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PRINCETON AFTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS.

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BY WINTHROP MORE DANIELS.

HE approaching sesquicentennial celebration of the founding of Princeton suggests a review of its past educational work, its present status, and its future expansion and prospects. Much of Princeton's early his tory has national interest; much of it has an interest to Princeton men only. In this paper we shall confine ourselves to an exposition of Princeton's educational system. Like most early American colleges the College of New Jersey started as a sort of disguised divinity school, with a liberal arts attachment. It was by the terms of its charter unsectarian. That instrument provided that "those of every religious denomination may have free and equal liberty and advantage of education in said

"M'COSH WALK," SHOWING DR.

M'COSH IN FOREGROUND.

college, any different sentiments in religion notwithstanding. Still, for the first three decades of its history the greater part of its graduates received an education designed to fit them for the work of the ministry. The influence of the Revolution with its political ferment, and the nation's subsequent material growth, tended to increase the number of students seeking a purely liberal education as opposed to a professional training culminating in theology. This change in the personnel of the student body was recognized when in 1812 the Theological Seminary was founded and erected at Princeton. This institution has never had any legal connection with the college. It provided, however, for a technical theological education which the curriculum of the college no longer afforded.

From the beginning of the present century the course of study pursued in the college was the usual course then given in similar institutions. It com.

prised the study of Latin and Greek, mathematics, the elements of science, and philosophy, moral and political. Practically the same course of study was required of all the students, a goodly percentage of whom have always entered the theological seminary upon completion of their college course. The growth of the college up to the time of the Civil War was largely a growth in numbers, both of professors and students, and witnessed a deepening and broadening in the study of the branches pursued. This quiet and uneventful progress was violently checked by the outbreak of the Civil War. Prior to this time Princeton's southern constituency was relatively very large. The loss in numbers in 1861 amounted to about one-third of the whole number of students. Nor had the college repaired its losses or regained its normal size when, in 1868, Dr. McCosh entered upon his eventful presidency, and began the history of contemporary Princeton. The development of Princeton's educational system under Dr. McCosh and under his successor, Dr. Patton, may be the best viewed under the following aspects :

First, the growth of the college is objectively evidenced by the large number of new structures erected, the enlargement of the library, the acquisition of valuable collections, the equipment of labora tories, observatories and a general liberal increase in endowment and current funds.

Second, the development may be traced in the growth in numbers, both of the faculty and of the student body. At Dr. McCosh's accession in 1868 the number of students was 264 at present the total number is 1100. Moreover, the growth in recent years has been as great as that of the early part of this period. The following statistical table will show the increase in recent years:

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Princeton may be seen also in the various changes in the course of study there pursued. The requirements for entrance have been steadily raised, both Greek and Latin being required for admission to the academic course. Provision is made also for entering pupils whose standing in various lines is above that exacted by the minimum entrance requirements. Advanced divisions cover in addition to the course pursued by the whole class an amount of work graduated to their superior capacities. Besides the regular academic course, there was founded in the early seventies the John C. Green School of Science, admission to which is conditioned upon proficiency in modern languages in place of Greek. The undergraduate courses in the School of Science are two in number: a non-professional course leading to the degree of Bachelor of Science. and a professional course leading to the degree of Civil Engineer. In both courses the study of the sciences is pursued as a substitute for the study of the classics.

The elective system in vogue, while offering great freedom of choice in the two upper years, has not been permitted to break down the required course of study in the freshman and sophomore classes. In the first two years of the course there is just a foretaste of elective freedom, which permits the freshman to choose as between French or German, and which in the sophomore year allows him some considerable option in the distribution of his time be

In the last two years

tween the required courses. of the course the elective system prevails very generally. Two-thirds of a man's courses of study in the junior year, and practically all those of his senior year, are of his own choosing. The only required studies in the last two years of the academic course are the elements of moral and mental Philosophy, Physics and Economics. In many of the small elective classes the seminar system is in vogue and it is not infrequent to see graduate students and seniors of high standing working along exactly parallel lines in the same seminar. The cap-sheaf in Princeton's educational system comprises the graduate work, and necessitates an explanation of the various university courses which lead to the higher dergees. The graduate students at Princeton number about 10 per cent. of the whole. Of these graduates a majority are pursuing theological courses in the sister institution across the campus. The lectures on which they are in attendance are generally the same as those delivered to the advanced classes in the undergraduate course. An additional number of graduate students reside in college and pursue their work, many of them in the laboratories. Especial mention should be made of the graduate school of Electrical Engineering, which grants the degree of Electrical Engineer after a course of two years' graduate study in residence. The require ments set by the University before the master's or doctor's degree in arts or science is granted erect a high standard, and are rigidly adhered to. For the

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doctor's degree a preliminary examination is exacted in all cases, as well as a two years' course in university residence, exclusively devoted to graduate study. The degree is finally granted only upon the acceptance by the Faculty of a satisfactory thesis from the candidate indicating proficiency in original research, and upon the candidate's successfully passing another examination in his main line of study and in two subsidiary courses, one of which is always in the department of philosophy, when the degree of Ph.D. is conferred. The foregoing gives a skeleton outline of the requirements embodied in Princeton's educational system, a system, it is believed, which is at once sound, conservative and consistent.

Those interested in American university education will readily understand that the educational problems of to day deal with many important topics outside of and beyond the ordinary curriculum. A word then is in order with reference to Princeton's system of the administration of discipline. There has been in the last thirty years a radical change in the nature of administrative and disciplinary problems in our colleges and universities. Prior to that time discipline ordinarily concerned individuals, or in rare

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PRESIDENT PATTON.

MARQUAND CHAPEL.

instances temporary associations which threatened to infringe upon the order of the college. The chief administrative problem of to-day concerns not so much the deportment of individual students as numerous prominent and powerful student organizations. In Princeton these organizations grew and

multiplied rapidly after 1870. They comprise the various athletic organizations, the musical clubs, the editorial boards of college periodicals and some others, chiefly social. Besides these associations there are always in existence a large number of miscellaneous organizations, more or less temporary, some of which frequently attain some considerable numbers or importance. The attitude of the Princeton Faculty toward these problems is, first, a stiff insistence upon such general rules as are laid down for the guidance and regulation of these various interests and yet as little further interference as is possible This policy, it is believed, is justified by the permanence of a vigorous and independent criticism of college matters emanating from the students themselves and di rected toward the correction of recognized abuses. The training of the undergraduates in the two halls where for over a century parliamentary debate has been the main pursuit, the good judgment evinced in the tone of The Princetonian, the college daily.all create a spirit of healthy yet conservative agitation, originating among the students themselves, and therefore doubly effective to secure its ends. The recent establishment of the honor system in examinations, as well as the disapproval with which the practice of "hazing" has been visited, are both exponential of the beneficial re

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In October of this year the College of New Jersey will formally assume the title of Princeton University. It thus acknowledges the changes which have been moulding its life in the past three decades. It is perhaps not out of place to make some brief mention of what it is hoped the Princeton University of the future will accomplish. Fortunately, or unfortunately, there is no fixed and settled meaning attached to the word "university." It cannot be confined to a mere contiguous allocation of professional schools. The chances are that the future will show, as well as the past and present have shown, that there are several distinct types of universities. It is not the purpose of Princeton to establish in connection with the undergraduate department a number of professional schools devoted to the technical study of medicine or law. So long as the theological seminary exists in Princeton,-and there is no reason to anticipate its removal,-the trustees of Princeton stand bound to establish no chair of theology. It is perhaps doubtful whether it is possible or at least advisable to establish technical schools of law or medicine outside of a large city. The type of university, then, to which Princeton, both of choice and of necessity, aspires, is one in which non-professional graduate study shall be pursued in all departinents. If in the future Princeton founds and establishes a school of law, it will be a school where the "spirit of laws" and their philosophy is pursued and not a school of technical or adjective law. And though there may never ex

ist in Princeton a school of medicine leading to the ordinary practitioner's degree, there has already developed a school of biology capable of expansion into a great graduate school in that department of natural science. Along with the growth of the graduate courses, the maintenance of the undergraduate department, both academic and scientific, will ever be an end of prime importance. The increased endowment to be announced upon the occasion of the sesquicentennial celebration will contribute very materially to the perfecting of these plans of university growth. The new library already in process of construction, whose aggregate cost will be not far from $600,000, will provide at the same time an adequate literary workshop and the appropriate housing of the various seminars, which have hitherto been widely scattered. Numerous other gifts, of which mention will be duly made in October, will largely subserve the purpose of university development, such as has been outlined above. Princeton men feel confident that they have not mistaken the strength and the direction which the present movement is taking.

Be

There is one aspect in which Princeton University will be as unique as Princeton College has been. This is its avowed attitude with reference to certain questions of prime importance in Philosophy and Ethics. It has frequently happened in the past that Princeton College has been mistakenly supposed to teach or to propagate the distinctive theological tenets of the Princeton Theological Seminary. tween the two institutions there has been in the past no organic or legal connection. The Seminary is avowedly committed to the maintenance and proppagation of a certain type of theology. The College is not sectarian; it never has been, and by the terms of its charter it never can be. From the beginning of its existence other denominations than the Presbyterian have been represented on its board of trustees; among its students are to be found ad

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THE

reputation for impartiality or open mindedness which is to be purchased by a sacrifice of this, its traditional philosophical attitude. The motto of the new University is that of the old College-Dei sub numine viget-under God's guidance it flourishes.

JULES SIMON.

BY THE BARON PIERRE DE COUBERTIN.

HE wonderful worker who died in Paris a few weeks ago was born in Lorient, a quiet and routine-loving city in Brittany, on Christmas eve of that famous year 1814, that brought to an end the French imperial dream and relieved Europe from Napoleon's tyrannous grasp. He was thus an old man, having completed, last Christmas, his eightyfirst year. Still what people used to say of Sir Henry Parkes, the great Australian leader, was no less true of Jules Simon: that when you called on him, you thought at first he looked very old, and after you had heard him talk for a while, you found that he looked much younger. Not only was the visitor impressed by the life-giving twinkle in his eye, but his conversation was no longer that of a man who looks deep into the past and fails to understand that the world continues to be as interesting to day as it was yesterday. Jules Simon's belief in the continual moral progress of humanity was certainly less strong than it had been at an earlier period of his life, but as he hated pessimism and pessimists he never gave up fighting for what he considered good and true. Truth was his goddess, and he should not have deemed life worth living had he not been led to hope that men might finally induce her to fix her residence among them.

JULES SIMON AND VICTOR COUSIN.

Simon was not his name; it was his father's Christian name. It is not uncommon for children in Brittany to be called thus by their own Christian name, followed by their father's or mother's, while the family name is not made use of. Jules Simon's father was called Simon Suisse, and his son was sent to college accordingly under the name of Jules Suisse. The family was not rich and could not pay for the boy's education. A scholarship, fortunately, was bestowed upon him and he went through the whole course of studies, first at Lorient, and later at Vannes. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1833, and having been successful in his examinations was made "Docteur-ès-Lettres" in 1839. He was sent as a professor of philosophy to the Lycées of Caen and Versailles, but soon received a letter from the famous Victor Cousin, who had known him as a student, and was now anxious to see him come back to Paris, and thus secure his help as an assistant master at the Sorbonne. Jules was only 26 years of age when he published his first essay in the Revue des Deux Mondes. It attracted considerable attention. Before handing it to the editor of the Revue, he had asked Cousin's advice. Cousin thought

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