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

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CLASS OF 1954 Senior class council meeting. CLASS OFFICERS President ....... ........ H OMER A. SMITH VicefP1esidem ...... ...... J OSEPH A. SUGAR Secretary ....... ........ P AUL S. SARBANES Treasurer ...... ....... R ICHARD D. SAVAGE Savage, Smith, Sugar, Sarbanes. After three long but rewarding years of work the end was in sight. The Class of 1954 had finally come to grips with the business of nnishing a college career. The series of last times that slipped 'by during the senior year were softened 'by many new beginnings for the years ahead. More than one Senior attended the opening services at the University Chapel for the iirst .time in their four years at Princeton. lt was at this service that President Dodds presented the Class's top scholar, Bill Rusch, with the Millbank Award. Soon after the football season was underway and the Seniors saw the most unsuccessful team that they had ever watched. Captain and Class President Homer Smith led the team to a 5f4 record to finish off a fourfyear compilation of 31 wins in 36 games. It was only after five weekends on the Street that the idea of a thesis became a terrible, black cloud on the academic horizon. Beginning before Christmas and building to a climax in March and April, the thesis dominated the lives of the Seniors. In the laboratories of Frick and Cuyot, Palmer and Eno, or in the recesses of Firestone Library pencils ground out words and igures on small white cards. The final production of a Princeton education took many hours, many cigarettes, many tomes, many confusions. Often a trip to Wasliington for an interview or to various areas for research took days from the curriculum. Night after night the pilgrimage from the Street to the Libe repeated itselfg and later in the night the pilgrimage shifted direction towards the Annex, where a quiet brew topped off a night's hard work.

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MILITARY SCIENCES By Benjamin Scott Custer, Ph.D., U.S.N., Professor of Naval Science The Military Sciences are Johnniesfcomeflately to the Princeton campus, but despite this disadvantage the ROTC faculty tries to make up with energy and enthusif asm what it may lack of the Princeton heritage. The aim is to furnish moderately well qualined junior oflicers to the Armed Forces. The atmosphere of Nassau Hall, however, is liberal, and as the mission is military, somewhere between the poles of humanistic teaching and military training must be found a satisfactory plane on which to anchor studies in Military Sciences. Princeton, to be sure, has prided itself for generations on its record of developing civilian leaders in every area of government, business and scholarship, but it is now our job to lay the ground work for extending Princeton's leadership to that high plane of service offered in the career officers corps of the Armed Forces, The under' graduate must be challenged with the possibilities of a service career while he is drilled and taught to be a competent junior officer who, upon graduation, will be ready to perform his duties effectively in competi-tion with the TradefSchool graduates and his fellows from other universities and colleges. Perhaps by steering a fair course between the i'winds of the humanities and the wshoals of engineering we can better qualify future graduates in the technical skills of warfare so that they may inflict more damage on the enemy while suffering fewer wounds than their va-lorous, but militia trained, Princeton predef cessors of earlier wars. Many college undergraduates today are looking for the area of minimum required military service while the staffs of the Military Sciences are, not unlike other faculty members, looking for the maximum syllabus hours in which to provide optimum training for the development of quali-Hed junior officers. To reconcile the conflicting demands of the University, the student, and the Pentagon while carrying on effective training demands considerable flexibility and an uunmilitaryu willingness to accommodate on the part of the 'Itechniciansftinkersfandftradefschoolf boys who make up -the faculty of the Military Sciences. It is perhaps unfortunate for the overall popularity of the courses offered in 'these departments that infantry drill is a required credit during laboratory periods. No person and no nation has ever popularized this form of mass exercise: footfsoldiers were grumbling about it long before the VALERIA VICTRIX, Rome's last British legion, left England to fight in Gaul, and footfsoldiers have been grumbling everywhere ever since. Infantry drill was not introduced, nor is it offered, at Princeton, as a means of hazing the individual, but rather as the one economical and effective means of training each member of the RCTC to submerge his will and harmonize it with the group under the direction of the leader. Captain B. S. Custer, U. S. N., Professor of Naval Science Colonel A. J. Ball, Jr., U. S. A. F Professor of Air Science Colonel B. Thielen, U. S. A., Professor of Military Science

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The clutch loomed up with the deadline's approach, of course. Typists became scarce, and father's secretary found new unexpected work on her desk. The final dash of production left many wondering just what it was that they had produced, but with the return of the paperbound booklets came a feeling of great satisfaction. Nothing ref mained but Senior comprehensives. At the Alumni Day meeting in Dillon Gym, Paul Sarbanes, Class Secretary and Rhodes scholar, was a-warded the Pyne prize-the highest award an under' graduate can win. Later in the winter the Class Banquet was held-also in Dillon Gym. It was here that Adlai Stevenson '22 spoke to the Class of 1954. The Memorial Insurance fund campaign began a long term program to express to Princeton the Class's appreciation for four years of unmatched education. Throughout the year the Senior was reminded of his new status after June. Applications to graduate schools were tirelessly filled out. For others the Placement Bureau became a familiar haunt. Future careers seemed to be more obviously dependent on academic and extrafcurricuf For the Senior, a sundial and a beerjacket. lar backgrounds, and the realization of a Princeton edu' cation was becoming more clear. No Senior, however, was able to eliminate from his plans some consideration of the Armed Forces. Having entered school near the start of the Korean War, the draft was always at the heels of the Class of '54. It seemed natural then for each Senior to plan in some way for a change of dress to blue, green, or khaki. For the Senior the last days at Princeton, until the panorama of Reunions, were closing in. Only Class Day -pipefbreaking and stepfsinging-and the Senior Prom remained before graduation.