Resplendent in black and orange beanies, Princeton's freshman class traditionally marches off for an annual duel of rope with the sophomores. These tugs-of-war are usually hot, noisy jumbles with a good deal of strain on either side; unless the rope breaks, one group is clearly victorious. Between Harvard and Princeton there are now similar stresses. Academically, Princeton has attained many of the educational goals the new administration here is pulling toward. Socially, Harvard represents to Princeton students undergraduate life as it should be. These strains between the schools constitute a quiet tugging on ideas and customs; the outcome will not be clear-cut but a compromise.

Nassau's strong emphasis on the humanities over the sciences is much to the liking of Massachusetts Hall. Appealing also is the primary attention Princeton devotes to the College, often at the expense of its graduate schools. And through its history, Princeton has held some vestiges of the religious observance which Harvard has shucked so thoroughly.

To the south, however, the Princeton undergraduate views Cambridge with longing, though for reasons quite apart from educational policy. The Princeton Charlies are distressed with what they term "creeping asceticism" on the campus. Citing the car-ban, which forbids undergraduates to keep automobiles, and the "No Sex After Seven" rule which hustles women guests from dormitories at dusk, the Princetonian notes a discomforting similarity between his existence and that of a monk. The graduate school versus college question will, of course, be settled in top-level conferences in the Ivy League. The "creeping asceticism" versus "Charlieism" problem is being discussed somewhat lower in the academic hierarchy, with much of the heat of a genuine tug-of-war. In any event, the sides are now chosen and the battle begun.

University A Misnomer

In most people's minds the word "Princeton" immediately conjures up the words Harvard and Yale, forming a picture of a triumverate of the traditional "Big Three Universities." This is a basic misconception which stems from the misnomer--"Princeton University." It is not a university in anything like the sense in which Harvard and Yale are. Of course, if by university one means only an undergraduate college with graduate schools, then Princeton's Graduate School (of arts and sciences) and its schools of Engineering, Architecture, and International and Public Affairs put it over the line. But if what is meant is an educational community which subsumes the whole range of man's knowledge and in which the highest reaches of scholarship are developed within and between each of the many fields of learning, then Princeton hardly qualifies. Lacking a Law School, a Medical School, a Business School or schools of Education, Drama or Divinity, Princeton University, as such, is a phantasm.

Understandably enough, Princeton has never been quite sure whether or not it wants to admit this fact. At times officials have insisted that it is as much of a university as anyplace else; other times, they have admitted that it is not a university in quite the accepted sense, adding, however, that they never really wanted it to be anyway. President Harold W. Dodds expressed such an attitude when he said, "We shall continue to stress the college as the element which alone gives meaning to a university. We shall uphold the banner of the general as the only safe foundation for the particular. We shall strive for quality rather than quantity; we have no illusions of grandeur that bigness will satisfy. We shall resist the pressure to be large in numbers, for we believe that we can best serve our democracy by remaining small."

Dodds admits that "personally I'd like to have a small but good Law School. I'm afraid that it would call for such a large endowment that we'll never get one." He added, however, that he is quite firm in his belief that Princeton has no need for any other schools. Talking with administrative officers and faculty members at Princeton one runs into this latter attitude over and over again. They are quick to point out the relative sizes of their college--2800--and their graduate schools--500--and quick to say they wouldn't want it any other way. "We have consistently and purposely kept our institution in these proportions one official says, "because we are essentially a liberal arts school. Our emphasis is on the core philosophy of education and we feel that the core is in a small liberal arts college. We have no interest in spreading out our school. All that has been done since the war has been in the line of strengthening our existing facilities and staff."

An indication of how deeply this philosophy is embedded at Princeton is the attitude of Hugh Taylor, dean of the Graduate School, who would be most likely to emphasize graduate in relation to college work. On the contrary, however, Taylor is a fervent believer in the subordination of the graduate schools and is quite critical of what he termed the "dominance of the graduate at Harvard."

Community of Scholars

Taylor also emphasizes the unity of the graduate schools and the college at Princeton. The only separation of the two is the sheer physical isolation of the Graduate College. Otherwise, they are "one single educational community of scholars, masters and disciples." None of the four graduate schools have a separate faculty as do the graduate schools at Harvard. Every member of the University faculty spends the large part of his time teaching in the college. "Some people look down their noses at undergraduate courses, but not at Princeton. It's a real distinction to teach the undergraduate here," Taylor says.

Asked whether the small size of the graduate schools does not hamper the education they can provide, Taylor says, "On the contrary, since we operate on a smaller group we can do a much more intensive job. The graduate schools here have chosen to compete with graduate schools elsewhere on the basis of quality of the student's education rather than the number of students turned out. We think we make as much or more contribution to the field of Chemistry with our eight or ten Ph.D.'s a year as say, Illinois can with its 80 to 100."

If the core of Princeton's educational system is the college, then the core of the college program is the humanities. "Here at Princeton," says Dodds, "the flight from the humanities has not occurred as it has elsewhere, Modern society has obviously been placing a premium on the scientific and technical aspects of learning and many universities have succumbed to this attitude. Here, the Humanists have never been defeatist. For this reason we feel a special obligation to them."

This obligation has been partially fulfilled by the initiation last February of a mammoth program under the direction of the Princeton Council in the Humanities. The program, says Dodds, is "designed to help the humanities keep pace with recent advances in the social and natural sciences. It will tend to correct what might have been an unfortunate imbalance." The program will not actually go into operation until the full $7,000,000 endowment is raised from foundations, but when the money is collected its income will be used to "raise and expand the general level of humanistic education." This will be done through the support of a group of Junior Fellows in the Humanities, the building up of inter-departmental programs, more publication in the humanistic area, and a number of new courses.

Even as of now the field of humanities is unquestionably the most popular at Princeton. Not only does it have the largest enrollment in its courses and the largest number of concentrators, but it has also rated highest in the Daily Princetonian's annual course and department evaluation issue for a number of years.

Part of the reason for the popularity of the humanities may stem from its suitability for Princeton's famed preceptorial system. This system, inaugurated in 1905 by President Woodrow Wilson, has been an essential part of all humanities and social science upperclass courses ever since. The precept is Princeton's version of Harvard's section meeting, but has proved exceptionally successful because of its small size and the calibre of the men teaching it. The ideal precept is five or six students, although some have recently been as large as eight or ten. This contrasts with the average Harvard section of 15 or 20. The more important aspect, however, is the array of teaching talent made available for precepts. Unlike the Harvard system of using graduate students and instructors for virtually all of its sections, the precepts are taught largely by men of professorial rank. Each man giving a course must himself lead three or four precepts a week.