Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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Yom: Pxzrxcrmox 1916 Bn 1 C-A-BRACU BOARD NASSAU HEIKALD CoMM1'r'1'lcE

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THE NAssAU HERALD Undergraduate Activities. Until this reorganization was ef- fected it Was hard to name an activity which did not keep 'before it as its main obligation the necessity of -producing, in the real- istic vocabulary of the campus, as much ugravyv as possible for its managing members. VVe seem suddenly to have out- grown that primitive notion. If one considers for a moment the field of operation lying before this Committee the possibilities within its grasp appear to be limited only by the number of activities maintained and the size of the undergraduate body. I am told that it super- vises and co-ordinates the work of the dance committees, the dining halls committee, the intra-collegiate athletic executive committee, the undergraduate' schools committeeg under its supervision a new constitution has been adopted whereby posi- tions on the Brio-ci-Brac board are made partially competitive and the spoils largely cut down, in consultation with it the dramatic and musical organizations have adopted a plan offco- operationg under its direction the dance committees have pooled their budgets and the schools committee has taken up the work which the school and sectional clubs never did and is handling the distribution of Princeton reading' matter among schoolboys in an efficient and businesslike way. Even that impregnable Gibraltar of easy money, the Daily Prifn-cetonian has listened to the voice of the times and has placed its editors and man- agers on a scale of salaries instead off allowing them remuner- ation based on loose and unfair privilege. ltlinor changes, but steps in the same direction, have made appointive the cheer leaderships, the advertising managerships of the Triangle Club, and positions on the Nassau Heraldg and perhaps by the time this paragraph is in type the major sport managerships will also have become appointive. VVhether the committee has taken steps to remedy the chief evil of our present condition, the con- centration of extra-curriculum activities on a comparatively small group of men who therefore have more to do than is good for them, is a question that I cannot answer. One thing is fairly clear: the committee has a full-grown job on its hands. rwi

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ill!-IE Nassau H,IERAI,D I wonder whether its members will haye time to do anything else than attend to their duties as committeemen. lVith the abolition of secrecy, the Halls ,have entered on a new order of life and it has been possible to unify and enlarge, under Hall auspices, the spheres of influence of the various lecture clubs and similar smaller organizations. The conHict of lectures has also been largely remedied by the appointment of a committee of supervision, useless organizations and one or two objectionable old customs have been cleared away without injuring the valuable qualities 'of campus life. In the religious activities of the University there has been evident a broadening and deepening tone with a corresponding tendency toward eniciency on the secular sides. The Fitch meetings of the spring of 1915 and the Robins meetings of last December were indicative of a thoughtfully planned and sanely handled effort to place the appeal of religion in its broadest sense before the college. Unless I am very much mistaken there was nothing spectacular or sensational connected with these meetings. On the contrary, they seem to have been marked by an earnestness which cannot have been without effect, touching life as they did on so many sides. I presume the establislnnent of the Murray Dodge forums one result of this application of common sense to the average man's problems, just as the unin- cation of the campus work of the Philadelphian Society, the Princeton work in Peking, and the Princeton Summer Camp, with a permanent secretary and headquarters in Murray Dodge, is evidence of the application of business principles, common sense, and efficiency, to an administration which, at least in years gone by, sadly needed them. It is the common observation of those who have watched the Princeton campus for an extended period that entirely aside from the ordinary run of outside activities, student interests have 'broadened enormously, that undergraduates are seriously concerned with political, social, civic, and industrial questions of the day, and that these interests are coming into closer al- liance with courses in the curriculum. The widening of the U81