4,994
edits
Changes
Princeton in 1819: One president, two professors, two "tutors," 150 students
Princeton has no fraternities; socially, the "eating clubs" fulfill somewhat the same role. (While President of Princeton, Woodrow WIlson tried unsuccessfully to abolish the eating clubs.) The eating club tradition became cemented during the years 1899-1910, when the clubs built plush "clubhouses," many on Prospect Avenue, beginning with Ivy Club in 1899.<ref>[http://etcweb.princeton.edu/Campus/chap11.html The Eating Clubs of Prospect Avenue]</ref> Some clubs named by Fitzgerald in ''This Side of Paradise'' include: "Ivy, detached and breathlessly aristocratic; Cottage, an impressive melange of brilliant adventurers and well-dressed philanderers; Tiger Inn, broad-shouldered and athletic, vitalized by an honest elaboration of prep-school standards; Cap and Gown, anti-alcoholic, faintly religious and politically powerful; flamboyant Colonial; [and] literary Quadrangle." The process of selection for eating clubs is known as "bicker." The Daily Princetonian noted that the "time-honored tradition that has been both celebrated and contentious from its beginning." It is contentious because "Bicker has always had an exclusive nature."<ref>[http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2001/02/09/news/2279.shtml Down the 'Street' A history of the Bicker process], Daily Princetonian].</ref> However, today only five of the eleven clubs use bicker to select candidates.
Princeton has no fraternities; socially, the "eating clubs" fulfill somewhat the same role. (While President of Princeton, Woodrow WIlson tried unsuccessfully to abolish the eating clubs.) The eating club tradition became cemented during the years 1899-1910, when the clubs built plush "clubhouses," many on Prospect Avenue, beginning with Ivy Club in 1899.<ref>[http://etcweb.princeton.edu/Campus/chap11.html The Eating Clubs of Prospect Avenue]</ref> Some clubs named by Fitzgerald in ''This Side of Paradise'' include: "Ivy, detached and breathlessly aristocratic; Cottage, an impressive melange of brilliant adventurers and well-dressed philanderers; Tiger Inn, broad-shouldered and athletic, vitalized by an honest elaboration of prep-school standards; Cap and Gown, anti-alcoholic, faintly religious and politically powerful; flamboyant Colonial; [and] literary Quadrangle." The process of selection for eating clubs is known as "bicker." The Daily Princetonian noted that the "time-honored tradition that has been both celebrated and contentious from its beginning." It is contentious because "Bicker has always had an exclusive nature."<ref>[http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2001/02/09/news/2279.shtml Down the 'Street' A history of the Bicker process], Daily Princetonian].</ref> However, today only five of the eleven clubs use bicker to select candidates.
==A peek at Princeton in 1818==
It is sometimes difficult to appreciate how much American universities changed over the course of the nineteenth century. Writing in 1818, a Scot, one John M. Duncan, in a book about his travels through the still-mildly-exotic North American continent, wrote:
:A college was founded here [in Princeton] in the year 1738[sic], which gradually attained to a highly respectable rank as a literary institution... Academical institutions, like those of other kinds, are subject to many vicissitudes of fortune; and Princeton College, from the limited number of its Faculty, is more so than some others. In the sister establishments of Yale and Harvard, where the Professors are so much more numerous, a casual mediocrity of talent in one or two, is generally compensated by eminence in the rest; but here where a President, two Professors, and two Tutors, form the whole corporation, much more depends upon their individual abilities.
:Upon the President, besides the general superintendence, devolves the instruction of the Students, in Theology, Moral Philosophy, Belles Lettres, and Logic; one of the Professors teaches the Greek and Latin languages, the other Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Chemistry....
:There are at present in this college 150 students; but were the institution established upon a more liberal scale... it is probably from its local advantages, that its students would soon outnumber those of any other American college. Situate[sic] midway between New York and Philadelphia, its proximity to both gives it a decided advantage over both Harvard and Yale. To the immense territory south and west of Philadelphia, it is yet the nearest academical institution of any considerable reputation and will certainly, if other things are equal, obtain a preference to those that are two or three hundred miles farther off. The wealthiest families in the Union, and those who scatter money most lavishly, belong to the southern part of it, and if a University can be supported any where, on a liberal scale, they are able to do it. A young man from Georgia, a student at Princeton, informs me that he spent during the first year upwards of £350 sterling<ref>Roughly equivalent to US $21,000 in 2007</ref>, and probably he was not singular in so profuse an expenditure.<ref>Duncan, John Morison (1923), ''Travels Through Part of the United States and Canada in 1818 and 1819,'' [http://books.google.com/books?vid=0yDcQs6WfPHLapsWNXH&id=xSKgCv18VDEC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=%22princeton+college%22&as_brr=1#PPA169,M1 p. 169]</ref>
==See also==
==See also==
*[[Institute for Advanced Study]], an independent institution in Princeton, New Jersey
*[[Institute for Advanced Study]], an independent institution in Princeton, New Jersey