Chapel Attendance Options in the 1950s

The excellent article in the May issue “One Jew’s Journey” contains a factual error about chapel attendance. It says “Princeton continued to have mandatory Sunday morning chapel attendance until 1964.” When I was an undergraduate, only freshmen and sophomores were required to have attendance at some sort of a religious exercise, and that for only half the weeks of each semester. I attended the chapel some Sundays and some weeks went to the Hillel Foundation on Friday evening in Murray Dodge. One could go to church in town as well. We had to sign attendance cards. Personally, having been brought up without any religious education, I found the services I attended to be worthwhile and never considered the requirement a burden. However, I did not continue attendance into my junior and senior years.