New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-27
Princeton's Clubs

No matter how decadent or irksome
human institution may become, let the
attack upon 1t issue from without and It's
victims will rally In rs defence to man.
When Woodrow Wilson sought reform OF
the social system at Princeton a howl
arose from students and alumni that was
heard across the continent. But now that
the revolt has developed within the untier
graduate ranks, the reaction OF alumni
and other undergraduates is one OF sym
pathy. Old Nassau actually seems proud
Of her militant sophomores, and many OF
the rest of us share her pride.
But Princeton's club system is by no
means the worst of its species. For one
thing. its club members do not live IN
their sumptuous clubhouses, as do the
fraternity men of other universities. They
are segregated only at meal times. In adj
dition. the Princeton clubs take in 80 per
cent of the eligible students, and hence, II
they do dominate undergraduate life, their
domination is that of the upper class ma
iority. At Yale three little senior societies,
electing a maximum of forty-five members
from a class averaging about 800, rule
the college. AS compared with such sys-
ten, Princeton's seems Of the essence or
democracy.
But the difficulty with the club system
at Princeton, as with that in almost any
other American college or university one
could name, lies in its -perpetuating
rigidity. 1t represents, in the first place,
the investment of $t,OO0,000. Each club
as a property holder has become a corpo-
rate entity, with definite bylaws and con-
tinuing existence. Students come and go;
the club remains. 1t takes on an insttu-
tional character. Undergraduate necesSi-
ties, manners, customs change; it lags be-
hind on the defensive, like all vested in
terests under similar pressure.
It's traditions, its alumni (many times
more numerous and influential than Its ac-
tive members), its permanent, expensive
home. all contribute their weight to the
incubus. A system composed of such
units has no more regard than Nature
herself for the individual, and less and
less, as the years go by, for the individual
class. 1t can be shaken only by such dyna-
mite as that employed in the present in
stance.
And it should be destroyed, not because
it is a club system, but because 1t is a
rigid club system. Clubs Of one sort or
another will remain at Princeton. Those
who dream of their eradication are chasing
a rainbow. Similar social groupings are
as old as the gregariousness Of man, and
a college of resident students without them
is hard to conceive. A large commons
seating all of undergraduate Princeton
will not prevent even the formation of eat
ing clubs.
Memorial Hall at Harvard is, or was,
full of club tables. But the latter are
spontaneous groupings, with no money in
vestment and no continuing existence. They
dissolve and reform with every year. They
exist solely for the convenience of their
active members. None has any alumni TO
consider, any traditions to live up to, any
palatial clubhouse to feel responsible for.
And, needless to say, they present not the
remotest obstacle to the progress of under
graduate democracy.
Yet they fulfil all the reasonable re-
quirements of an eating club, permitting
their members to select as companions at
table only those whose gustatory habits
and personalities enhance for them the
pleasure of the meal. And they point the
way to what may be the ideal solution of
the undergraduate social problem wherever
found.
Let Princeton rid herself of her million
dollar dining temples and provide in their
place suitable opportunity for the forma
ton of informal clubs, whether for eating
purposes or not, which shall give way to
others as fast as their members graduate.
Princeton would have then, we venture TO
believe, not only the most rational and
democratic of club systems, but the best of
clubs