Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1913-01-20
CHAPTER VII.
Princeton's New President.

CHAPTER VII.
Princeton's New President.
1" HE presidency Of Princeton
university is position Of dig
~ nifty and consideration. The
long line Of men. reaching
back 100 years, who had filled 1t were
each in his time among the most dis
tinguished divines and scholars Of the
land. BY sort Of instinct or chance
Princeton had gravitated toward the
aristocratic. Latterly the university
had come to be known a. 1.-The most
charming country club in America"
Its retiring head had avowed 1t impos-
sible that It should be other than col
lege for rich mems sons.
Whatever may have been expected
Of him, 1t was impossible for the new
president, who, by the way. was the
first layman to occupy the chair, to
fall into the easeful tradition of the
office. It was impossible for him mere
ly to institute few necessary reforms
and let things 60 on much as before.
He had scarcely been inaugurated
when everybody became aware that,
for good or Ill, the judgment day had
dawned over the quiet campus and the
ivied halls. There was to be no lack
Of initiative, no fearfulness and trem-
bling before novel proposals, no shirk-
ing Of responsibility. no failure Of
nerve.
There was no undue precipitancy.
President Wilson spent year study
ing conditions-he already knew them
pretty well-from his new vantage
point. He did not, however, feel any
necessity Of awaiting the lapse Of a
year before undertaking to bring the
scholarship and the discipline Of the
school up to what they already were on
paper. Students who failed to pass
their examinations were dropped. rich
or poor. with or without social pull"
Work was absolutely demanded.
There was, Of course, an immense
sensation when the Princeton students
found that from that day forth they
must 60 to work. Work had not been
q Princeton tradition. The reverbera-
tons Of Indignation rolled through the
skies for several years untl there
came in a new body Of students, pre-
pared and willing to live up to the new
standards.
During that first year also a com.
mittee on revision Of the course Of
study was appointed to report the fol.
lowing year
If Princeton was to be a place Of
work It was to be fruitful work, work
worth doing, worth taking four years
out Of young mans life to do. 1t
was to be, above all, as President VII.
son saw 1t and continually phrased Il,
work that would at young man to
serve bis country better.
He even went SO far as to say that
he wanted the university to make It's
graduates henceforth as unlike their
fathers as possible-by which, of
course, he meant that fathers, being
settled in their opinions and in rever-
erence for. what is established, have
part to play different from that Of
sons, who particularly must sympa-
thize with the recreative and reforma-
tive processes Of life and society. That
saying blanched the cheek Of many an
elderly Princetonian; 1t was spoken in
an understanding Of the necessity of
opening college doors to the new facts
which modern science has added to
tho store Of human knowledge: spoken
also In appreciation Of the new social
conscience that has been born in the
world. though 1t is slow in coming to
the birth in colleges.
If 1t had fallen to President Eliot Of
Harvard to proclaim the new age In
which the old educational ideas had
ceased to suffice. Princeton, under the
presidency Of Wilson, now tDok up the
completing work Of positively con-
structing a system which should con-
tain the new ideas, the new subjects.
and not only contain them, but organ.
ixe them, coordinate them, put them
into proper sequence and relation.
President Wilson's committee after
months Of labor. the freed and en-.
thusiastic labor Of eager men, promul.
gated a revised, or. rather. new. sys-
tenn Of collegiate study. It was the
nrst positive attempt made to bring
the new college education into intelli-
gent and systematic relationship as
body Of discipline. All interested In
education know of the revolution
wrought by the department system"
that has ever since prevailed at Prince
ton. While 1t offered the widest scope
for the election of studies, 1t prac-
tcally assured that the studies select
Cd" should lead to one settled purpose
that is, 1t intelligently co-ordinated a
students work. It turned him out Of
college not with q smattering Of a
thousand subjects, but with a pretty
thorough training In some one broad
group Of subjects.
President Wilson IL entitled to the
credit Of presiding over this revision.
It was first evidence and result Of
that principle Of Wilson's mind which
demands coordination and right rela-
tenship, and 1t was the first step to-
ward the transformation Of Princeton
into a university for the people.
President Wilson's next step was to
commit Princeton to the revolution
that has come about with the adoption
Of the preceptorial system. It was bis