Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-01-11
DR.. Hibben Is Elected
PrincetOn'S President

During the ensuing months the
Princeton trustees turned their efforts
to the huge task of looking over the
entire field of available candidates out
side the immediate faculty circle.
The graduate school discussion was
started by the gift of William Cooper
Proster, a wealthy alumnus. The gift,
amounting to $500, 900, with prospects
of more, WAS offered in furtherance of
a plan of Andrew F. West, dean. Dean
West was anxious to have a large
school emi-independent of the univer-
sity n located at a distance. Mr..
Proctor was in sympathy with this
project. When President Wilson took
the ground that the future school must
| be more closely connected with the
rest of the university misunderstanding
| followed. The Proctor offer was finally
| withdrawn.
Among the trustees the man gener-
| ally considered most prominent favored
the West plan, while "a second leading
trustee took sides for President Will
son. The influence of a peace party
in the board prevented the difference
| being carried to great lengths. Early
in 1910 the bequest was announced
quite unexpectedly of $4,000, 900 from
the estate of a little known graduate,
| a resident of Salem, Mass, named wy
man. The Wyman bequest was left to
further the West plan.
Professor Hibben is chiefly distin-
guished for his popularity with the IN
dergraduates. He is recognized as one
of the influential members of the fac
ulty, on which he has served since 1899.
Originally a graduate of the Princeton
Theological Seminary and a Presbyte-
rian clergyman, he returned from the
pulpit to Princeton to teach logic.
Former Princeton presidents have
chiefly been men of Scottish origin or
bearing Scottish names. Some of the
most earnest and successful presidents
in the list, such as John Witherspoon
in the eighteenth century and James
McCosh, who came almost precisely a
century after him, were Scots.
While the list contains the names OF
famous native Americans as we'll, 1t
would be hard to DAY whether Prince
tons old-world presidents or those
taken from among the New England
divines did more to advance the condi-
ton of the college. In general the ia
nous Princeton College presidents
have been those who stayed by the in
stitution for long terms OF years.
They usually have ended their careers
working until the time was ripe for
their retirement.
Rev. Aaron Burr, the famous Aaron's
father, was an instance of this. He
was made president at the time when
the removal of the young institution
from Elizabeth to the present site was
still a project. It began it's usefulness
under the humble, II picturesque, title
of the Log College. And until quite
recent years the name of College of
the State of New Jersey. for formal
uses, stuck to it.
1t was the misfortune of Jonathan
Edwards, the otherwise famous Con-
necticut Calvinis-, that he died too soon
to leave any deep mark on the college
information.
The Princeton library had it's origin
in the patient efforts of President Sam
uel Davies, who succeeded Edwards.
The present library building, needless
to say. dates from the university's
| comparatively recent architectural
period.
Few of those to whom President
Finley's name has been familiar as
that Of a possible presidential choice
at Princeton are aware that the uni
verslty has already had a president Of
the name. Samuel Finley was the chief
administered tor, chief magistrate, chief
college patriot and chief scholar and
teacher at the institution, after the
fashion of the college presidents of old.
He ruled and taught from 1851 to 1865.
John Witherspoon, the mex succeed
ing president, signed the Declaration
of Independence in his quality, not OF
university head but of American Whig
and revolutionary. And yet he was a
native of Scotland and dwelt there for
the whole first part of his life.
Witherspoon labored at the head Of
Princeton until the end of his life,
though in his later years he ceased
teaching n took to a farm near the
college. His memory is kept in note
by Witherspoon Hall, among the pres
ent university buildings. Only four
presidents intervene between Wither-
spoon and his like in the nineteenth
century. They We're Samuel STAN
hope Smith, who inaugurated the
first instruction in chemistry
given in an American college;
Ashbel Green, who ruled from
1912 to 1922; James Carahan, during
whose thirty-one years tenure a law
school was maintained from 1S46 to
| 1852, and finally abandoned for lack Of
funds, and John MacLean, president
through the Civil War.
James McCosh, the president of the
majority of the elder Princeton gradu-
ates Of today, left as deep an impress
sion on the university as n of those
who had preceded him, and a sue
cessor so stimulating to the great
school has not yet been found. DR..
McCosh was born in Scotland in 1871
and lived there all his life until called
oversee to Princeton in 1868. He was
a keen student and writer and an adj
vocate of the views Of Presbyterian
ism In that field between science and
dogmatism opened up by the Darwin
ian ideas.
In his successor, Francis l.. Patton,
| the university was ruled again by a
divine of foreign birth. DR.. Patton was
born in Bermuda. Previous to his pres
idency he taught in the Princeton Theo-
logical Seminary. The time seemed at
hast to have come when the sver-di-