Small-Town Student Experience from an Earlier Era

I read your piece with great interest, nostalgia, and empathy. I grew up in the 1950s on a dairy farm in upstate New York on the northern edge of the Catskills. I attended school in the small town of Bainbridge, population about 1,800. I graduated valedictorian in my class of 37, including my twin, who attended Lafayette College. Unlike many of my classmates, we were children of college educated parents. My mother graduated from Elmira College for women, while my father attended a two-year state agricultural college. The family had no connection with Princeton, but I had learned of it through the football exploits of Dick Kazmaier, although I never played the game. To the best of my knowledge, no other student from Bainbridge Central School has ever attended the University.

In those days, Princeton was just beginning to “diversify” its student body, although its culture was still heavily driven by the prep school sons of the wealthy. It was many years later that I began to think of myself as an affirmative action rural admit. Needless to say, my two public (but urban) school roommates and I were not bickered by Ivy or Cap. In general, however, I did not feel the sting of class prejudice often, as we were much too busy with our schoolwork to attempt to have much of a social life. Remember in those days, Princeton had not gone coeducational and rarely admitted racial or ethnic minorities. I vividly recall my course schedule: English, history, German, physics and architecture (both with labs), mandatory freshman phys ed, Army ROTC, and drill team — 28 hours first semester, 27 the next with a Saturday morning German class. I practically lived in Firestone and still barely survived academically. My little high school did not teach anything remotely like AP courses.

But in my sophomore year, I switched to a history major and graduated with honors at a time when no more than about a third of all graduates did so. I then got accepted into a history Ph.D. program at the Johns Hopkins University. I spent the rest of my career teaching and administering at three prep schools and saw my daughter graduate from Princeton in 1991. Attending Princeton was one of the greatest honors of my life. In my retirement, my wife and I returned to upstate New York, but Princeton is still not getting the best students from our rural public schools, which like you is unfortunate for Princetonians coming from urban areas. Not all of us are country bumpkins lacking in the social graces or political troglodytes.