The administration has often been accused of trying to squelch the Undergraduate Council, an ineffectual group to begin with. It insists on censoring Princeton's version of the Confy Guide, and once boycotted all merchants that sold it--although perhaps with good reason: the booklet had written that a certain professor "jumps around on the lecture platform like a man with four cents in front of a five-cent water closet."
Some Colleges, like Stanford or Virginia, are rah-rah and nothing else. Princeton isn't; Nassau men take their studies seriously and work hard on them, probably harder than Harvard students. Freshmen and sophomores carry five courses a term, and every senior (except engineers) must write a thesis-often 60,000 words minimum.
Princeton 72; Harvard 54
According to the dean's office, the purpose of a Princeton education is to "help the individual student discover and develop his inherent powers, and, in the atmosphere of a residential college, to learn how to use them most effectively in cooperation with others."
"A man is first human being and then a doctor, a lawyer, or a clergyman," the administration claims. This educational theory seems to get results, for Princeton has had more Rhodes scholars than any other college (the score: Princeton 72, Harvard 54).
The unique thing in a Princeton education inpreceptorial, which would be a cross between section meetings and tutorial except for the fact that it works. Almost all courses are given in two lectures and one six-man preceptorial per week, or sometimes the other way around.
The faculty leader of a "precept" meeting never quizzes, never lectures, and never takes attendance. His role is simply to ask leading questions and keep the discussion on the line, for preceptorial aims, "to clear up lectures and help students form their own opinions by informal discussion."
Informal is hardly the word for it. Precepts often held on the campus lawn, or in the tap room of Nassau Travern. About half of them are successful, depending mainly on the ability of the preceptor and how well the group keeps up with assignments.
Princeton's ability to mix hard work with rah-rah is its distinctive feature. Often students do both at once. Since the days of a famous grind named Poler, Princetonians have spontaneously celebrated "Poler's Recess" at 11 p.m. every night during exam-period grinding: ten minutes of fireworks, blasting radios, and communal noisemaking in the best tradition of the frustration-aggression theory.
Nowadays Nassau men waste afternoons in chem labs inventing newer and louder fireworks to add to the nightly decibels. One of their concoctions almost blew the foot off a proctor last year when he tried to toe it into a neutral zone.
Knowing the dual nature of the college, Princeton's admissions office tries to get dual-nature students. Nassau Hall wants "the all-around boy who possesses a sound mind, a healthy diversity of interests, and those qualities of leadership and citizenship which will make him a fine citizen on the campus and in later life."
Thurmond Beats Truman
Aside from this, Princeton has always admitted a high number of Southern students--Nassau is often called the "most northern of southern colleges." Many of the negroes in Princeton town are descendants of slaves that 19th-century students brought to college with them. But the Southern influence isn't as strong as it used to be--even though more Princetonians straw-voted for Thurmond in the last election than for Truman.
Once a student is admitted to Princeton, he finds himself in a centralized campus of high towers and Gothic arches, interspersed here and there with the usual Victorian monstrosities. He lives in a smallish room and has a male biddy, and has to walk to the basement for his bathroom and washroom. This latter difficulty is somewhat lessened by the existence of mop basins on each floor, which Princetonians use for face-washing and other purposes.
7:40 Classes
He can toss footballs on the campus and tack Esquire calendars to his walls, because the College counts this as part of school spirit. But he can't take a date anywhere except gymnasium dances and juke-box joints until the middle of his sophomore year, when he gets into one of the seventeen eating and social clubs. Unless he's in the unlucky ten percent.
He will hardly ever wear a tie or jacket and will smoke in class, and likely as not his professor will be smoking too. He will pass requirements in concentration and distribution, undoubtedly join the 17-sport intramural program, attend some 7:40 a.m. classes, and spend most of his social and extra-curricular life at his club.
When he graduates, he will be intelligent, well-rounded, and sociable. Whether he will also have lost his individuality in the process is the final question to be answered in determining the relative merits of a Princeton and a Harvard education