Princeton University - Bric A Brac Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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Assistant Professor J. R. Martin, Alt aud Archaeology Professor G. E. Bentley, English Professor P. K. Hitti, Chairmmi of Oriental Languages Department with a contemporary of Plato or Job, Aquinas or Dante, Leonardo or Shakespeare, or Charles Darwin. He roams over this past with surprising unconcern for what time has done. He telescopes it with sur- prising dexterity, or chops it up into little blocks which he labels Renaissance, or the Age of some- body, or of something. Worst of all, he treats it as if it were the present, becomes embarrassed if some- one mumbles that it is gone, blushes in confusion if someone suggests that only the modern is present. He is hopeless, but kind and sympathetic. By the administration he is tolerated because he amuses his students and causes no trouble. By his colleagues in the sciences (both social and unsocial, or should I say both natural and unnatural) he has been treated with cold disdain because at a certain moment he foolishly pretended to be scientific — and that he certainly is not. More recently, however, there has been established with them a modus vivendi , because they suspect that he does know something about values, after all, and they are said to be desperately in need of values. Lastly, by his students, he is treated as an amiable nitwit. They hover around him and ply him with questions which in his haste to talk he rarely answers. But when the going is rough, he is their friend. Doesn ' t he guard all the consolation which man has stored against man ' s lot? Associate Professor R. P. Ramsev, Religion Professors J. V. A. Fine and G. E. Duckworth, Associate Professor A. E. Raubitschek, Classics

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Professor G. F. Thomas, Chairman of Religion Department Proflssur W. J. Oatfs. Chairman of Classics Department Professor E. B. Smith, rtnan of Art and Archaeology Department visions. Since he knows that these things are re- garded rather critically in this world, he backs them up with just enough of the factual, the objective, and the scientific to make them appear respectable. He has a temperament which can only be char- acterized as fluid. At times, he is cavalier and indiffer- ent, even absent-mindedly obscure. At other times, he is deadly serious, aggressive, lucid as lightning. He shifts easily from irony to satire, or changes his mood with his material: he can be distressingly vig- orous, ascetically resigned, Rabelaisian in his joy, Faustian in his energy, Appollonnian in his serenity. He passes from skepticism, to open revolt, to abject tolerance in a twinkle. He has his dislikes, and, as is perfectly human, is inclined to exaggerate them. By nature, he scorns the mechanical, the material, the practical; there is a general feeling though that this scorn is not very deep. He is a bit more rabid against the statistical or the measured, although, to be perfectly frank, he himself reverts almost unconsciously to figures — which are generally wrong. He believes firmly in the existence of some evil force which is crushing the spirit of man. He finds it hard to define just what it is, but he pronounces himself unutterably opposed. He is quite evidently very old. Indeed, he talks so convincingly of the past that the impression is gained that he must have been present during all this past . The air of antiquity which clings to him is disconcerting to others. One just can ' t retain his equilibrium when one is thrown so suddenly Professor A. Castro, Modern Languages Professor W. Thorp. English Professor D. D. Egbert, Art and Archaeology

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ENGINEERING By Kenneth Hamilton Condit, M.E., C.E., D.Eng., Dean of the School of Engineering A year or so ago the Dean of Princeton ' s School of Engineering was introduced at a meeting of mechanical engineers as the head of the most un- orthodox engineering school in the country. This statement should not, perhaps, be taken at its face value, but it is true to the extent that engineermg students at Princeton have more free electives, a far wider choice of courses than most engineering students, and the benefit of studying and living in an atmosphere that is in the broad sense, humanistic and liberal ... At the same time there is no sacri- Professor R. W. McLaughlin, Jf Chairman of Architecture Professor G. P. Tschebotarioff, F. A. Heacock, Civ l Engineering; Professor J. C. Elgin, Chan man of Cheninal Engineering Professor P. Kissam, Civil Engineering; Associate Professor E. W. Suppiger, C. p. Kittredge, Mechanical Engineering fice of rigorous requirements in science and en- gineering areas. The student ' s science preparation is above average and his engineering courses rank with any in the country . . . The program in en- gineering does two things: it prepares a student