known as a "building president," Goheen saw more additions to the physical plant during his administration than any of his predecessors. During his first years in office, backed by a spirited campaign for capital funds, all the pent-up energies of Princeton--long constrained by depression and war--were released in a massive program of expansion, and the sound of hammers filled the campus. Some 25 buildings were eventually constructed on the main campus, still others at the Graduate College and Forrestal. All told, Goheen nearly doubled the square footage under roof.
Among the more important additions were the Princeton University Art Museum, the Woolworth Center of Musical Studies, the Architecture Building, Robertson Hall (home of the Woodrow Wilson School), the Engineering Quadrangle, the Jadwin Gymnasium, the Computing Center, and the complex of Fine, Jadwin, and Peyton Halls constructed for the mathematical, physical, and astrophysical sciences. With these came a parallel growth in student housing.
To provide space for a faculty and staff social center, the Goheens moved out of Prospect House, the old presidential mansion at the center of campus, and moved into Lowrie House, a quarter mile down Stockton Street.
Physical expansion was accompanied by a proportionate increase in the financial resources of the University. The annual budget quadrupled, from approximately $20 million to $80 million. More than 20 endowed chairs were added.
The faculty grew from just under 500 to more than 700. There were more than two and a half times as many applicants for admission to the College in Goheen's last year than there were during his first. As a result of coeducation, undergraduate enrollment increased by a third, from nearly 3,000 to almost 4,000; the number of graduate students more than doubled.
Goheen was committed to Princeton's traditional emphasis on the integration of teaching and research. "Pursued together," he observed, "they generate an atmosphere of learning that invigorates and gives added point to both."
The undergraduate program of study responded to what the president described as "an exploding, booming, shifting world of knowledge and ideas." Provision was made for sophomore concentration, a reading period at the end of each term, a University Scholar Program that offered exceptional flexibility to carefully selected undergraduates, and student-initiated seminars.
In the area of student life, a number of social facilities were established to complement existing options. One of the new facilities combined two former club buildings into one University-managed hall named for Adlai Stevenson `22. (It became the home of the first kosher kitchen on the campus.) Two major residential colleges, Princeton Inn and Woodrow Wilson, offered dormitory, dining, and social facilities for 400 to 500 students each.
The decision to become fully coeducational was made in the spring of 1969 when, for the first time in its history, women were admitted to Princeton as undergraduate candidates for a degree.
In the late 19th century, an effort had been made to provide Princeton with a quasi-coordinate college called Evelyn. Located on Nassau Street east of the campus, Evelyn prompted Harper's Bazaar to comment hopefully of the day when "our country shall come to speak with equal pride of the sons and daughters of Princeton." But the new college closed its doors in the hard times after the "Panic of 1893."
A modest extension of Princeton's educational opportunities for women came in World War II when 23 women were admitted to a government-sponsored defense course in photogrammetry. More significant changes occurred in the 1960's with the admission of women graduate students (the first Ph.D. was awarded in 1964), and the admission each year of several dozen undergraduate women from other colleges for a year of concentrated study in "critical languages."
The decision to become fully coeducational followed a 16-month study that concluded that the University should open its doors to women as well as men and that--in Goheen's words--"the presence of talented young women at Princeton would enhance the total educational experience and contribute to a better balanced social and intellectual life."
A special trustees' committee was appointed to test the findings of the study. After consultation with students, faculty, administrators--at Princeton and other campuses--and alumni across the land, the trustees approved coeducation in January of 1969 and instructed Goheen to develop plans for its implementation. When he announced coeducation would become a reality, the Daily Princetonian congratulated him and the trustees for their "courage, foresight, and ability to change with the times." Student radio station WPRB concluded its broadcast of the news with the "Hallelujah Chorus."
Another major change in the composition of the student body began--before the study of coeducation--when Princeton started seeking talented applicants form the nation's minority groups. Although there had been isolated instances of minority students attending Princeton in the distant past--John Chavis, a black freeman, was a member of the Class of 1796, and George Morgan White Eyes, a Delaware Indian, studied under President Witherspoon--there were very few others until the Second World War, and it was not until the 1960's that the University began to actively encourage minority students to attend. Princeton's commitment to ethnic and racial diversity was symbolized in the creation of a Third World Center on Prospect Avenue, dedicated by Goheen in 1971.
In that same year, he presented the first Frederick Douglass Service Award given annually in memory of the 19th-century black leader who "epitomized in his life the revolution in the status of his race."
As first president to preside over the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC), Goheen made it a positive meeting ground for all the forces that shape the University: students (both undergraduate and graduate), faculty, alumni, staff, and senior officers of the administration. When he left office, the Daily Princetonian put out a special issue hailing him as "a superlative example of what a university president should be." At his last commencement, the trustees cited him with the words that could well describe the Princetonian par excellence:
"In his eyes the function of the intellect is so lofty that it becomes a form of morality. Patient, always humane and trustworthy, he is personally humble at the very time that he is rockily steadfast (an unsympathetic witness might say stubborn), not because he fails to understand and respect the views of others but because he refuses to compromise his own enduring values. By never seeking popularity, by never worrying about his own image in the eyes of others, he has gained the affection and respect of the entire University and led it to new achievement, new unity."
William Gordon Bowen came to Princeton's Graduate School from Denison University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa, co-chair of the student government, and Ohio Conference tennis champion. After taking his Ph.D., he joined the faculty as a member of the Department of Economics.
In addition to teaching several courses, he continued his scholarship and research. He prepared a definitive report on the effects of Princeton's involvement with the government, "The Federal Government and Princeton University." Following a research trip to England, he published Economic Aspects of Education, an analysis of university financing in the United States and Great Britain. With Professor William J. Baumol, he began a study of the economic foundations of American theater, opera, orchestra, and dance. Their book, Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma, is a landmark study of the economics of culture. Finally, on leave of absence before taking over the recently established office of provost, he joined T. A. Finegan of Vanderbilt University in writing The Economics of Labor Force Participation.
As provost, Bowen was general deputy to Goheen. During his five-year term--five tumultuous years for America and American higher education--he became involved in every concern of the University, old and new. He played a leading role in planning and overseeing the move to coeducation, efforts to reach out to minority students, and the defense of open inquiry and free speech.
Under his guidance and as part of the Council of the Princeton University Community, a broadly representative Priorities Committee was formed to study the manifold needs and capabilities of the University in an age of financial restraint. The recommendations of the Priorities Committee were prudent, firm, and effective: the University would concentrate on its traditional areas of strength; the cuts would be selective. Some of the amenities would go so the essentials could remain. The budget was brought back into balance, thanks in part to increased financial support from alumni and friends.
Princeton's approach became a model for other educational institutions in the private sector. The American Council on Education circulated Bowen's reports across the land. He was widely respected for his commitment to quality as well as economy, and for his strong devotion to the special characteristics of Princeton. He was a natural successor to Goheen.
Bowen was sworn into office on June 30, 1972. During his 15 years as Princeton's president, he was noted for his seemingly endless energy and capacity for work. One hallmark of his administration was his attention to detail--Bowen was directly involved in every major decision made during his tenure and stayed abreast of all issues confronting the University. He took particular satisfaction from the many excellent faculty members who came to Princeton during his presidency and the University's increasing diversity.
Bowen presided over many changes on campus. The residential colleges-clusters of dormitories that share a dining hall, lounges, seminar and study rooms, and other features that promote friendships and a sense of cohesiveness among underclass students. Led by faculty masters, the colleges also offer academic advising, cultural opportunities, and intramural athletics.
During the Bowen years, five new buildings were built, a dozen others were expanded, and numerous facilities, including dorms, were renovated. He was also a superb money manager and fund-raiser. Princeton's endowment grew from $625 million in 1972 to more than $2 billion at the time of Bowen's departure. During his tenure, a major fund-raising drive known as "A Campaign for Princeton," met its original goal of $275 million halfway through its five-year schedule and easily passed its revised goal of $330 million. When the campaign ended in July of 1986, $410.5 million had been raised.
During the last commencement ceremony of Bowen's presidency, in June 1987, he was surprised by the presentation of an honorary doctor of laws degree. The citation read: "As a graduate student, faculty member, provost, and president, you have invigorated this community with your vision for Princeton. You have led us, prodded us, befriended us, inspired us-teaching us always, in Adlai Stevenson's words, how much better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Reaching well beyond this campus whose beauty has moved you so deeply, you have been an eloquent and effective advocate for excellence, opportunity, and independence in this nation's institutions of learning. We salute your leadership and love of this University, and we send you on to new challenges with our appreciation, our affection, and your favorite injunction, `Onward.'"
After leaving Princeton, Bowen became the president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Harold T. Shapiro, an alumnus of Princeton's Graduate School, came to Princeton from the University of Michigan, where he was president for eight years.
A native of Montreal, with dual American and Canadian citizenship, Shapiro received his bachelor's degree from McGill University in 1956. As a student of McGill's Faculty of Commerce, he won its highest academic honor, the Lieutenant Governor's Medal. He spent five years in business before enrolling in Princeton's Graduate School in 1961. As a graduate student, he was a Harold Helm Fellow and a Harold Dodds Senior Fellow.
Shapiro received his doctorate in 1964, then joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as an assistant professor of economics. Promoted to associate professor in 1967 and to full professor in 1970, he was named vice-president for academic affairs in 1977, and elected president in 1980.
Shapiro's areas of expertise include economic forecasting; his colleagues at Michigan recall that when he appeared before the Michigan legislature to make budget requests for his university, the chamber was turned into a classroom as the legislators questioned Shapiro about his economic predictions for the state.
During his inaugural address, Shapiro said that he had "consulted" with his 17 predecessors by reviewing their inaugural addresses and other works before preparing his own remarks. "I feel that through these conversations I have begun to establish a certain collegiality with my predecessors. The rewards of these new friendships have been very satisfying as I have been able to bear witness to the evolutionary interplay of tradition and change--the process of selective adaptation--that has characterized Princeton's history. Our conversations provided a distant mirror reflecting the constant dialogue among tradition, continuity, discovery, and change that has shaped the ever-changing nature of the University itself....
"I informed them that we wrestle with these same tensions today, although from a somewhat different perspective. I told them that at its core the modern university has a deep and abiding belief in the product of the intellect and an optimistic view regarding the continuing prospects for human development. We continue, therefor, to be morally energized--as they were--by a vision of a better future. Indeed, the deepest excitement of contemporary university life comes from the opportunity--for both students and faculty--to participate in new ideas and discoveries, to communicate new understandings with clarity and expertise, and to contribute to the advancement of our society. It is this excitement of new possibilities, built on a Princeton tradition now 241 years old, that cements our loyalty to the institution."
As Princeton has come down to us through the ages--adapting itself to the changing demands and conditions of life--it has taken on certain "beneficial variations" that have improved its ability to serve a changing world. Created in freedom, with a generous intent to advance "the liberal arts and sciences," the University has evolved over time into a very special community. Each president, in his time, has contributed to it. But, as Darwin noted, the evolutionary process is never finished, never "absolutely perfect."
The story of Princeton continues.
1991 Edition. Edited and designed by Princeton's Office of Communications/Publications. Printed by Princeton's Office of Printing Services. Princeton's Presidents was originally compiled by Frederick Fox '39, keeper of Princetoniana, based on sketches by Carlos Baker GS '40, W. Frank Craven, David W. Hirst, Arthur S. Link, James McLanhan, and Joseph R. Strayer '25 in A Princeton Companion (Princeton University Press, 1978) by Alexander Leitch '24. Photo credits: Robert Bielk, page 20; Bill Choi, page 25; J.T.Miller '70, page 27; John W. H. Simpson '66, page 29,30. All other photographs and illustrations are from Princeton University Archives