Bisbee daily review., 1913-03-27


 form friendly and natural associations in accordance with their tastes and dispositions,
 They anst always strive nntiringiy to become friends of those particular classmates who have the best chance of making the best clubs. and as ''the hunch" pasSes down the line" from Prospect avenue the prospects of one and another stndeEt wax and wane. and the character of the CO., ferles in which he finds himself goes up and down The social fife of the two lower classes presents snch a pie ture as woslld a layer Of iron filings over which a magnet is passed. form ing groups now here. now there. and keeping ail in constant confusion. In the wonis of President Wilson the sideshow had swallowed Hp the circus Nothing eouid be more un-American: nothing could he more opposed to the true principles If edncatiOn.
 We approach now one of the most dramatic. as it k one of the most in- voired chapters in the life Of any American institution of learning in deed. chapter. if it could be rightly told. not often excelled in interest in any story of American life.
 circular setting forth in outline President wilson's quad" proposal was sent to the various clubs and was generally read there or the Friday night before commencement. 1907. Princeton alumni. particularly those from the eastern cifies, come back in large numbers to their alma mater and usually put up ct the clubhouses, where the Friday night preceding commence ment is given over to a jolly dinner. The "quad- proposal. it was instantly seen. contemplated the doing away of the clubs
 It was even said that President Will son proposed to confscate them. The wrath of the alumni jollifying that night in Prospect avenue WIS instant ly aroused. and the shout of battle was raised No decent consideration was ever given the new idea. The grieved graduates went home to spread stories of the attack on PrlncetOn's fayorite institutions and rally the old boys to their defense
 old PrincetonianS got busy and wrote distressed letters to the Alumni Week ly. expressing their grief and aston ishment that a Princeton president should so far forget himself as to try to make gentleman chum with . muckcr"
 The trustees. who had voted the plan through with but a single dissent ing voice. now frightened by the alum nj howl. were persuaded to reconsider On Oct l7 tue bonrd requested rresi. dent Wilson 10 withdraw the proposal.
 The inalienab!e right of the Ameri- can college youth to choose his own hatband and compel other youths to wear untrimmed heaGgearl was thus triumphantly yindicated But the saviors of the club system were not generous in victory They continued to huri insults upon President Wilson. It was now discovered that he was a domineerinE. brutal. bieoted. inconsid- crate and untruthful demagogue. The preceptorial system. which had been in operation for two years. with every bodyS approval wns now also at tackled.
 President Wilson was even charged with having inaUgurated it over the heads of the faculty Various classes among the alumni withdrew their sub scriptiOns for the support of preceptors. It took only few months of this sort of thing for the board of trustees. the faculty and the alumni to find them selves divided beyond compromise. Lifelong friendships were broken. The chasm deepeRed. and passions so yio- lent that it would not have been deem ed possible for a collegiate to possess them were aroused.
 It Is little difficult to see why the question should have provoked the as tonishingly bitter fight which now broke out at Princeton. To find the real cause of t all one must go deeper than the issue presented on the sur face. much deeper than the mere per sonality of the president As to the latter. it Is quite possible that Dr. VII sons positive character. the certainty of his convictions and his aggressive ness in expressing them may have been distasteful to men long accustom- ed to other methods. It is even possi- ble that the president was not as gen tie in his manner. perhaps not always as tactful. as he might have been. as he has since become. Undoubtedly a man of exceeding charm of personality. he had his grim side-no man descend ed from a line of Scottish Presbyterl-