Princeton, Princeton Alumni, and the Princeton Alumni Weekly

It is unnecessary to explain the duties of a news-sheet addressed to the alumni of a university. It is unnecessary to bespeak the importance of such a publication to university as well as to alumni.

Even those who have not been sufficiently interested in the progress of Princeton to read The Alumni Princetonian in the past — or to join (as yet) in the support of the present publication — probably consider it the part of intelligent Americans to keep informed as to the aims and conditions of such puissant factors in our national life as the leading institutions of learning.

Possibly, they recognize, moreover, that as regards the college they call their own, it is fitting to be particularly well-informed. This is a duty and should be a pleasure.

Doubtless they would have to admit, however, that while the enthusiasm of all Princeton men — with enough exception to prove the rule — is splendid, their ignorance of the present Princeton is shameful. This is because the abstract sentiment of affection for alma mater, being a matter of the heart, can not very well supply the head with actual facts. Nor may these actual facts be obtained accurately or adequately from the occasional paragraph in a local newspaper.

There are alumni banquets, it is true, and speeches, but they are mostly eloquence. There are also annual catalogues; they are catalogues.

Indeed, when one considers the meagre dissemination of authentic information among those who ought to have it, (of nearly 6,000 former students of Princeton now living, only 500 of them were subscribers to The Alumni Princetonian) as to the external growth, internal development, progress, policy, prospects of the modern Princeton, with its numerous courses, increased facilities, crowds of students, manifold interests — from this point of view, it is remarkable that these, her sons, are so loyal still. And it is not surprising that many of them seen unable to understand what manner of university this can be which claims no law school, no medical college, no theological seminary — and which does not nor even desire such things as those terms connote in the popular mind.

But that suggests only one aspect of it. If the object of university training is to get more or less impressive degrees it is clearly a waste of time for an alma mater to pay any attention to her sons after they have taken those degrees and left for the four corners of the earth. But if an institution of learning has some notion of giving young men something to live with (and the most Academic type of university can aim no higher) then it would do well to watch them after they have begun to live. The only way for colleges to test their work is to raise their heads occasionally from academic introspection, and look about in the world of men. Perhaps they have been doing well by their sons; if so it is good to know it. Peradventure wrongly; it is better to know that…And such a publication as The Weekly can be that common meeting ground, a forum, a medium, a long distance telephone, if you will, to keep a live connection between the two for their mutual enlightenment, benefit and satisfaction.

This was originally published in the April 7, 1900 issue of PAW.