Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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1916 Sucuox Plu BETA KA1'1ux

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THE NASSAU HERALD valence of campus criticism of undergrgrcluate life and affairs- a re-assessment of undergraduate values, a sort of self-eXamina- tion. During the last few years one of the commonest cries i11 the market-place has been VVhat is the matter with the col- leges ?,' and something of an echo of this enquiry, but without the cheap note of the muck-raking reporter, is perceptible, I think, in our Princeton publications, and is a partial explana- tion of the gravity of most of our undergraduate literary per- M CCOSH HALL formances. I do not refer to campus critics of the Wilder sort who are ever ready to grasp this sorry scheme of things, en- tire, and shatter it to bits without any suggestions for its re- mouldingg and of course I am not thinking of anonymous and biassed attacks like the Confessions of an Undergraduate in the Outlook of last summer. But I have in mind the calmer, saner thinkers who shape and at the same time represent re- liable campus opinion and whose talk reflects clearly the dis- satisfaction of a large part of the campus with the way its life has developed. The prevalent questioning spirit is found in the t10l

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ZIHE Nassau HERALD more thoughtful essays and editorial comment in the Nassau Literary M agazine, in the better editorials of the Daily Prince- tonian and the Pictorial Review, and even in certain good- natured thrusts in the Tiger. At any rate we are not self- satisfledg we do not think that all's well with our little World, and so I assume that there must be hope for us. A Not only is our complex campus life criticized, but that hoary scapegoat, the curriculum, comes under frequent scrutiny. Though much of the scrutiny is little else than grumbling, and many of the suggested improvements are amusingly lacking in principle and perspective, nevertheless they show interest in the goat. Not so very many years ago the undergraduate' who devoted serious attention to the beast other than to advocate its banishment to eternal perdition along with the faculty that bred it, would have been exceptional, and marked as somewhat peculiar--rara anis 'cel tristis. It may be that this unrest is merely a reHection of the general mood of the times, for surely the world without our gates has been thoroughly startled from its self-complacency during the past two years, but I prefer to 'believe that the prevalence of interest-I was going to say, concern-in the intellectual background of this place, the fact, for example, that our daily is willing to devote several columns of one issue to the matter of the curriculum, is a healthy sign, and in reality a symptom of the maturing of the campus mind. In other words, this tendency to scrutinize the offerings of the curriculum is an indication that many of our undergraduates have outgrown the infant age of being spoon-fed, they want to know what their food is, and like other growing humans they frequently cry for other kinds of food, and food that often can- not be good for them. I have always felt that there are staples in education as in diet and I fear the undergraduate is too prone to disregard essentials and to cater unconsciously to his immediate whims to be accepted asianything but a tyro in the delicate art of planning a sound educational dietary, or to drop the metaphor, a fundamental course of study-which is what a college curriculum in the last analysis must be. A f12l