Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1910-03-22
UPHO[Ds STAND
OF DR.. WILSON ON
PRINCETON GIFT
Fulton McMahon, AIumnus of
IA, Explains Whole Dis
pute in Open Letter.
REAL ISSUE BECLOUDED
BY OUTSIDE
Only Two Questions Involved,
and Their Nature Is Clear.
ly Set Forth.

why the im~passioned discussion of
MIR. Cleveland, DR.. Patton, MI. Pyne,
Mr.. Jones, the site and so many other
irrelevant persons and things in the
Princeton situation? There are but two
questions. Can the larger social life Of
undergraduates be made more effective
ly contpibutive to intellectual prog
ress? For what sort of graduate work
does Princeton University want to
stand? The two things may or may
not be related, but the present heated
discussion has welded them together"
says Fulton Mcmahon. 'S4.' in a letter
to the New York Sun.
: Continuing, Mr.. McMahon lays:
Princeton had an offer of a million,
n after some negotiations and much
talk permitted the offer to pass. Many
a1un1 think a mistake was made.
Some fancy the president m~aneuvered
to reject the offer. There has been such
a show of feeling at every turn in the
discussion that the facts have gone
astray. The offer was for graduate
work, and the gift would not rave re-
lieved the need for general college en-
dowment, but it's rejection may preju-
dice other donors. Why was it not
accepted? Can the president be justi-
fed?
princeton has always been and must
remain essentially a liberal school for
older boys. No one p%retends that even
after taking the name university" she
should become primarily a seat of high
est learning. Every such college has
as one of its educational forces the
subtle, liberalizing influence of a char
acteristic campus life. The boys train
each other almost as effectively as the
teachers train them. In later years
this unofficial. education has tended
to swamp the strictly college work.
students devote so large a part of
their energies to athletic, social and
other activities which have no organic
or intimate relation to the curriculum
hat the faculty and the classroom and
the textbooks are secondary forces.
One phase of this expansion of indie
pendent student activity is the develop
ment of a club life with a score Of petty
centres from which d~isintegrating So
ciai influences emanate to affect all
other activities. Certain clubs are
deemed socially superior to others, n
non-club men are sad birds.
The old characteristic campus
life has become a confusion OF
cliques, involving an unfortunate
inequality of student opportu-
nifty. The president, hoping to check
this tendency and impartially to re-
claim for the whole student body some
of the preempted social influences, de-
vised a plan of charging the social
units and providing for the accommo-
dation of all students in such groups
as would permit and foster social con-
tact among men of various grades, In
Guiding even such outcasts as freshmen
and unmarried teachers.
when the college was rechristened
university the president naturally IN
cluded a strong graduate work IN MS
announced program. when the new
section was formed efforts were made
to plan such work on a scale
surate with the expectations or the
hopes which were then entertained. Dr.
West, the dean, prepared a prospectus
as an expedient for raising the neeoeI
money. In it he pictured his dream Oh
a separate residential quadrangle where
selected higher students should V I'M
der a masters eye and amid rennlne
Influences. This was to be the socaleo
graduate college, and it has too COM
monty been confused with the aduat
school, which embraces the wnoie
eouipment for higher work, including
the special use of the libraries, lapora-
tories. museums and lecture nails OF
the old college. Being enabled, largely
by private aid, to experiment with d
Bayard lane residence. Merwick. near
his own home, accommodating four
teen students, he became more tnan
ever enamored OF his idea that the pest
a to train tutors and professors was
ia choose the fttest of the graduate
tudents and surround them with eN-
ceptional social influences as a means
of liberalizing them and avoiding a
prevalent tendency to specialistic ped
antry.
"No one objects to his ideal OF the
educated. cultivated gentleman. Inc
only point here is the fairness OF ques-
tioning the expediency of rounding a
GREAT graduate school on any such loea.
Dr Vests ideas hardly became known
in their full significance until the
Swami gift of 100000 brought the au-
thorities to the planning of Thompson
Hall dormitory for graduates. The dis
oussion at that time disclosed the
danger of permitting such a policy to
he fastened on the university, and the
authorities planned on safer lines, to
the evident, chagrin of DR.. West, who,
however. could not stand out for his
larger scheme in the absence of avail
able funds.
sat this juncture, before work was
actually begun on the new dormitory,
DR. West was enabled to transmit Mr..
procter's offer. Obviously the mere
adequacy OF the new gift to carry out