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Princeton University 5/10/91 [OA 8322] [2]
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Princeton University 5/10/91 [OA 8322] [2]
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Records of the White House Office of Speechwriting (George H. W. Bush Administration)
Speech Backup Chronological Files
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MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the George Bush Presidential
Library Staff.
Record Group/Collection:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Records
Collection/Office of Origin:
Speechwriting, White House Office of
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Speech File Backup Files
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Chron File, 1989-1993
OA/ID Number:
13755
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13755-005
Folder Title:
Princeton University 5/10/91 [OA 8322] [2]
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26
21
4
1
Beth-
FVI,
CMB
QUOTES FOR PRINCETON SPEECH
"Government functions best as a catalyst, not a cure. We need a
smarter, more efficient government, not a bigger one."
-- George Bush
1988
From George to George
"The more power is divided, the more irresponsible it becomes."
-- Woodrow Wilson
1885
From George to George
"A little group of wilful men reflecting no opinion but their own
have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless
and contemptible."
-- Woodrow Wilson
3/4/17
Oxford Dict. of Quotes 574:23
"While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at
a standstill -- little better understood, little better practised
now than three of four thousand years ago."
-- John Adams
Letter to Thomas Jefferson
July 9, 1813
"Government has been a fossil; it should be a plant. "
-- R.W. Emerson
The Young American
Boston, 2/7/1844
"For three long years I have been going up and down this country
preaching that government
costs too much. I shall not stop that
preaching."
-- FDR
Speech of Acceptance
July 2, 1932
"Congress cannot properly even discuss a subject that Congress
cannot legally control, unless it be to ascertain its own powers. "
-- J. Fenimore Cooper
The American Democrat, IV
1838
"We do not elect our wisest and best men to represent us in the
Senate and the Congress. In general, we elect men of the type that
subscribes to only one principle -- to get re-elected."
-- Terry Townsend
The Doctor Looks at the Citizen
1940
Address in NY, Jan. 30, 1940
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member
of Congress. But I repeat myself."
-- S.L. Clemens (Mark Twain) C. 1882
"For any statesman -- any school child knows that hot air rises to
the top."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Crack-up
"The business of the Congress is tedious beyond expression
Every
man in it is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman; and
therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his
criticism, and his political abilities."
-- John Adams, discussing the
Continental Congress in a letter
to his wife, Oct. 9, 1774
Harper Bk. Of Am. Quo. 54:9
Rule of Law:
War Is Too Serious to be Left to the Judges
By L. Gordon Crovitz 01/02/91 WALL STREET JOURNAL (J), PAGE A7
At 9:30 the morning of August 4, 1973, Supreme Court Justice
William Douglas issued an order stopping the U.S. "from
participating in any way in military activities in or over Cambodia
or releasing any bombs which may fall on Cambodia." Justice Douglas
said his injunction was urgent because this was a death penalty
case. The dead "may be Cambodian farmers whose only 'sin' is a
desire for socialized medicine to alleviate the suffering of their
families and neighbors, " he wrote from his summer house in Yakima,
Washington.
The Supreme Court was in a pre-FAX era recess, but by 3 the same
afternoon Justice Thurgood Marshall managed to reach the other seven
justices by telephone. When he explained the bizarre situation, the
other justices unanimously agreed that Justice Douglas had gone too
far. They nullified his order. Commander in Chief Nixon was able to
continue the pullout of troops without having to halt the air cover
that saved many U.S. lives.
This story is worth recounting for more than Justice Douglas's
assessment of Vietnam as a war over socialized medicine. We are now
again on notice that a federal judge thinks he has the power to
issue a legal writ to reverse a decision by the president on how to
command the troops.
Harold Greene, a federal district court judge in Washington,
D.C., last month issued a ruling in a case that argued President
Bush needed congressional approval to wage an "offensive attack" in
the Persian Gulf. While Judge Greene ruled against the 54 Democratic
congressmen-plaintiffs, his opinion in the case does not give Mr.
Bush much breathing room.
Judge Greene, famous for his continuing role in the AT&T
breakup, said in Dellums V. Bush that "an injunction may issue at
the request of members of Congress to prevent the conduct of war
which is about to be carried on without congressional
authorization. " He instructed Congress that before issuing an
injunction against Mr. Bush, all he needs is a sign that the case is
"ripe," which he defined as proof that "the plaintiffs in an action
of this kind be or represent a majority of members of Congress."
This seems to mean that Judge Greene would issue an injunction
against war if half plus one of all congressmen join as plaintiffs
to the lawsuit. Or he would issue the injunction if Congress passes
a resolution claiming sole power to start war.
A few words about the merits of this case. The power to declare
war -with all the formalities this has entailed since Grotius
invented international law in 1625 -belongs to Congress, but the
Founders were careful to give the president the power to make war.
There is no constitutional requirement of a formal declaration;
Korea and Vietnam are leading examples of recent undeclared wars.
Throughout its history of some 200 deployments of troops abroad, the
2
U.S. has had but five declared wars. As a Washington Legal
Foundation friend-of-the-court brief filed last month noted, even if
the Founders wanted a president to consult Congress before launching
a true offensive war -an imperial war to gain territory, for example
-it was Iraq that started these hostilities.
The larger point is that of all the people to debate the
constitutional tug of war between Congress and the president,
federal judges may be the least relevant. Indeed, this was the
deciding factor in an opinion issued the same day as Judge Greene's
by another judge in the same federal district court in Washington.
Judge Royce Lamberth dismissed a case brought by a National
Guard reservist who claimed Mr. Bush didn't have the power to order
troops to the Persian Gulf. "The court lacks the expertise,
resources and authority to explore" issues such as what "constitutes
'war,' 'imminent hostilities' or even the prelude to offensive war, "
Judge Lamberth wrote. Which branch can order troops to battle should
be resolved politically, not by courts. Separation of powers
requires that "the far-reaching ramifications of those decisions
should fall upon the shoulders of those elected by the people to
make those decisions."
Judge Lamberth added that Congress has plenty of powers, lacking
only the will to use them. "Congress can itself declare war,
exercise its appropriations power to prevent further offensive
and/or defensive military action in the Persian Gulf or even impeach
the president."
If the battle here between Judges Greene and Lamberth ever gets
to the appeals courts, bet on Judge Lamberth. Even some of the
liberal judges on the federal appeals court in Washington have
expressed doubts about judges issuing orders where Congress fears to
tread.
"Questions of military deployment are best settled by the
interplay of the political branches,' said Judge (and former Rep.)
Abner Mikva in a 1987 speech. "When the two political branches have
not exhausted their own powers to settle the matter, the courts are
well advised to take a page from Congress -and do nothing.' Judge
Mikva noted that judges quickly dismissed all but one of the 20
legal challenges to the Vietnam War. Maybe one day Judge Mikva will
get a chance to play Justice Marshall, with Judge Greene re-creating
the role of Justice Douglas.
One legal commentator with plenty of experience in this area is
Robert Bork. He was the solicitor general who in 1973 won the
reversal of Justice Douglas. As a judge, he wrote a leading federal
appeals court opinion against judges giving the political branches
the standing to sue each other in court.
"In matters of such importance as possible war in the Gulf, the
courts have no place, Mr. Bork said after reading the Greene and
Lamberth decisions. "This is a matter for the political branches to
decide. The president, and indeed Congress, should make this clear
SO that courts are not tempted to expand their authority into areas
where it has always been understood not to exist.
3
"The rules courts have created to restrict their own powers -
rules about political questions, standing, ripeness and so forth -
are designed to keep the courts in their proper place in our
democratic system. If courts show signs of ignoring these rules, of
breaking out of their proper authority," Mr. Bork said, "the
political branches should tell the courts that they will have none
of it. "
Mr. Bork recognizes the political reasons why Mr. Bush has
refrained from announcing he would ignore as unconstitutional any
injunction that bars the use of troops. While this would remove any
hope Saddam Hussein may have for a reprieve from the judicial
branch, this could also anger Congress into pursuing what could
become a battle's second front -a full-fledged legal fight against
Mr. Bush's constitutional powers.
The last thing Mr. Bush or the troops need is a federal judge
trying to expand judicial power into foreign policy. The last thing
Congress deserves is a judge stepping in so that legislators can
keep ducking responsibility for or against war. America may finally
have found a public policy issue that can't be decided in court:
war.
END OF DOCUMENT
Rule of Law:
President Bush Exercises the So-Sue-Me Line-Item Veto
By L. Gordon Crovitz 11/21/90 WALL STREET JOURNAL (J), PAGE A15
What if President Bush, weakened by the budget fiasco and
distracted by 535 Lawyers in Chief litigating the Persian Gulf,
confronted Congress by asserting a constitutional power to line-item
veto? What if he signed what he liked in a bill and blacked out the
rest? Congress would surely howl about an imperial president.
He did, but Congress hasn't. By my count, this month President
Bush line-item vetoed 41 provisions in some 20 bills that Congress
passed this term. True, these were a different kind of veto -vetoes
in the form of signing statements. President Bush signed these
bills, but also declared that certain provisions are dead letters
because he won't enforce them. These item vetoes (without
possibility of override) were mostly to excise unconstitutional
provisions; none, so far, claims the power to item veto pork in
spending bills.
"These signing statements are a choke point for focusing on what
are often very detailed but hidden provisions that take authority
away from the president,' " Boyden Gray explained. Mr. Gray, the White
House counsel, said, "What happens after a bill is passed is
becoming as important as what happens before it is passed." Building
on a system started by President Reagan, Justice, Defense and other
agencies aggressively veto bills for possible separation-of-powers
problems. One purpose is for signing statements to become part of
the legislative history.
Mr. Bush, who so far has stuck to his guns on presidential war-
making powers, excised several provisions in the Defense
4
Authorization Act. He struck micromanaging requirements that he
negotiate to get Japan to pay for U.S. troops based there and
negotiate the terms of future NATO basing of a U.S. fighter wing. "I
am particularly concerned about those provisions that derogate from
the president's authority under the Constitution to conduct U.S.
foreign policy," Mr. Bush wrote. "I will construe all these
provisions to be precatory rather than mandatory," meaning that what
Congress thought would be a law he'd instead take under advisement.
He also objected to provisions where Congress micromanaged the
deployment of military reserves. He said he would construe these
"consistent with my authority as Commander in Chief." Congress
backed down on its threat to turn a classified annex that describes
the Pentagon's secret "black budget" into binding law. The bill says
the annex "shall have the force and effect of law as if enacted into
law"; the signing statement noted that this means "provisions of the
annex are not law. "
Mr. Bush dismissed several parts of the foreign-aid bill,
including a required "on-site inspection" of the Thai-Cambodian
border. Mr. Bush wrote that he'd view these requirements as
"advisory rather than mandatory." He vetoed part of the Military
Construction Appropriations Act by limiting required notice to
Congress before big construction projects to when "advance notice is
feasible and consistent with my constitutional authority."
Several bills violated the Constitution's Appointments Clause,
which says that only the president can name people to certain public
offices. "Call this congressional pork by patronage appointment,"
Mr. Gray said. Mr. Bush objected to a line in the National and
Community Service Act creating "paid volunteers." Oxymoron aside,
Congress tried to appoint a majority of an oversight board, which
Mr. Bush said is "without legal force or effect" because only the
president can choose nominees.
Other bills violated the Constitution's Recommendation Clause,
which directs the president to recommend new policies to Congress.
Mr. Bush crossed out provisions where Congress tried to stop the
administration from even thinking about new ideas, including
restrictions against funding to study the possibility of moving to a
"market rate" method of pricing hydroelectric power and limits
barring the Office of Management and Budget from so much as
"reviewing any agricultural marketing orders" -that is, from
critiquing farm subsidies.
The Supreme Court invalidated the legislative veto in the 1983
case of INS V. Chadha, but Congress keeps on passing provisions to
let itself make laws without presenting bills to the president. Mr.
Bush declared legislative vetoes as "without legal effect" in bills
from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act to the National and
Community Service Act.
Not all the line-item vetoes protect presidential powers. Mr.
Bush also crossed out a provision in the Disadvantaged Minority
Health Improvement Act that would have violated the equal-protection
clause by linking eligibility for school health programs to race. He
lined out a provision in the Clean Air Act that would have expanded
private lawsuits and a provision in the Consumer Product Safety
Improvement Act that would have given state attorneys general carte
blanche to sue.
Mr. Gray said that while these "are line-item vetoes of a
certain kind, " Mr. Bush hasn't decided whether to expand the vetoes
to include vetoes of line items in spending bills simply because
their cost is excessive. Presidents swear to uphold the
Constitution, so refusing to enforce what they consider
unconstitutional provisions is arguably less radical than asserting
the right to item veto to control spending. This is a further step
Mr. Gray said "we're not ruling out and not ruling in.'
Still, the principle is now established that a president can
decide that parts of what Congress labels a "bill" can be vetoed,
leaving the rest. "A key part of the puzzle is the question of who
gets to decide what a bill is," Mr. Gray said.
There were plenty of budget-busting candidates this year for a
line-item veto. One was a provision that mysteriously appeared under
the heading of the National Park Service. It says, "In this act and
in subsequent annual appropriation acts, $85,000 shall be available
to assist the town of Harpers Ferry, W.Va., for police force use." "
In other words, permanent federal funding for a police department in
Sen. Robert Byrd's home state.
The Bush administration gets only fair marks for separation of
powers. OMB Director Richard Darman boasts of new presidential
powers in his budget deal, but Congress slipped in a provision that
will make it harder to run the government with a vetoed continuing
resolution, as Mr. Bush did for a time last month. Congress amended
the Anti-Deficiency Act, which for more than a century gave
presidents emergency spending powers. The change adds the word
"imminent" as a requirement to any threat to life or property that
justifies a president keeping workers such as air-traffic
controllers on the job.
Still, signing statements as line-item vetoes shows there's some
life left in the Bush presidency. A Congress that fails to defend
its unconstitutional line items might also acquiesce if its pork-
spending line items were vetoed. Mr. Bush can still be the first
president in many years to leave the office stronger than he found
it, especially if these line-item vetoes are a taste of line-item
vetoes to come.
END OF DOCUMENT
Rule of Law:
'Met W/Keating's S&L Senators. Again. End of Log.'
By L. Gordon Crovitz 01/24/90 WALL STREET JOURNAL (J), PAGE A15
"I always like to quote Federalist Paper 48 that 'It is against
the enterprising ambition of this department (Congress) that the
people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their
precautions.' Well, it is exhausting."
-White House Counsel Boyden Gray
Fighting off encroachments by Congress has wearied all
presidents, but Mr. Gray did not come to a Federalist Society
conference on separation of powers this past weekend to admit
defeat. Instead as Congress reconvenes this week President Bush may
adopt a new strategy to keep his branch away from the maw of
Congress.
White House sources say that President Bush may soon order all
administration officials to log communications to them by members of
Congress or their staffs. These logs would then be made public. The
idea is that some sunshine on "constituent services" might loosen
congressional strongarming of administration regulators. This is
separation of powers as the Founders intended, as a sword against
congressional overbearing and ethical lapses.
The proposed executive order would work something like this:
Administration officials and regulators would keep a log of
significant contacts by Capitol Hill. The logs would include who
called whom about what, when and why. The range of subject matters
to be covered would probably include lobbying in three areas: Who
gets government contracts or other funds? Who gets the benefits of
government regulations? Who is investigated for possible wrongdoing?
Not all contacts would be listed; there's no reason to log calls
about lost Social Security checks.
Call it the Keating Five Memorial Executive Order. If adopted,
congressmen would know their lobbying would become public. The
Office of Thrift Supervision, set up to oversee the savings-and-loan
bailout, has had a policy of logging calls from congressmen and
others since November. These logs might also concentrate minds on
what Congress has become. Mr. Gray has called Congress "the champion
of the entrenched special interest," which certainly describes what
Charles Keating says he was buying for Lincoln Savings.
Congress won't be happy with news of this proposal, at least
judging by what happened last year when the Interior Department
began its policy of logging contacts. Congress responded by
inserting in the Interior appropriations a line that "none of the
funds available under this title may be used to prepare reports on
contacts between employees of the Department of the Interior and
Members and committees of Congress and their staff.' Oh, my. No
wonder a touchy Congress exempted itself from the Freedom of
Information Act.
The White House thought this was an obviously unconstitutional
infringement on a president's collecting information from his aides.
When the administration said this provision would make a good test
case to see if the president has an inherent power to line-item-veto
provisions in bills, Congress blinked. In mid-October, Congress
limited its ban on logging communications to "be effective only on
Oct. 1, 1989. " This hilarious amendment meant that Interior could
log calls -except calls made on a single day, which had already
passed, which anyway was a Sunday.
With victories like this, President Bush earned a fair record on
separation of powers in his first year. His veto of the bill helping
7
Chinese students stay in the U.S. may yet be overridden, but Mr.
Bush has at least taken separation of powers seriously. President
Reagan signed the Boland amendments and all-in-one continuing
resolutions, so Mr. Bush gets high marks if graded on the curve:
Wins: Mr. Bush successfully vetoed 10 bills in his first term,
the highest since President Eisenhower. Several vetoes were just on
separation-of-powers grounds, including vetoes of congressional
"diktats" in the FSX fighter deal with Japan and a Patrick Moynihan
bill that would have sent even the president to jail for using U.S.
or third-party funds for certain vaguely worded foreign-policy
purposes. Losses: Mr. Bush signed a bill creating an "inspector
general" for the CIA, answerable in practice only to Congress. After
vetoing an even more intrusive bill, President Bush signed a ban on
"quid pro quo" arrangements with foreign countries for assistance to
other countries or groups that would be illegal under U.S. law.
Draws: Mr. Bush used the device of "signing statements" to limit
separation-of-powers damage from several bills. He told aides to
ignore certain provisions of bills, effectively line-item-vetoing
restrictions such as a ban on studying alternatives to farm quotas.
He also said he'll ignore the unconstitutional legislative vetoes
that Congress still puts in bills.
Mr. Gray is the point man on separation of powers, but judging
by the public officials who attended the Federalist Society
conference in Washington this has evolved from an arcane
constitutional principle to a high-profile political issue. Defense
Secretary Richard Cheney, Sen. Charles Robb and former Attorneys
General Edwin Meese and Griffin Bell urged more strictly divided
power. Former Justice Department aide Terry Eastland said that
Congress's criminalizing of policy differences mocked the Founders'
intent that the executive branch act with "energy, " quickly,
sometimes secretly. My contribution was the modest proposal that
executive-branch officials refuse to testify before any
congressional committee where the congressmen would be seated above
them; equal stature for equal branches.
Attorney General Dick Thornburgh put separation of powers in its
larger context in a tough speech titled, "The Separation of Powers:
An Exemplar of the Rule of Law. He made the key point that it is
not our Bill of Rights that protects our liberties -the Soviets have
one, too -but the process-driven protections of separated powers and
checks and balances. Strict separation of powers is supposed to
limit the size and power of the federal government by forcing
competition among branches of limited powers. He attacked
"legislative finagling around the president's veto" and spoke out
against independent counsel sicked on executive-branch officials as
endangering "accountability," the "unitary executive" and "the
rights of individuals."
Congress's problems go beyond Jim Wright, the S&L mess or the
seemingly permanent control of the legislature by one political
party. Congress suffers partly from its own success. Congress has
hijacked many presidential powers that it does not have the
8
institutional ability to use. Congress now votes on massive budgets
and micromanaging bills that no member has actually read.
Recent presidents are partly to blame for acquiescing when
Congress perfected its power grabs. The Founders knew that Congress
-the "impetuous vortex" of the Federalist Papers -would always try
to enlarge its powers beyond its grasp. The Founders didn't worry
too much about this. They also assumed that presidents would
eventually fight back.
END OF DOCUMENT
The U.S. vs. U.S. V. North
By L. Gordon Crovitz 11/16/88 WALL STREET JOURNAL (J)
One of the strangest courtroom spectacles of modern times is
scheduled for Friday. The government will file a friend-of-the-court
brief blasting the government's own criminal prosecution. This could
never happen under normal circumstances because a prosecutor who
violated Justice Department policies would be taken off the case and
probably fired.
But never is now, because the prosecutor is Lawrence Walsh,
conducting his case against Lt. Col. Oliver North. With a trial
scheduled to begin soon if difficulties over use of classified
materials can be resolved, Mr. Walsh last month finally explained
the legal theories he's relying on in several hundred pages of
briefs. His arguments against dismissing the most important charges,
including Count One's conspiracy charge, de pend on legal positions
entirely inconsistent with many long-held views of the executive
branch.
The Justice Department last week warned the judge in the case,
Gerhard Gesell, that Mr. Walsh "mischaracterizes basic
constitutional principles of separation of powers and executive
branch authority," and noted that no one in the executive branch
"had an opportunity to review or respond" before Mr. Walsh's legal
arguments were filed. Mr. Walsh responded that he "rejects the
suggestion that {he} mischaracterized the law, " and "strongly
opposes this wholly unjustified, 11th hour motion."
Mr. Walsh is an independent counsel, but the statute creating
these special prosecutors says they "shall, except where not
possible, comply with the written or other established policies of
the Department of Justice with respect to the enforcement of
criminal laws. If an independent counsel refuses, he can be
dismissed for "misconduct."
Executive-branch officials are especially angry about the
positions Mr. Walsh took suggesting that Congress is superior to the
executive branch in conducting foreign policy. Abraham Sofaer, legal
adviser at the State Department, sent a letter to Attorney General
Dick Thornburgh suggesting a response to the Walsh filing. According
to sources at several agencies involved in the controversy, lawyers
at the White House then helped organize the prospective filing
against Mr. Walsh, which was joined enthusiastically by the Justice,
State and Defense departments, the National Security Council, the
9
National Security Agency and the CIA.
It's not hard to see what has all these agencies so exercised.
Here are some of the arguments that the Justice Department brief
should declare out of bounds:
Congress, not the president, has the major say in foreign
policy. In defending the constitutionality of the Boland amendments,
Mr. Walsh makes the flat assertion that "the Founders believed that
Congress should have the ultimate authority in this area {of foreign
and military affairs} " The more accepted view is the precise
opposite. The Federalist Papers stress how the Constitution
invigorated the earlier feeble executive by making the president the
commander in chief. As Lt. Col. North's lawyers note (citing a study
that originally appeared in this space last year), presidents have
sent troops or war materiel abroad more than 100 times without any
congressional authorization.
Mr. Walsh dismisses the leading Supreme Court case on this
subject, U.S. V. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936), which referred
to the "very delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the President
as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of
international relations.' This especially outrages the Justice
Department, where lawyers in separation-of-powers disputes over
foreign policy for 50 years have relied on the phrase, "Curtiss-
Wright, so we're right."
Congress's power is so supreme that executive-branch officials
can go to jail for violating laws Congress might have passed. A huge
stumbling block to the Walsh prosecution is the ambiguous and
possibly unconstitutional Boland amendments. The first question is
whether they applied to the National Security Council staff and thus
Lt. Col. North. We now know that President Reagan never thought so.
"The President's Intelligence Oversight Board (PIOB) delivered their
annual report to me on September 13, 1985, President Reagan wrote,
responding to questions from Mr. Walsh. "That report, which our
records reflect I saw, concluded that the Boland Amendment did not
apply to the activities of the NSC staff."
This is the only interpretation of the Boland amendments by the
executive branch, yet Mr. Walsh mysteriously dismisses the PIOB
opinion simply as "discredited," though he doesn't say by whom. He
also ignores the fact that Lt. Col. North relied on this view, which
would make it hard to prove he intended to violate the law. Mr.
Walsh also argues that the Boland amendments would be constitutional
if they did apply to the president's staff. That conflicts with one
of the most fundamental principles of U.S. law, that Congress is
powerless to limit through statute the president's constitutional
powers.
Mr. Walsh may suspect he will lose both these arguments. He
makes the further argument that whatever the status of the Boland
amendments, the statute on "conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
government" makes it a crime "even when the wrongdoers violate no
specific substantive criminal statute. " In other words, it's a crime
to "conspire" to commit a non-violation if that non-violation is
10
something Congress might later outlaw. The following dumbfounded
many lawyers throughout the executive branch:
"Even if it were the case that the activities of North and his
co-conspirators had fallen within some sort of loophole in the
Boland Amendment, or were found not to violate specific provisions
of the structure of legal control over covert action, the broader
problem with their deceitful activities would remain: the
defendants, aware of a clearly expressed congressional statutory
effort to limit and closely monitor funding for the contras, chose
to hide their activities from Congress to ensure that Congress would
not have the opportunity to consider whether to close any such
loophole."
This is a mind-boggling theory of criminalization. Under the
Anglo-American system, crimes are supposed to be defined with
precision, not by what Congress might do. The Walsh view is more
reminiscent of the Soviet crime of "hooliganism," with its
definition changing with the political winds. This analogy is no
exaggeration. Proposals for a total ban on aid to the Contras lost
in both the House and Senate. Mr. Walsh ignores the fact that the
Boland amendments were compromises that everyone at the time
understood would leave the president and his NSC discretion to keep
the Contras going until Congress passed new aid.
Congress doesn't have just oversight powers over the president,
but supervisory powers as well. Consider this sentence from Mr.
Walsh: "Although Congress has not seen fit to prohibit covert
operations, it has put in place requirements of reporting and
accountability that enable it to exercise substantive control over
particular operations when it should prove necessary. Mr. Walsh
assumes that Congress could prohibit covert operations, a debatable
proposition. He also assumes Congress can exercise "substantive
control," despite the president's dual role as commander in chief
and chief executive.
In another section, Mr. Walsh criticizes the defendants for
trying to "thwart the normal processes of constitutional government
by acting unilaterally." Such actions might be an affront to a
system of legislative supremacy, but not to our system of checks and
balances. The president and his staff often act without prior
congressional approval and even with congressional opposition, on
matters from negotiating treaties (beginning with President
Washington) to transferring battleships to endangered allies
(Franklin Roosevelt in 1941) to dispatching the Marines (innumerable
occasions from Jefferson to Reagan).
At another point, Mr. Walsh suggests that Congress could
prohibit the president himself from soliciting funds for groups like
the Contras from other heads of state or from private citizens. He
also repeats the charge that it's a crime for a charity to raise
funds to buy arms, despite the contrary position taken by officials
at the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department itself.
In contrast to the rather scholarly arguments on behalf of
separation of powers in the North briefs, the Walsh briefs are
sprinkled with references to a "secret slush fund" and a "secret
war."
In a sense, this deep conflict between the executive branch and
Mr. Walsh is simply another sign of the perversity of "independent"
counsel. But it also matters that Lt. Col. North is now being tried
based on charges that no normal federal prosecutor would bring. This
makes equal treatment under the law a joke for accused executive-
branch officials. This lesson will not be ignored by future
officials, who will fear that pursuing executive-branch policies
could mean risking prison.
This prosecution also runs the real risk of new judicial rulings
that adopt a view of the "government" -here Mr. Walsh - -that would
redefine the relative positions of the executive and legislative
branches in foreign policy. The system we had before Iran-Contra was
not perfect, and certainly the executive branch needs to tighten its
own self-regulation, but any system that gives Congress control over
foreign policy is a guarantee of paralysis.
President Reagan has the ultimate power to call off the entire
case by issuing pardons. The Walsh briefs strengthen the likelihood
of such a move by highlighting the weakness of the prosecution.
Whether President Reagan will issue pardons could depend on how much
he cares about protecting the powers of the presidency.
Mr. Crovitz is assistant editor of the Journal's editorial page.
{See related story: "REVIEW & OUTLOOK (Editorial) : If Not Now
When?" -WSJ Nov. 16, 1988}
END OF DOCUMENT
REVIEW & OUTLOOK (Editorial) :
If Not Now, When? 11/16/88 WALL STREET JOURNAL (J)
It's time to recognize that the case against Ollie North and the
others in the Iran-Contra affair has been political from the start,
and that Lawrence Walsh and his boosters in Congress have now lost.
President Reagan should make it official by issuing some pardons and
sending Mr. Walsh packing.
Despite two years of pounding headlines about the Iran-Contra
"scandal," this issue fell off the radar screens in the election
campaign. Michael Dukakis tried to generate some interest by
agitating for harsh criminal penalties even before any trial had
begun, but in the end the administration that Lt. Col. North worked
for won the election. Among the big reasons the voters decided to
keep Mr. Dukakis in Massachusetts was his weak positions on foreign
policy. In this respect, the voters and Ollie North agree: The world
is a dangerous place.
Congress huffed and puffed, but didn't pass a single piece of
legislation it had threatened in the wake of Iran-Contra. A plan to
make the national security adviser subject to Senate approval went
nowhere. A proposal that Presidents must tell Congress about all
covert operations within 48 hours died after Speaker Jim Wright did
some leaking of his own, posing a threat to jailed dissidents in
12
Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, Mr. Walsh and his phalanx of lawyers, FBI agents, IRS
inspectors and others by the end of September had spent some $10.8
million of taxpayer money to bring a criminal case a county
prosecutor would be too embarrassed even to consider. As Gordon
Crovitz shows nearby, the core of Mr. Walsh's case so misstates the
executive-branch view of the law that the Justice Department on
Friday will file a brief against him. How strange this filing will
be. Mr. Walsh is the U.S. in U.S. V. North, yet to make his case he
felt he had to take positions that the U.S. government never takes.
Among these is the incredible claim that people can go to jail for
violating a law that Congress might have passed, but didn't.
Mr. Walsh may be playing to the Congressmen who created
independent counsel to sic on executive-branch officials, but there
is no reason for the executive to put up with this nonsense. In its
request to Judge Gerhard Gesell seeking permission to file against
Mr. Walsh, the Justice Department said such a brief would be the
"most practical way for the court to ascertain the legal positions
that have been adopted by the executive branch." This is not the
only step President Reagan can take.
In upholding independent counsel in Morrison V. Olson, the
Supreme Court emphasized that "the attorney general may remove an
independent counsel for 'misconduct.'" It's hard to imagine any
greater abuse by a prosecutor than taking positions so at odds with
the Constitution, common law and established Justice policies merely
to crucify his targets. President Reagan should exercise his
legitimate authority and fire Mr. Walsh rather than permit the
prosecutor to wander even further from his original charge. Mr.
Walsh's latest arguments show that there is no legal case against
the Iran-Contra defendants.
There is yet another reason for presidential pardons. It is that
separation of powers has become one of the chief political issues of
the day. Congress has been usurping traditional executive-branch
functions, from independent counsel to veto-proof omnibus
appropriations to the War Powers Resolution to who interprets
treaties. This institutional battle is now also partisan, with
Democrats eager to pummel an office they see no hope of capturing
while at the same time expanding the powers of the branch they
control.
Democrats in Congress have already thrown down the gauntlet to
George Bush. He has no mandate, they say, and he'll have to take his
marching orders from them. President Reagan can put his successor on
firmer ground with pardons that will tell Congress that the
executive branch won't sanction any more criminalizing of policy
differences.
President Reagan has an obligation to future Presidents to leave
the office with its constitutional powers and position intact.
Sometimes this means running the risk of political heat, though in
the case of Iran-Contra pardons this risk is small. The dangers of
failing to do the right thing may be greater. On this, President
13
Reagan might want to consult the biblical scholar, Hillel:
"If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am for myself
only, what am I? And if not now, when?"
(See related story: "The U.S. VS. U.S. V. North" -WSJ November
16, 1988)
END OF DOCUMENT
The Blackmailing of Ted Olson
By L. Gordon Crovitz 03/23/88 WALL STREET JOURNAL (J)
On April 26, the Supreme Court will hear Alexia Morrison's
appeal of Olson V. Morrison to decide if she and the other
independent counsels are valid. There is one request the justices
can make that will vividly reveal these prosecutors as
unconstitutional loose cannons. Someone should ask Ms. Morrison to
produce a copy of the secret blackmail agreement she coerced from
Theodore Olson.
Ms. Morrison has spent the past two years investigating Mr.
Olson, a former Justice Department official, for alleged perjury.
The incident arose in a high-tension fight over executive privilege
in a congressional hearing on March 10, 1983. The statute of
limitations for perjury, which is five years, expired on March 10,
1988. Although Ms. Morrison admits she hasn't established any
evidence that Mr. Olson broke the law, in court papers she
threatened to seek what she termed a "sealed, protective indictment"
if Mr. Olson didn't waive his rights to the expiration of the
statute of limitations. This waiver itself may be unlawful.
The threat worked, and on March 10, Mr. Olson waived his rights.
This extraordinary secret agreement says Mr. Olson will give Ms.
Morrison 60 days after the Supreme Court rules on the
constitutionality of independent counsels. This is according to
Justice Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ms. Morrison and Mr. Olson refused to comment.
Why would Mr. Olson sign away this right? This is the $1 million
question. Under the Ethics in Government Act, a target of an
investigation can get his legal fees paid by the government only if
he is never indicted as a result of the investigation. Mr. Olson
maintains his innocence, but once indicted, even if he is never
convicted, he must pay for his own defense. Mr. Olson's legal bills
already exceed $1 million, which is not surprising since Ms.
Morrison through December had spent nearly $950,000 of taxpayer
funds on the prosecution. If indicted, even by a prosecutor of
dubious
constitutionality, Mr. Olson would suffer embarrassment and
might well find it hard to keep practicing law.
The personalities involved give this case special
resonance. Mr. Olson, who now runs the Washington office of
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (one of his partners, Robert Sack, is
the Journal's outside general counsel), is well known to the
Supreme Court justices. When he gave the testimony at issue,
he was head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal
14
Counsel, the division that handles separation-of-powers
issues. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin
Scalia also once ran this office. Mr. Olson is renowned for
his imaginative constitutional litigation, including cases
against the constitutionality of independent agencies and
this term's case that argues that some punitive damages
violate the excessive-fines clause.
Even before the episode with Mr. Olson, Ms. Morrison had
contributed to the controversy surrounding her office. Ms.
Morrison, the former chief litigator for the Securities and
Exchange Commission, raised ethical questions when she
represented Carl "Spitz" Channell, the Contra fundraiser,
against Lawrence Walsh while she also served as an
independent counsel. Eyebrows rose when Mr. Channell was one
of the few recent targets of independent counsels whose
lawyer didn't challenge their constitutionality, and again
when Mr. Channell signed a criminal plea bargain with Mr.
Walsh admitting to tax-code violations that both Justice and
the Internal Revenue Service deny were crimes. Mr. Walsh
recently got Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe to file a
brief with the Supreme Court backing Ms. Morrison.
The Supreme Court justices should compare the
Morrison-Olson agreement with other cases in which courts
have considered such waivers. The federal courts are split on
whether a defendant can waive this right even if it's his own
idea. A district court last year held that Congress passed
statutes of limitation to ensure speedy prosecutions and
because "the coercive power of the government is too great to
allow it to assume such a leveraged position."
The federal appeals court in Washington in 1977 upheld a
waiver in U.S. V. wild, but this should give Ms. Morrison no
comfort. An oil executive, Claude wild, was accused of
breaking a campaign finance law. His lawyers wanted to plea
bargain past the date of the statute of limitations, and
hoped to offer new evidence in his defense. The court upheld
Mr. Wild's waiver, but only because it primarily served his
interest. "We consider it of prime importance to our decision
here that Wild was the one who sought to waive this defense,"
the court held. "It was not the government attorneys who
sought the extra time in which to make their case. " The
opposite is true here. It's Ms. Morrison who says she needs
more time to make a case.
This squeeze of Mr. Olson is all the more outrageous
because Ms. Morrison already has admitted that there's no
evidence for a trial. By November 1986, six months after she
was appointed, she had completed what she called a
"comprehensive review" of the case. She wrote in her report
that "standing in isolation
Mr. Olson's testimony of
March 10, 1983, probably does not constitute a prosecutable
violation of any federal criminal law."
15
Indeed, Olson V. Morrison gives the justices the clearest
possible case of how independent counsels become illegitimate
tools of Congress against the executive branch. The
controversy began in 1982 when Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.)
demanded all Environmental Protection Agency documents
relating to Superfund, the hazardous-waste program. President
Reagan invoked executive privilege against releasing internal
documents on agency litigation against possible offenders.
This standard defense of executive prerogatives was no match
for congressional outrage. Congress found EPA Administrator
Anne Burford in contempt, the president sued Congress and
eventually Ms. Burford resigned.
Mr. Olson testified the day after Ms. Burford resigned,
with Congress still smelling blood. The allegation is that
Mr. Olson lied or misled congressmen about the release of
documents. During the hearings, Mr. Olson said his office had
delivered all such "finalized" documents that were "relevant
to the questions that you have asked and to the formal advice
that we have given. " Everyone understood that not all
documents had been released. The Justice Department had
announced that it was turning over only publicly available
documents. The hearing ended with Rep. Jack Brooks (D.,
Texas) saying he hoped the department eventually would
produce the other documents. No one from Congress ever asked
Mr. Olson questions about his testimony, which wasn't even
printed by the subcommittee.
After acknowledging that Mr. Olson didn't do anything
wrong, Ms. Morrison's apparent strategy has been to get
permission to investigate two other former Justice Department
officials, Carol Dinkins and Edward Schmults, on this EPA and
executive privilege matter. Attorney General Edwin Meese
rejected Ms. Morrison's request to add their names to the
investigation because there were "no reasonable grounds to
believe" they had broken any law. An appeals court denied her
appeal but said she could add their names to any conspiracy
charge involving Mr. Olson.
Yale law professor Geoffrey Hazard Jr. says that the
tactic of demanding a waiver is especially questionable when
it comes at the "outer limit of multiple contingencies."
Perjury is a difficult case to make and conspiracy to commit
perjury even harder, especially when the statement is from
congressional testimony that both sides keep diplomatically
vague, and here the entire case is under the shadow of
whether independent counsels are valid anyway. "The exercise
of discretion in favor of self-restraint by a special-purpose
venturer is always very difficult," Mr. Hazard says.
This extraordinary prosecution is profound support for the
appeals court decision to invalidate Ms. Morrison and the
other independent counsels. These prosecutors go after a
single target, have unlimited budgets and are under no
16
effective prosecutorial supervision. "This is no abstract
* dispute concerning the doctrine of separation of powers,"
Judge Laurence Silberman wrote. "The rights of individuals
are at stake. "
The incident is especially instructive because an
independent counsel is harassing a former executive-branch
official whose only crime seems to be the position he took on
executive privilege on behalf of his client, President
Reagan. There can be no better demonstration that these
congressionally created prosecutors are simply a new weapon
in the struggle between Congress and the presidency. In
ruling on independent counsels, the justices must tally the
costs to the nobility of the legal system. Too many costs
already have been incurred by this criminalizing of the
political battle.
* Mr. Crovitz is assistant editor of the Journal's editorial
page.
END OF DOCUMENT
HL Congress Is Hoist by Its Boland Petard
* By L. Gordon Crovitz DD 07/07/87 so WALL STREET JOURNAL (J)
TX Rep. Bill Alexander (D., Ark.) set a modern printing-cost
record when he had the legislative history of the Boland
amendments published in the Congressional Record on June 15.
He said the $197,382 cost was justified because the report
would show that any intention to exclude the president or his
National Security Council from coverage by the amendments was
"conspicuously absent."
Rep. Alexander should ask for a refund. The collection,
"The Boland Amendment: Intent of Congress" (U.S. Government
Printing Office, 403 pages, $1.25), is ammunition for critics
who are skeptical that the Boland amendments were clear
policy statements or valid legal constraints on the executive
branch. Like the amendments themselves, the debates included
no express intent to limit the president or his NSC staff
from aiding the Contras. Nor were any civil or criminal
penalties envisioned for any "violations."
Congressmen on the Iran-Contra committee will have a
chance today to ask Lt. Col. Oliver North how the NSC staff
viewed the Boland amendments. For their part, many
congressmen were confused about what the Boland amendments
meant. Indeed, at one point in the debates, Rep. Edward
Boland (D., Mass.) himself seemed to suggest the NSC wasn't
covered.
The most restrictive Boland amendment was the third of the
five versions, which was attached to the Defense
Appropriation and Intelligence Authorization Acts and in
force from Oct. 3, 1984, to Sept. 30, 1985. This included the
prohibition on Contra funding by the CIA or Pentagon or any
17
other government agency "involved in intelligence
activities."
The debate is mute on any suggestion that President Reagan
or the NSC were included in the prohibition. Rep. Boland
issued a statement after the amendment was adopted to clarify
its breadth. "This prohibition applies to all funds available
in fiscal year 1985 regardless of any accounting procedure at
any agency," he said. "It clearly prohibits any expenditure,
including those from accounts for salaries and in all support
costs. The prohibition is so strictly written that it also
prohibits transfers of equipment at no cost."
The key question is which agencies were covered. The
Library of Congress, which collected the Boland debates, said
the prohibition was not absolute: "Unlike some other
appropriations statutes, there is no express bar to the use
of funds for activities for which Congress had denied
assistance." Missing was the usual catchall phrase that no
funds otherwise authorized could be used for a prohibited
purpose -here, the Contras.
The text of the amendment strongly indicates that the
president and NSC were not covered. The authorization act
that included the third Boland amendment listed the 10
"intelligence and intelligence-related" agencies that would
be covered by the law. These were the CIA; Defense
Department; Defense Intelligence Agency; National Security
Agency (no relation to the NSC) ; Departments of the Army,
Navy and Air Force; State Department; Treasury Department;
Energy Department; Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Drug
Enforcement Administration. This group is similar to the
intelligence agencies listed by President Reagan in Executive
Order 12333. The NSC is absent from both lists.
Perhaps the strongest evidence that the Boland amendments
didn't apply to President Reagan or the NSC came from Rep.
Boland himself in the debate on the Michel amendment to the
fourth of the five Boland amendments, which provided $27
million in humanitarian aid from August 1985 to March 1986.
Consider this colloquy, where Rep. Boland referred only to
the CIA and Pentagon as intelligence agencies:
Rep. Boland: " {The Boland amendment} means that none of
the funds which are appropriated by the Michel amendment may
be provided through any intelligence agency. Now some of you
might ask if this is necessary, since the Michel amendment
says that the money it would appropriate can't go through CIA
or DoD. The president, under the Michel amendment, can
determine the agency which will dispense this aid, but he
will be precluded from using an intelligence agency."
Rep. Thomas Foley (D., Wash.) : "Is it also correct that
the Boland amendment to the Michel amendment would not in any
way restrict the authority of other agencies of the U.S.,
other than intelligence agencies, from distributing any
humanitarian assistance if authorized by the Michel
amendment?"
Rep. Boland: "Yes."
What makes Rep. Boland's comments especially interesting
is that just as the House was debating which agency should
administer the humanitarian aid, the Senate Appropriations
Committee was writing a report that expressly specified a
role for the NSC. The report said that the amendment allows
President Reagan to determine how the aid would be
administered, but "requires the National Security Council to
monitor implementation of the proposal.' Far from the NSC
being prohibited from playing any role in the Contra aid
program, the agency would be required to oversee its
administration. Legislators apparently believed this was
consistent with the Boland amendment. President Reagan
eventually chose a unit in the State Department to oversee
the humanitarian aid.
The legislative debate is also interesting for the dog
that didn't bark -the arguments that weren't made. If
Congress meant to legislate a legal constraint on
presidential authority in foreign policy, this would have
raised separation-of-powers issues. Yet the only discussion
on this during debate on any of the Boland amendments was by
Sen. Barry Goldwater (R., Ariz.), who opposed congressional
efforts to micro-manage foreign policy.
"The decision in these matters in my opinion and according
to the Constitution rests with the president, Sen. Goldwater
said in the October 1984 debate on the third Boland
amendment. Whatever the amendments says, "ultimately it is
the commander in chief who is going to have to make up our
minds or we are going to have to amend the Constitution."
The debate also includes rejection of competing amendments
that would have flatly prohibited any Contra aid. The Boland
amendments were compromises, accepted to avoid the risk of
presidential veto or a constitutional showdown.
The Library of Congress report describing the legislative
debate on the first Boland amendment, which covered 1982-83,
says "it was clearly understood at the time of enactment that
the compromise would not cut off all direct or indirect
assistance to the Contras." Rep. Boland's amendment passed
the House unanimously. It prohibited the Defense Department
and Central Intelligence Agency from military aid "for the
purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua."
This was less restrictive than the proposal of Rep. Tom
Harkin (D., Iowa) that would have barred funds to assist any
group or individual "in carrying out military activities in
or against Nicaragua." Rep. Boland worried about a possible
veto of the broader bill. He said that the Boland amendment
"is agreeable to the executive branch. They do not like it,
but it is agreeable to them. I believe {the Harkin amendment}
19
is not necessary. I further believe that it sets a bad
precedent."
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) offered a version of
Rep. Harkin's amendment. "There are any number of ways of
circumventing" the Boland amendment, he said. "It is going to
provide a green light for the continued activity that we have
seen reported over and over again, in the last several weeks
and months, suggesting that we are already deeply involved in
a broader conflict in Central America. My amendment is more
open-ended, more of a declaration of policy."
Sen. John Chafee (R., R.I.) called the Dodd proposal "an
extreme injunction to impose on the activities of the United
States, directly or indirectly. I do not think we have ever
had an injunction like this.
"The senator from Connecticut, I presume, is going to say
{about the Boland amendment), 'Well, that is big enough to
drive a truck through. The question really before us is, is
this body going to insert a complete prohibition of
activities.
Are we going to tie the hands of the
president? After all, it is the president who is at the top
of the heap in this."
The Boland amendment for 1983-84 included $24 million for
the Pentagon and CIA to support the Contras. The most
remarkable feature of the debate was how strongly congressmen
disagreed about the meaning of the Boland prohibitions they
had passed just the year before.
Rep. Lee Hamilton (D., Ind.) thought all covert aid was
prohibited. "Covert action against Nicaragua is against our
laws, he said. "The first law in question is the Boland
amendment, passed last year. "
The ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, Rep.
Kenneth Robinson of Virginia, disagreed. He said, "The House
voted down a legislative amendment which would have denied
funds for the purpose of carrying out covert activity. The
House, however, adopted the Boland amendment by a vote of 411
to O. In so doing, the House approved the concept that a
covert paramilitary operation in Nicaragua was acceptable."
Rep. Robinson became exasperated with some members'
revisionism of the first Boland amendment. "I took some of
those 411 votes with me. I argued some of my colleagues into
going along at that time because I thought I understood it,
and I still think I understand it, and I do not believe that
the Boland amendment has been violated.
I want to say
that as one who stood here defending the Boland amendment,
arguing my colleagues on the Republican side to vote for it,
that I made a mistake in so doing. It is probably the biggest
mistake I have made since I have been in Congress."
The fourth Boland amendment, which covered 1985-86,
included $27 million for humanitarian aid to the Contras.
Much of the debate was about the meaning of "humanitarian."
20
Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams recently
testified to the Iran-Contra panel that he, too, had
difficulty with the concept; he had decided that on balance,
wristwatches met the standard. One colloquy shows the
confusion among congressmen:
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) : "Obviously there is a gray
area here of items that are nonhumanitarian but also
nonlethal. I wonder would the following items be included
within the scope of humanitarian assistance. Military-type
uniforms?"
Sen. Sam Nunn (D., Ga.) : "We had considerable discussion
on this. I think we have defined it as food, medicine,
clothing. I would say if you gave a multiple-choice question
and said, would the CIA be permitted to provide military-type
uniforms or would they be required to give them three-piece
suits or tuxedos
or bathing suits or Bermuda shorts, I
would say military-type uniforms are permitted."
The fifth version of the Boland amendment provided a
classified amount of aid for the Contras for the period of
December 1985 to October 1986. In June 1986, Congress voted
$100 million in aid for the Contras.
So, Congress left some play in the joints throughout the
Boland amendment period. The legislative record shows that
everyone knew the executive branch was left free to do what
it could to support the Contras until Congress resumed
funding. In return, Congress avoided an all-out
* constitutional battle with the executive over separation of
powers.
This record of a changing and ambiguous set of amendments
should force the Iran-Contra panel and special prosecutor
Lawrence Walsh to ask themselves this question: Are the
Boland amendments sturdy enough hooks on which to hang any of
the accused? The answer is no. The weight of the evidence
from Congress's own record is that the Boland amendments did
not limit President Reagan or his NSC staff from aiding the
Contras.
* Mr. Crovitz is assistant editor of the Journal's editorial
page.
END OF FILE
Commentary
The Coming of
Custodial Democracy
Charles Murray
En Route
How Ronald Reagan
to the
Weakened
Gulag
the Presidency
Irina Ratushinskaya
L. Gordon Crovitz
The River Temz- -
Judaism According to
A Story
Emil Fackenheim
Flossie Lewis
Robert M. Seltzer
Where Is Zion?
Virgil Thomson
& Musical Taste
Edward Alexander
Samuel Lipman
Books in Review: Fernanda Eberstadt/Jeffrey Marsh/
Rael Jean Isaac/James W. Tuttleton/David Brock
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE/$3.50
How Ronald Reagan Weakened the Presidency
L. Gordon Crovitz
T
HERE is a general impression that
er gave Presidents final authority on whether to
Ronald Reagan has been a strong
spend funds appropriated by Congress. Budgets
President, perhaps the strongest since Franklin D.
were treated as maximum amounts that the Presi-
Roosevelt. And indeed in a number of ways Rea-
dent could use for various programs, not as min-
gan has exercised power very effectively. Yet as
imums. And, in fact, before 1974, Presidents often
keeper of the institution of the presidency, he has
decided not to spend appropriated funds, either
been a failure.
because the purpose of the expenditure no longer
Liberals may still decry the "imperial presiden-
made sense or for macroeconomic reasons.
cy," but the reality is that since the last months
Every President since Franklin Delano Roose-
of the Nixon administration in 1973-74, the pres-
velt, who impounded $500 million that had been
idency has been hampered by two major congres-
appropriated for public works, used this power to
sional restrictions on its ability to function. One,
limit spending. By impounding funds John F.
involving domestic affairs, is the Budget and Im-
Kennedy cut spending by 6 percent. In 1966, even
poundment Control Act; the other, involving for-
though he was at the height of his War on Poverty,
eign policy, is the War Powers Resolution. Both
Lydon Johnson impounded more that $5 billion
passed despite President Nixon's vigorous oppo-
in funds that had been appropriated for everything
sition, and both vastly expanded the powers of
from agriculture to education.
Congress at the expense of the President's. To top
Yet when in 1973, Nixon tried to impound $12
it all off, the art of prosecutorial politics, devel-
billion in appropriated funds-including $6 bil-
oped during Watergate, was perfected by Congress
lion of an $11-billion sewage-treatment bill Con-
during the Reagan years as yet another effective
gress had passed in 1972 over his veto-the roof
weapon in the struggle for power against the
fell in. Ignoring the rich history behind Nixon's
executive.
action, Senator Sam Ervin, chairman of the Gov-
As President, Reagan was presented with im-
ernment Operations Committee, denounced it as
"an item or line veto," which, said Ervin, was not
portant opportunities to fight back in each of
these three areas and thereby to reverse the decline
permitted by the Constitution. Nixon countered
of the presidency. In each case he let the oppor-
that presidential power to impound funds "when
tunities slip. Thus, after two landslide victories
the spending of money would mean either increas-
ing prices or increasing taxes
is absolutely
and eight years in office, Reagan will leave the
clear." A Justice Department spokesman also tes-
presidency even weaker that he found it.
tified that the impoundment power was "an im-
plied constitutional right" of the executive
I
branch.
The merits of the constitutional debate were on
T Congress Act of 1974 was crafted by
Nixon's side, but he was then at the nadir of his
to rob the President of the
Watergate fortunes and Congress was determined
ability to limit spending, while making it possible
to make the most of the opportunity to increase
for a fragmented collection of Congressmen to
its own powers at the expense of the presidency.
spend and at the same time to evade the respon-
Accordingly, the budget law passed in 1974 com-
sibility for doing so.
pletely prohibited impoundments and created
There was no formal budget until 1921, when
"deferrals" and "rescissions" in their place.
Congress authorized the President to submit one
Henceforth Presidents could only delay spending
annually. This system worked well for many years,
by issuing a deferral, but either the House or
with the White House clearly responsible and
Senate could pass a resolution ordering that the
accountable. In addition, the impoundment pow-
money be spent. A President could also rescind
an appropriation, but for the recission to be
L. GORDON CROVITZ, whose article, "Crime, the Constitution,
effective, both the House and Senate would have
and the Iran-Contra Affair," appeared in our October 1987
issue, is the assistant editorial-page editor of the Wall Street
to vote their approval within 45 days. Absent any
Journal.
action by the two houses, the President would be
25
OMMENTARY SEPTEMBER 1988
required to spend the funds after the 45-day pe-
Congress could not avoid the veto by legislative
riod.
legerdemain-such as all-in-one continuing reso-
Having survived a legal challenge in the Su-
lutions.)
preme Court (there was no way Nixon could win
Yet when asked by Attorney General Edwin
anything in the midst of Watergate), the new law
Meese to assess the Glazier argument, Charles
went on its predictable course: since 1974, very few
Cooper, then head of the Justice Department's
deferrals or rescissions have been allowed by Con-
Office of Legal Counsel, offered a timid response
gress.
that went a long way toward explaining how the
presidency has become so weakened. Cooper said
W
ORSE yet, by 1987, Congress was vi-
that the courts have never interpreted this clause
olating its own rules. Instead of
as establishing a line-item veto, and fretted that
passing thirteen separate appropriations bills for
it might be a risky claim for a President to make.
different functions of government, as required by
And in a similar spirit, Vice President George
the 1974 budget law, Congress now rolled them
Bush wrote Glazier that "the lawyers have per-
all into one massive "continuing resolution." For
suaded me that the practical problems of asserting
1988 this omnibus $605-billion appropriations
the kind of veto you suggest or of framing it
bill, running to 1,057 pages with an accompany-
properly for judicial resolution are too great.
ing conference report of 1,194 pages and a rec-
In reply Glazier told the Vice President that
onciliation bill of 1,186 pages, was presented to
"What the executive needs on the Clause 3 Veto
the President late in December 1987 with less than
is advice from lawyers who act like advocates, not
a day to read before federal funds ran out. Rather
judges. The executive needs advice on how to
than close the government down (something he
achieve the policies that the executive desires.
"
had done in his first term, to no long-range effect),
To this, one might add that, in addition to pres-
Reagan signed.
idential lawyers who act like lawyers, what we also
For the next two months the country witnessed
need are Presidents who act like Presidents, who
the absurd spectacle of Congressmen gradually
are careful to guard presidential powers more
discovering what they had approved and President
vigorously than Congress can whittle them away.
Reagan learning what he signed. Among the most
Ronald Reagan has not been such a President
well-publicized outrages was a 20-percent pay hike
with respect to the budget process.
for top congressional staff members, which no
Congressman has yet admitted to inserting and
II
which brought their salaries to the level of four-
star generals and above Undersecretaries of State.
T
HE War Powers Resolution, requiring
Another was a provision secretly inserted by Sen-
ator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii to send $8 million
congressional approval for the com-
mitment of U.S. forces in combat abroad for
to support a school for North African Jewish
immigrants in France. (The brouhaha over this
longer than 60 days, and its progeny (notably the
provision eventually forced revocation.)
five Boland amendments limiting presidential dis-
A third was another secret provision, inserted
cretion in aiding the democratic resistance in
by Senator Edward Kennedy, which in effect pro-
Nicaragua) have had the same paralyzing effect
hibited the Federal Communications Commission
on foreign policy that the prohibition of im-
from allowing Rupert Murdoch to own both a
poundments and the evisceration of the veto have
newspaper and a television station in New York
had on controlling the budget. To be sure, no
and Boston. This provision was later invalidated
President has made the mistake of acquiescing in
by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, but
the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolu-
not before Murdoch had already been forced to
tion, which was passed in 1973 over the veto of
sell the New York Post at a firesale price.
President Nixon. But certainly they have all had
This total breakdown in the budget process
to condition defense strategy on the possibility
offered President Reagan a wonderful opportunity
that Congress might indeed some day try to en-
to challenge the 1974 law that had so badly
force its provisions.
clipped the presidency's authority over the budget.
Eugene V. Rostow is clearly correct in saying
Indeed, in a series of articles written for the Wall
that this resolution is a case of "the primacy of
Street Journal, Stephen Glazier argued that even
procedure over substance" in foreign policy. Thus,
aside from the impoundment power, the President
he writes, "We try to devise procedural solutions
actually had the line-item veto if only he would
for problems like Vietnam because the leaders of
use it. Glazier's thesis was based on Article I,
our public opinion have not achieved a national
Section 7, Clause 3 of the Constitution, which
consensus about the kind of foreign policy the
insists that "every Order, Resolution or Vote to
safety of the nation requires at this stage of world
which the Concurrence of the Senate and House
history." There is no better example of how pro-
of Representatives may be necessary" must be
cedure has been used to cripple the already weak-
subject to possible presidential veto whether or not
ened back of presidential authority over foreign
defined as a "bill." (The intent was to ensure that
policy than the recent history of U.S. efforts to
HOW RONALD REAGAN WEAKENED THE PRESIDENCY/ 27
help the Nicaraguan contras in their struggle;
ward position. They either had to acknowledge
against the Sandinista regime.
that they knew and had at least tacitly approved,
In retrospect, the beginning of the end for this
or they had to deny that they knew and point
effort dates from a strange episode in the spring
accusatory fingers. Naturally they chose the latter
of 1984, when the CIA's involvement in the min-
course.
ing of Nicaragua's Corinto harbor was leaked.
This leak had several fatal effects. As a strategic
N
OT only did Ronald Reagan fail to
matter, it terminated a successful operation that
seize on the chance provided here to
was slowing the delivery of Soviet weapons to
challenge reporting requirements of dubious con-
Nicaragua at a time when the Sandinistas had not
stitutionality and practical consequence, he even
yet consolidated their power. But no less impor-
passively accepted the equally dubious fruit of the
tant was the fact that the affair ignited a distrust
mining episode-the third Boland amendment.
of the administration in Congress that would soon
The immediate effect of this provision-which
result in the extraordinary strictures of the Boland
would ultimately serve as the basis for the indict-
amendments. These constraints on executive-
ments of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Ad-
branch action in Central America in turn made
miral John Poindexter, Richard Secord, and Al-
the Iran-contra affair a scandal waiting to happen.
bert Hakim-was to cut the usual intelligence
Despite later expressions of horror by some
agencies out of the Central America "loop." With
Senators, there had never been any deception
the CIA and the Defense Department now pro-
about CIA involvement in the mining. In accor-
hibited from aiding the contras, only the National
dance with reporting requirements that had been
Security Council was left to do the job. It was thus
set up in the 70's to oversee the CIA, Director
that Oliver North became the contras' one-man
William Casey, beginning in January 1984,
lifeline. This is the meaning of the pitiful com-
briefed Congress eleven times on the mining.
puter message North sent to Poindexter in 1986,
These briefings were straightforward. One classi-
while operating under the Boland strictures:
fied report to the intelligence committees on CIA
"What we need is to get the CIA re-engaged in
activity stated: "Magnetic mines have been placed
this effort so that it can be better managed than
in the Pacific harbor of El Bluff, as well as the
it now is by one sightly confused Marine Lt. Col."
oil terminal at Puerto Sandino."
Obviously, President Reagan had put his staff
Not surprisingly, the congressional minority
officers into an impossibly difficult position by
opposed to any U.S. aid for the contras began to
signing the continuing resolution that included
leak details of the operation. But the decisive leak
the Boland amendment.
came in April from an odd source, Senator Barry
To be sure, no one then anticipated the "crim-
Goldwater, who was then chairman of the Senate
inalization of policy differences," as North would
Intelligence Committee, in an odd place, the floor
later describe the phenomenon to his congression-
of the Senate. The way it happened is a classic
al tormentors. Nevertheless, it was clear after Co-
cautionary tale of the risks to the secrecy of covert
rinto and the Boland amendments that the pro-
operations in any reporting requirement.
cedure-based approach by Congress to the real
Senator Joseph Biden was reading a classified
issues raised by the events in Nicaragua would
report on the mining prepared by the intelligence
handicap the administration's policy. In the event,
staff. Surprised, Biden asked Senator William Co-
Congress was able to starve the contras of con-
hen what he knew about the operation. The two
sistent aid long enough to force them to surrender.
then turned to Goldwater. For reasons that remain
This will likely be remembered as the major
unclear, Goldwater immediately began reading
foreign-policy disaster of the Reagan years, and
the classified report into the record. His staff
the irony is that the "great communicator" never
director raced over to Cohen, screaming, "Gêt him
managed to force the yes-or-no, up-or-down vote
off, get him down, stop him from reading that."
by Congress that would have established a clear
But it was too late. Though Goldwater's citations
line of responsibility if the contras were forced off
were struck from the Congressional Record, jour-
the field of battle.
nalists present reported what they had heard.
And here again-here perhaps most of all-
The leak was unfortunate, but more damaging
Reagan let slip a great opportunity to take his
yet was the reaction of the liberals, led by Senator
case to the public. In November 1986, Reagan
Daniel P. Moynihan, Goldwater's co-chairman on
permitted Attorney General Meese, in announcing
the bipartisan Intelligence Committee, who an-
that funds from the sale of arms to Iran had been
nounced that they had never been informed by the
diverted to the contras, to treat the matter as a
CIA about its participation in the mining.
possible crime. What Reagan could and should
The best explanation for this reaction is, par-
have done was to go before the American people
adoxically, that many Congressmen simply could
and say that while the diversion itself had not been
not forgive the CIA, not for any alleged illegalities
authorized, it was consistent with his policy of
but for just the opposite: for doing its duty under
doing everything within the power of the exec-
the law and reporting the mining. Having been
utive branch unilaterally to help the contras. And
told, members of Congress were put in an awk-
he could have blamed Congress for forcing such
innovative financing by not pursuing a consistent
constitutional powers are only as strong as the
policy of its own.
President's willingness to defend them."
This argument in favor of executive power and
against congressional usurpation was of course
III
eventually made, to the acclaim of the nation and
to the deep embarrassment of Congress-but it
F
OR North and Poindexter, who had
was made by Oliver North and not by Ronald
already been sacrificed to an insatiable
Reagan. "It is mind-boggling to me," North told
Congress armed with the unchecked powers of a
the Iran-contra joint committee,
special prosecutor, it was a reminder that came
too late. But Reagan did not even take note of
that Congress has attempted to criminalize pol-
it in connection with a subsequent congressional
icy differences between co-equal branches of
challenge to one of the clearest presidential pre-
government and the executive's conduct of for-
rogatives in the Constitution, the power to nego-
eign affairs. I suggest to you that it is the
tiate treaties.
Congress which must accept the blame in the
Nicaragua freedom-fighter matter. Plain and
This challenge came in the course of the debate
simple, Congress is to blame because of the
over ratification of the INF treaty which the
fickle, vacillating, unpredictable, on-again, off-
Democrats, led by Senator Sam Nunn, decided to
again policy toward the Nicaraguan democratic
use in pursuing their longstanding battle with
resistance.
Reagan over whether or not the ABM treaty of
1972 permits SDI to be tested in space. Thus as
It is entirely possible that if the diversion had
the price of ratifying the INF agreement while
been described by Reagan himself as overexuber-
Reagan was in Moscow at his summit with Mik-
ance by patriotic officials trying to keep the con-
hail Gorbachev, the Democrats added the "con-
tras alive during congressional fudging on the
dition" that treaties must be interpreted according
issue, the affair could have strengthened the pres-
to the "common understanding
shared by the
idency instead of nearly paralyzing it for its last
President and the Senate at the time the Senate
two years. But Reagan decided to invoke the
gives its advice and consent to ratification."
ignorance defense, claiming that he had no idea
Apart from the problems of interpretation it
that any of his staff had been helping the contras
presents, this condition is blatantly unconstitu-
or where the necessary funds had come from. This
tional. The Constitution says that Presidents ne-
defense was hardly credible, and indeed, as even
gotiate treaties with other countries, not with the
Arthur Liman, the Senate's chief interrogator, has
Senate. Treaties are contracts between nations, not
acknowledged, it represented a great political
between branches of our government. The Senate
blunder. Looking back recently at the scandal,
can pretend to bind the U.S., but none of its
Liman said:
"implicit understandings" (as a report by the
The reality of it is that you had a catastrophe
Foreign Relations Committee calls them) will
in national policy that the President could have
bind other nations.
ended before it got off the ground by saying,
In short, the Senate can withhold its ratifica-
"Yes, it was a mistake. I authorized it." He even
tion, or it can insist on renegotiation, but it
could have dealt with the diversion and he
cannot negotiate with the administration over
would not have been impeached. But there were
what the Senate would like the treaty to have said,
inconsistent statements coming out and there
thereby binding the U.S. but leaving the Soviets
were all the earmarks of a coverup and inev-
free to adopt a less restrictive interpretation.
itably that led to the congressional investiga-
Nevertheless, before the vote on the condition,
tion.
Reagan's chief of staff, Howard Baker, announced
Furthermore, the ignorance defense conceded
that the White House did not oppose its inclusion,
too much. For it implicitly accepted congressional
and it passed the Senate overwhelmingly. Having
authority over executive-branch aid despite a 200-
paid the price in the coin of presidential power
year history full of unilateral presidential acts
and constitutional integrity, Reagan was awarded
much more extensive than a few million dollars
with the treaty in time for a symbolic signing
for the contras. Thus, as the minority report of
ceremony in Moscow.
the Iran-contra committees emphasized:
Robert Bork has suggested that the presidency
would be in much better shape today if Richard
The administration did proceed legally in pur-
Nixon had reacted to the passage of the War
suing both its contra policy and the Iran arms
Powers Resolution by denying it had any legal
initiative.
It is important to stress, however,
significance at all. "He might have made the
that the administration could have avoided
resolution's true nature apparent by withholding
every one of the legal problems it inadvertently
his veto," Bork has said, "and sending a note back
encountered, while continuing to pursue the
exact same policies as it did.
to Congress saying something like, "Thank you
for your essay on your understanding of my con-
It fell to these Republican Congressmen to
stitutional powers. When time permits, I will send
remind Reagan that "The President's inherent
you my essay on my understanding of my con-
HOW RONALD REAGAN WEAKENED THE PRESIDENCY
29
stitutional powers.' Exactly this kind of reaction
of things to come. No sooner had he been nom-
by Reagan to the INF condition would have been
inated as Secretary of Labor than congressional
entirely appropriate, but it came from him only
liberals began raising questions about his ethics.
two weeks after the vote when he wrote in a letter
Then accusations intensified as Donovan cut the
to the Senate:
department's budget by one-third. Eventually, the
then Attorney General, William French Smith,
The principles of treaty interpretation recog-
nized and repeatedly invoked by the courts may
was forced to appoint an independent counsel,
not be limited or changed by the Senate
who spent nine months investigating before re-
alone.
Accordingly, I am compelled to state
porting no evidence of wrongdoing. Even so, one
that I cannot accept the proposition that a
month before the 1984 presidential election, Don-
condition in a resolution to ratification can
ovan was indicted in a New York State court on
alter the allocation of rights and duties under
no fewer than 137 counts.
the Constitution; nor could I, consistent with
The first sitting Cabinet member ever indicted,
my oath of office, accept any diminution
he resigned from his position to stand trial. Yet
claimed to be effected by such a condition in
so weak was the case against him that, without
the constitutional powers and responsibilities of
the defense even calling any witnesses, and on the
the presidency.
first ballot, the jury not only found him innocent
In response, Senator Nunn in effect said what
of all charges but applauded him at the conclu-
Bork thought Nixon (and Reagan) should have
sion of the trial. The day he was acquitted, Don-
said: "The President's letter is entertaining but
ovan (who in addition to everything else had been
irrelevant." And Senator Robert Byrd added: "The
left with legal bills running to millions of dollars)
fight is over and apparently the President just
asked an enormously poignant question: "Which
woke up to find out who won."
office do I go to to get my reputation back?"
Once again, then, Ronald Reagan permitted a
It was the same question that would be on the
further weakening of the powers of the presidency.
lips of all the other Reagan officials and appoint-
ees whose reputations were unjustly besmirched
IV
either by politically inspired prosecutions by in-
dependent counsels created by Congress or in
A
NOTHER great loss to the presidency in
inquisitorial congressional hearings, and who
the past eight years can be measured
were left undefended by the White House. Indeed,
in the extraordinary number of people who came
thanks to Reagan's acquiescence in the post-Wa-
to Washington to work for Reagan and were then
tergate system of prosecutorial politics, it has
driven out of town on trumped-up "ethics"
become so dangerous to accept a job in the ex-
charges as the President stood by and waved them
ecutive branch that many first-rate people will
a fond farewell.
hesitate to do so in the future. And in this way
Venomous hatred of Reaganism, and its threat
too, Reagan has left the presidency even weaker
to the liberal status quo, may have made these
than it was before.
attacks inevitable. But even if they could not have
The upshot is that the next President will
been prevented by Reagan, he certainly did little
inherit an office whose powers under the Consti-
to counter them.
tution have been steadily eroded by various forms
The best known and most scurrilous of them
of congressional usurpation. George Bush says he
all, the brutalizing of Robert Bork, also provided
wants to reverse this assault on the constitutional
the clearest example of White House passivity.*
balance; Michael Dukakis seems satisfied with
The long-term effect of this case on the judiciary
congressional supremacy. But even Dukakis, if
and on the level of political debate remains to be
elected, would soon discover that an aggressive
seen, but the immediate result was that the Senate
assertion of executive power was in his own in-
stopped bothering to hold hearings at all on some
terest as President, and that the job is hardly worth
judicial nominees who could be described as con-
having without the authority that Reagan never
troversial under the post-Bork rules of the game.
actually demanded and consequently never en-
At least Bork was never threatened with jail.
joyed.
Other conservatives, aside even from the Iran-
contra defendants, were not SO lucky. The tragic
See Suzanne Garment's article, "The War Against Robert
story of what happened to Raymond Donovan
H. Bork," in the January 1988 issue of COMMENTARY for a
early in Reagan's first term proved to be a foretaste
detailed account.
1990 House incumbent re-election rate 96.6%
1990 Senate incumbent re-election rate 96.9% (from Liz
at the Senate Historical Office)
1990 overall incumbent re-election rate over 90%
Since 1966, every election, except 1974, has produced a
re-election rate of over 90%. -- from Reader's Digest
6/89
House under one-party control for how many years?
Since January 1955 (the 84th Congress) -- over 36 years
from Ray Lewis at the House Library.
Total number of pieces of mail Congress sent out in 1990,
or most recent figure; also number of incoming pieces,
in order to do a ratio.
Less than 5% of the $113.4 million spent in 1988 was used
to answer constituent queries. Franking is a privilege,
not an entitlement. -- from Reader's Digest 10/89
In 1988, Congressmen sent out a staggering 548,437,000
pieces of mail. -- from Reader's Digest 6/89
In 1988 -- PACS gave $115 million to incumbents, versus
$7 million to challengers. -- from Readers Digest 7/90
Franking cost taxpayers about $100 million in tax
dollars in 1990. -- from Cleaning Up Congress, p. 38
According to a Congressional Research Service study, since 1978,
the House has sent at least 100 million more pieces of mail in
election years than during off-years. This is another fact which
explains why 96.6% of House incumbents seeking re-election in 1990
won their races. -- from Cleaning Up Congress, p. 42
In 1990, the House spent everything in its entire mailing budget
by mid-summer. So what did they do for the rest of the year? They
spent money they didn't have. In fact, they even hired new
employees to handle the increase in mailing.
-- from Cleaning Up Congress, p. 43
Starting in 1991, each member will have his/her own franking
account, and how much each member spends will be publicly
disclosed.
House has 189 committees and subcommittees, with the average rep.
sitting on about 7 comms. and subcomms. Senate has 118 committees
and subcommittees, with each Senator sitting on about 11 of those.
-- from Cleaning Up Congress, p. 62-63
According to a Washington Times survey done in 1989, 85 House
members used the following scheme in the 1986 and 1988 elections:
Their staffers would take a "leave without pay" for a few months
in order to work on the campaign. When they came back, they were
given a substantial pay raise to more than compensate for what they
didn't receive during the time they were working on the campaign
-- meaning, the taxpayers were paying the salaries of campaign
staff. -- from Cleaning Up Congress, p. 33-35
Info for Speech's pgs. 386
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
January 18, 1990
MEMORANDUM FOR C. BOYDEN GRAY
FROM:
NELSON LUND onl
SUBJECT:
Talking Points: Level Playing Field
Attached is a new version of the talking points for your speech
at the Federalist Society, which I prepared in light of the
discussion in Andy Card's office.
Attachment
Talking Points: Level Playing Field
"The legislative department is every where extending the sphere
of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.
...
[I]t is against the enterprising ambition of this
department, that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy
and exhaust all their precautions.
Its constitutional
powers being at once more extensive and less susceptible of
precise limits, it can with the greater facility, mask under
complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it
makes on the co-ordinate departments." Federalist No. 48 (James
Madison).
O
This diagnosis, according to which legislative tyranny is
the greatest danger in our form of government, is every bit as
valid today as when James Madison wrote it.
O
The Framers did not think they had a cure for this problem,
for "[i]n republican government the legislative authority,
necessarily, predominates." Federalist No. 51 (Madison). As all
of you know, the Framers conceived an elaborate structure that
they hoped would inhibit the development of tyranny. Its
principal elements can be summarized under the general rubric of
the "separation of powers":
O
Social pluralism: the size and variety of the nation
would itself tend to prevent the emergence of tyrannical
majorities.
O
The separation of powers between the state and federal
governments. Federalism, I should note, is a principle
whose death is frequently sought and announced by the
advocates of congressional supremacy. President Bush, by
way of contrast, has worked in concrete ways -- as with the
recent Education Summit -- to help restore the states as
full partners in our federal system.
O
The separation of powers within the federal government:
bicameralism; an independent judiciary, and perhaps most
important the strong and unitary executive.
The key principle in this design -- in Madison's words -- is to
give "those who administer each department, the necessary
constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist
encroachments of the others." Ibid. The necessity for
resistance, and the terrain on which the skirmishes are fought,
provide the theme for my remarks today.
O
The "complicated and indirect measures" that Madison accused
legislatures of using must often be countered by equally subtle
and creative forms of resistance. The complexities of these
struggles can often be interesting and important, but they are
not the subject I will address today.
O
Instead, I want to focus on a very simple intellectual
distinction and suggest that clarity about its practical
ramifications is crucial in maintaining the constitutional
separation of powers: this is the distinction between the rule
of law and the rule of the legislature.
O
The "rule of law" is the flag that all parties to inter-
branch disputes strive to capture. This is the moral high
ground. It reflects the deep resonance of this simple phrase in
our political culture, and it has led to some extraordinarily
opportunistic and distorted interpretations of its meaning.
0
Without purporting to deliver a philosophic meditation, I
would suggest that there ought to be little controversy about two
propositions:
First, unconstitutional statutes are invalid. They are
not laws in the proper sense of the term, but rather are
illegitimate or inadvertent acts that violate the law.
After The Federalist No. 78 and Marbury V. Madison, the
reasoning involved here should be almost self-evident.
o
Second, legislators should be governed by the same
rules as those against whom they compete. If Congressmen
gave themselves exemptions from SEC disclosure requirements
or from the antitrust laws in order to pursue their private
business interests, everyone would agree that the rule of
law had been compromised. When Congressmen create similarly
asymmetrical legal arrangements to govern their competition
with other public institutions, we should be able to see the
same threat to the rule of law.
O
As to the first point: Few members of this audience should
be confused by the notion that unconstitutional statutes are not
law in the proper sense of the term. You may be surprised to
learn, however, that many people on the Hill (both Members and
staff) have extreme difficulty in grasping this concept,
especially when the question arises in the context of separation
of powers. When pressed they will agree that a statute cannot be
enforced after the Supreme Court has declared it
unconstitutional. But they are very resistant to these other
important corollaries:
O
Statutes are unconstitutional if they conflict with the
Constitution, whether or not a court has already determined
that the conflict exists.
O
When the Constitution and a statute seem to conflict,
the President must exercise his own judgment about the
conflict, as the courts must when they are confronted with
an apparent conflict.
O
The exercise of such judgment reflects a respect for
the rule of law, not the opposite.
O
Congress, no less than the President and the courts, is
obliged to defer to the Constitution when it conflicts with
the congressional will.
Whenever you hear a defender of congressional power maintain that
only the courts are authorized to determine the meaning of the
Constitution, you should ask how much deference Congress has paid
to the Supreme Court's decision in Chadha. Congress lost that
case, you'll recall. But if losing the case did anything to
discourage Congress from enacting legislative vetoes, you'd never
know it by reading last year's appropriations bills.
It's bizarre: The Executive is criticized from the Hill for
having the temerity to use its own judgment about constitutional
questions that the courts have not answered. Congress, however,
refuses to obey the Constitution even when there is a Supreme
Court decision directly on point. Judge for yourself where the
greatest threats to the rule of law are likely to arise.
O
Leaving aside the question of latter-day congressional
posturing, let's turn for a moment to the Constitution itself,
which in my view implies that the President was actually expected
to be more important than the courts or the legislature in
upholding the rule of law.
o
Article VI requires that Senators and Representatives,
along with state legislators and all executive and judicial
officers "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support
this Constitution." Note how spare the requirement is, and
note that it applies equally to all branches of government
at both the state and federal levels.
O
There is one and only one exception to this broad
requirement. The President is required by Article II to
take a specific and much more elaborate oath:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully
execute the Office of President of the United States,
and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect
and defend the Constitution of the United States."
O
This constitutionally unique oath imposes on the
President a constitutional duty to defend the prerogatives
of his office against encroachments from the other branches.
The Framers undoubtedly foresaw the extraordinary pressures
that would be exerted on Presidents to get along by going
along, to compromise important principles in order to
mollify the special interests whose most accessible forum is
the legislature. The President's unique oath of office
compels him to draw the line on certain points of principle,
even when the pressure to relent, and the costs of remaining
firm, become very high.
O
Let me be clear. Compromise and cooperation are
ordinary and essential elements of the legislative process.
In fact, I would venture that President Bush has done more
to foster cooperation within Congress, by bringing the
leaders of disparate committees together in his meetings,
than the legislators themselves could ever manage on their
own.
This President has the greatest respect for the
legitimate role of Congress in our system and for the wisdom
of deferring to its Members in appropriate ways. When
attempts are made, however, to exercise the Office of the
President from the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue, there
can simply be no compromise.
Where everyone else in government is obliged to
"support" the Constitution, the President alone is obliged
to "preserve, protect and defend" it. This is not always a
pleasant obligation, but the Framers were in my judgment
right to foresee that in many cases only the President can
adequately perform it.
I turn now to the second point, which is the congressional
proclivity to exempt itself from the rules it imposes on other
government officials.
o
The reason we have laws at all is that men are not angels.
Men do not become angels by going to work in the government, and
Congress has rightly been reluctant to assume that those of us in
the executive branch are immune from the temptations of greed,
prejudice, and ambition. To look at the laws they've passed,
however, you would think that men do become angels when they go
to work on Capitol Hill. A few examples:
O
Every one of the President's employees is governed by a
strict conflict of interest statute forbidding them to
participate in any decision in which they or their families
have a financial interest. Violations are punishable with
imprisonment. You might think that congressional staff are
subject to the same temptations as executive branch
employees, and that the same laws would apply to them.
You'd be wrong. And if you thought that Congress would be
willing to extend this law to its own staff when President
Bush made such a proposal, you'd be wrong again.
O
You've all heard of the Independent Counsel statute.
When high-level executive branch officials are suspected of
wrongdoing, they get their own special prosecutors who have
unlimited budgets and virtually no supervision. You might
think that Congressmen, Senators, and their senior staff
would deserve the same honor. Wrong again.
O
Nor has Congress thought it prudent to wait for
evidence of executive branch criminality before taking steps
to prevent it from occurring. The President is required by
law to appoint special Inspectors General to act as
watchdogs for waste, fraud, and corruption in executive
agencies. Do you suppose there's any room for waste, fraud,
and corruption in Congress? Apparently not enough to
justify the appointment of Inspectors General, because the
legislative branch is expressly exempted from this law, too.
O
The executive branch is subject to extraordinary public
scrutiny, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act and the
Government in the Sunshine Act. Some of the effects have
been good, and some have been bad. Maybe Congress would
appreciate the difference between the two if it had to
comply with the same statutes. But it has exempted itself
again.
O
The acquisition, handling, and disclosure of executive
records maintained on individuals is heavily regulated by
the Privacy Act. Is there any danger that congressional
records would pose any threat to the privacy of our
citizens? Apparently not, because this law does not apply
to Congress.
O
Private parties and the federal government are governed
by a long list of statutes that forbid various sorts of
invidious discrimination: Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act; the Rehabilitation Act; the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act. I'm sure that no one in the legislature
would approve of race or sex discrimination in staff hiring.
But I'm also sure that they haven't made it illegal.
o
It would be tempting to ascribe these and other similar
exemptions from the laws to a kind of self-indulgent pomposity.
If it were only a matter of obnoxious symbolism, the rest of us
could express our annoyance and then get back to serious issues.
In fact, however, this pattern of institutional self-dealing has
serious consequences for the administration of government:
O
Many of the restrictions under which executive officers
and employees operate are quite appropriate and should
certainly not be changed. Others, however, actually
interfere with the proper functioning of the government.
When those who make the laws do not have to live under them,
they lose both the experience and the incentives that are
needed to make reform and improvement possible.
O
Increasingly in recent years, Congress and its staff
have not been satisfied with their constitutionally assigned
role as legislators. Instead, they have undertaken the
micromanagement of the executive agencies -- under the
rubric of so-called "oversight." There are many bad effects
of this breach of the separation of powers, but that is the
subject of another speech. For now, I simply want to point
out that congressional personnel are heavily involved each
day in the operations of executive agencies. These people
are not covered by the laws and mechanisms that restrict
misbehavior by executive employees, and the potential for
corruption is obvious. The congressional scandals now
emerging from the S&L crisis may be only the tip of the
iceberg, and it's worth noting how little of this scandalous
behavior seems to have been actually illegal.
Closing quotation:
"To what purpose separate the executive, or the judiciary,
from the legislative, if both the executive and the
judiciary are so constituted as to be at the absolute
devotion of the legislative? Such a separation must be
merely nominal and incapable of producing the ends for which
it was established. It is one thing to be subordinate to
the laws, and another to be dependent on the legislative
body
The representatives of the people, in a popular
assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people
themselves; and betray strong symptoms of impatience and
disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other
quarter; as if the exercise of its rights by either the
executive or judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and
an outrage to their dignity. They often appear disposed to
exert an imperious control over the other departments; and
as they commonly have the people on their side, they always
act with such momentum as to make it very difficult for the
other members of the government to maintain the balance of
the Constitution." Federalist No. 71 (Hamilton).
The "balance of the Constitution" described by Hamilton and
Madison does not maintain itself, as they well knew. President
Bush is committed to doing his part, but he needs the support of
those who look beyond the headlines of the day to the long-term
health of our political system. That is your responsibility.
PRINCETON UNIV NASSAU TEL No 6092581294
Apr 3,91 16:28 No. 011 P.01
FAX COVER SHEET
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
V.P. FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS
TO:
Carol Blymire
FROM:
Bob Durkee
DATE:
4/3/91
TIME:
3 p. p.m. M.
# OF PAGES:
8
(INCLUDING FAX COVER SHEET)
COMMENTS:
I thought I would for you my
memo before sending it through the mail
with its various enclosures, just on The
chance That you'll have a free moment and
want to for started. call 1 you have questions.
Good luck!
If you have any problems or questions concerning this FAX,
please call Alyce Coccorese at (609) 258-6429.
FAX Number: (609) 258-1294
PRINCETON UNIV NASSAU TEL No. 6092581294
Apr 3,91 16:28 No. 011 P.02
Princeton University
Vice President for Public Affairs
223 Nassau Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544
April 3, 1991
To:
Carol Blymire
From:
Bob Durke
Subject: Background for the President's Remarks
There are probably lots of things you would like to know
that this letter and the enclosed materials will not tell you,
but perhaps this will get you started. If you have questions or
would like additional materials, please give me a call at 609-
258-6428. (Should you ever need it, my home number is 609-924-
8699.)
Honorary Degree Ceremony
We expect that the President's visit will begin in Nassau
Hall, where he will be presented with an honorary degree. I have
circled Nassau Hall on both of the enclosed maps, a large map
that shows the new buildings being dedicated and a smaller, older
map that does not. (The smaller map is in the booklet entitled,
"Campus.")
Nassau Hall is the most historic building on campus. The
College of New Jersey was founded in 1746 as the fourth colonial
college (following Harvard, William & Mary, and Yale), but it did
not move to Princeton until 1756. (It became Princeton
University in 1896 at a ceremony in which a faculty member named
Woodrow Wilson delivered the address and gave the University its
motto of "Princeton in the Nation's Service.")
The two original buildings were Nassau Hall and what was
then the President's home, now known as Maclean House. Nassau
Hall included all the classrooms, dormitories, dining halls,
prayer room, and everything else an infant college required.
Nassau Hall also played a central role in the Revolutionary War
Battle of Princeton, and housed the Continental Congress, making
Princeton the young nation's capital for four months in 1783. I
will say more about the building later when I turn to a fuller
discussion of history.
The honorary degree ceremony will be brief (15-20 minutes).
The Dean of the Chapel will deliver an invocation, the chairman
of our Trustee Executive Committee (James A. Henderson, President
of Cummins Engine) will deliver greetings, the degree citation
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will be read, our President Shapiro will confer the degree, the
President will be invited to make a brief response if he would
like, and the Dean of the Chapel will pronounce a benediction.
Dedication Ceremony
Following the honorary degree ceremony, the President will
be transported to Fisher/Bendheim Halls for a brief tour with the
architect, the major donors, and the chairs of the relevant
departments. Following the tour, the outdoor ceremony will
begin.
The location from which the President will speak is marked
by an X on the large map. Immediately behind him will be the two
connected buildings that are being dedicated: Bendheim Hall, the
new home for our Center of International Studies, and Fisher
Hall, the new home of our Economics Department. To his right
will be Corwin Hall, the home of our Department of Politics, and
to his left is Robertson Hall, the home of our Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs. (Robertson Hall is
the building that was dedicated by President Johnson in 1966.)
The President will be looking out into the Woodrow Wilson School
plaza toward the reflecting pool and its "Fountain of Freedom"
sculpture. On the back of the "Campus" booklet, I have marked a
photo that looks into the plaza from the opposite direction. In
addition to sharing the plaza, Bendheim, Fisher, Corwin, and
Robertson Halls are all connected by underground pathways, SO
this truly is an integrated complex for the several departments
at Princeton that explore affairs of state and the international
order from a variety of disciplinary -- and interdisciplinary --
perspectives.
(If you look one block to your right from Fisher Hall on the
large map, you will see a space that I have marked with BB. When
the President was an undergraduate at Yale, that was the site of
the Princeton baseball field on which he played. It is now home
to our Third World Center and our School of Engineering and
Applied Science.)
The dedication ceremony itself will probably begin with
words of greeting by Mr. Henderson and an invocation. President
Shapiro then will speak for approximately ten minutes about the
significance of the occasion, thanking the donors who have made
these new and improved spaces possible and introducing the
President (whom he knows from his service on the President's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology). Our hope is that
the President will then speak for somewhere between twenty
minutes and a half hour on a theme that draws inspiration from
the teaching and research that will take place in these two new
buildings: teaching and research spanning a broad range of
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public and international affairs, but focusing on the development
of an improved world order, evolving relationships among nations,
and matters affecting both the domestic and the international
economy. The ceremony will then conclude with a benediction.
The Spaces Being Dedicated
The focus of the dedication ceremony is on Bendheim and
Fisher Halls. Although physically connected and sharing service
facilities, the two halls are architecturally distinct and each
has its own entrance. The two buildings provide a total of
50,000 square feet of space. (The enclosed, somewhat dated,
pamphlet on the Center of International Studies shows an artist's
conception of the building. The portion to the left, opening
onto the plaza, is Bendheim Hall; the section to the right, with
the multi-story bay area opening onto Prospect Avenue, is Fisher
Hall.)
@
Bendheim Hall, the new home of the Center of
International Studies, is named for Robert A. Bendheim '37, long-
time President of the textile manufacturing firm of M. Lowenstein
& Sons.
@
Fisher Hall, the new home of the Department of Economics,
is the gift of Donald and Doris Fisher, co-founders of the Gap
group of retail clothing stores, and their sons Robert J. Fisher
'76, William S. Fisher '79, and John J. Fisher '83.
Also being dedicated are:
@
Jacoby Library, in Fisher Hall, which will serve the
Economics Department. It is named for Robert E. Jacoby '51,
former CEO and Chairman of the advertising firm Ted Bates
Worldwide.
@
Scudder Plaza, the outdoor area immediately in front of
the location at which the President will speak, was given in
honor of Edward W. Scudder, Sr. '03 by his sons, Edward W.
Scudder, Jr. '35 and Richard B. Scudder '35. The Scudders have
had distinguished careers in newspaper publishing with The Newark
Evening News and other papers. Note the description of the plaza
in the enclosed booklet entitled, "Vistas."
The Vincent and Celia Scully Library in Robertson Hall
serves the Woodrow Wilson School. The library was renovated and
named in honor of his parents by John H. Soully '66, a general
partner of San Francisco Partners and Texas Partners, both
affiliated with the Robert M. Bass Group. John Scully is
currently a Princeton Trustee.
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The architect for these projects is Robert Venturi '47 of
the Philadelphia firm of Venturi, Rauch, and Scott Brown.
Venturi is an important and internationally prominent architect
who has designed two other major buildings in recent years at
Princeton, both of which have received a gold medal from the
American Institute of Architects. (See the photo just above the
Wilson School plaza on the back of the "Campus" booklet.) I can
provide more information about Bob Venturi if you think that
would be helpful.
History
Unfortunately we have no history that seems exactly right
for your purposes. But I will sketch some of the major
developments here and then refer you to some of the enclosed
materials. (The most useful of the enclosed materials probably
will be the pamphlet entitled, "Princeton's President's: An
Historical Sketch of the University." We are in the process of
reprinting and updating this pamphlet, which was first produced
in the mid-1970s, but we won't be changing anything prior to
1972. I also have included pamphlets on Nassau Hall, Princeton
in the American Revolution, George Washington at Princeton,
Einstein at Princeton, and Woodrow wilson.)
As I mentioned earlier, Princeton University began as the
College of New Jersey in 1746. We began in Elizabeth, moved to
Newark, and in 1756 came to Princeton and Nassau Hall, the
largest stone building in the colonies. The hall was named for
England's King William III, of the house of Orange-Nassau, an
ancestry that gave us not only the name of our principal building
(and the main street in town), but later our school color of
orange which, when striped with black, resulted in our mascot
being the tiger.
Princeton's President John Witherspoon was the only
clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration
of Independence. Princeton became an important site during the
American Revolution, with Nassau Hall at various times housing
troops from both armies. After the war, as I indicated earlier,
the Congress met in Nassau Hall for four months in the summer of
1783; it was here that they officially thanked Washington for his
leadership during the war, received the news of the signing of
the definitive treaty of peace with England, and welcomed the
first foreign minister -- from the Netherlands -- accredited to
the United States. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787
there were more alumni of Princeton than any other college or
university: nine men representing six different states. The most
prominent, of course, was James Madison (Class of 1771), who upon
completion of his undergraduate studies had become Princeton's
first graduate student. After serving as the fourth President of
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the United States, Madison subsequently became the first
president of our alumni association, from its founding in 1826
until his death ten years later.
The next critical period in Princeton's history occurred in
the latter years of the 19th century when it was transformed from
a college into a university. Much of this transformation can be
attributed to President James McCosh, who left office in 1898.
In 1902, Princeton named Woodrow Wilson its President, and during
the next eight years much of the foundation of modern-day
Princeton was developed. It would be almost impossible to
overestimate Wilson's impact on shaping today's Princeton. From
Nassau Hall, Wilson went on to become Governor of New Jersey and
then President of the United States.
In recent years, Princeton has solidified its position as
one of the world's leading universities, while also substantially
diversifying its faculty and student body. (Like Yale, we have
been coeducational since 1969.) Many of Princeton's departments
rank either as the best or among the best in the world. (our
strengths range from mathematics, economics, and physics to
philosophy, history, and African American Studies.) But
Princeton is unique among research universities in the following
respects:
(1) It is much smaller than other major research
universities. We have only 4,500 undergraduates and 1,800
graduate students. They come from every state and some 70
foreign countries.
(2) Our proportion of undergraduates is unusually high,
reflecting a traditional commitment to the education of
undergraduates that is much more characteristic of a college than
a university. Each senior at Princeton is required to submit a
thesis or comparable project.
(3) Almost all of our graduate students are candidates for
the Ph.D. (as opposed to master's or professional degrees) and
almost all of our departments are in the arts and sciences. Our
only professional schools are engineering, architecture, and
public and international affairs; we do not have schools of law,
medicine, business, divinity, education, etc.
So we are a relatively small, primarily arts and sciences
university with a special emphasis on undergraduate education in
a strongly residential setting (95+% of our undergraduates and
70+% of our graduate students live on campus) populated by
faculty at the very top of their fields and students who survive
one of the most competitive admission processes in the country.
(This year we admitted 15.9% of our undergraduate applicants.)
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Our graduates typically assume positions of leadership in a
variety of fields. In the Department of State, for example,
post-World War II Princetonians have included Secretaries James
Baker '52, George Shultz '42, and John Foster Dulles '08, as well
as undersecretary Nicholas Katzenbach '43. Jim Baker also served
as Secretary of the Treasury; George Shultz served as Secretary
of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor, and director of OMB; and
Nick Katzenbach was Attorney General. Other recent Princetonians
of Cabinet rank have included Frank Carlucci '52, Donald Rumsfeld
'54, William Ruckelshaus '55, John Sawhill '58, and Admiral
William Crowe *65, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Ruckelshaus and Sawhill are current Trustees and Admiral Crowe
will be our baccalaureate speaker at this year's Commencement.
Five members of the United States Senate are Princeton graduates
(Pell '40, Sarbanes '54, Danforth '58, Bond '60, and Bradley
'65), as are two recent Governors of New Jersey (Byrne '49 and
Kean '57). Two other "politically prominent" alumni are Queen
Noor of Jordan (Lisa Halaby '73) and the Foreign Minister of
Saudi Arabia (Saud al Faisal '64).
Altogether, 22 Nobel Prize winners have been associated with
Princeton in one way or another. Other names of prominent alumni
include two-time Democratic presidential candidate Adlai
Stevenson '22; six-time Socialist candidate Norman Thomas '05;
ambassador and author George Kennan '25; former Federal Reserve
Chairman Paul Volcker '49 (currently on our faculty) ; Librarian
of Congress James Billington '50; television producer and former
State Department spokesman Hodding Carter III '57 (a current
Trustee) ; political commentator George Will *68; Good Morning
America host Charles Gibson '65; actor Jimmy Stewart '32; actress
Brooke Shields '87; authors F. Scott Fitzgerald '17, Eugene
O'Neill '10, and Booth Tarkington '93; producer Joshua Logan '31;
artist Frank Stella '58; astronaut Charles Conrad '53; former
baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn '48; John D. III ('29) and
Laurance ('32) Rockefeller; Malcolm Forbes '43; Carl Icahn '57;
and Ralph Nader '55. The enclosed list includes a few other
names. In addition, I thought you might be interested in a
collection of alumni profiles published two years ago by our
student newspaper under the title, In the Nation's Service. (One
of the 26 alumni in the book is Robert Venturi, the architect for
the buildings being dedicated.)
In addition to the materials already mentioned, I enclose a
copy of President Shapiro's annual report for this year on the
topic of "Teaching at Princeton." Among other things, it
includes a brief historical perspective that you may find of
interest. I also have enclosed a book called Conversations on
the Character of Princeton that may provide some useful
perspectives. Finally, I enclose a booklet of basic facts and
figures entitled, "A Princeton Profile;" some further background
on the Woodrow Wilson School and the Economics Department; and
some general introductory materials from our Admission Office.
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Please call if there is other information that you want or
need. As I hope you know, we of course will be delighted with
any favorable references that the President is able to make to
Princeton. But our even greater hope is that the President will
see this event as an opportunity to develop and extend the ideas
about the role of the United States in a new world order that are
emerging as central themes and goals of his presidency.
Thanks for your help!
DRAFT
DEDICATION OF
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY'S
NEW AND RENOVATED
FACILITIES
FOR THE
SOCIAL SCIENCES
BENDHEIM HALL FISHER HALL
SCUDDER PLAZA
JACOBY LIBRARY SCULLY LIBRARY ww 4 hool Librury
Friday, the Tenth of May
Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-One
11:00 a.m.
Invocation
Speakers
James A. Henderson '56
Chair, Executive Committee
Board of Trustees
James J. Florio
Governor of the
State of New Jersey
Harold T. Shapiro *64
President, Princeton University
George H. W. Bush HD'91
President of the United States
Benediction
1
A NEW
SOCIAL SCIENCES
COMPLEX
he spaces that we celebrate today-the newly constructed
T
Bendheim Hall, Fisher Hall, and Jacoby Library and the
refurbished Scudder Plaza and Scully Library-combine with
a renovated Corwin Hall and Robertson Hall to form a new com-
plex for the social sciences at Princeton. This complex will provide
an interdisciplinary home for innovative teaching and research in
politics, economics, and public and international affairs. As Presi-
dent Lyndon Johnson said twenty-five years ago at the dedication
of what is now Robertson Hall, "It is good that one of the nation's
oldest universities is still young enough to grow."
This greatly expanded complex fulfills the vision that the Uni-
versity began to realize with the extraordinary gift of Marie and
Charles Robertson '26 endowing the Woodrow Wilson School and
permitting the construction of Robertson Hall. Since then, stu-
dents, faculty, and distinguished visitors have benefited from
Princeton's and the Robertson family's continuing commitment
to the highest level of excellence in education for public service.
The new facilities provide needed space for the Economics and
Politics Departments and the Woodrow Wilson School's Center of
International Studies. They also enhance the close relationships
that exist among the social sciences at Princeton: Bendheim, Fisher,
Corwin, and Robertson Halls not only share a common outdoor
plaza, but are also connected by underground passageways, and
Notestein Hall (home of the Office of Population Research) is
conveniently located just across Prospect Avenue.
The newest buildings in this social sciences complex are
Bendheim and Fisher Halls. Although physically integrated and
connected to Corwin Hall, Bendheim and Fisher Halls are architec-
turally distinct and each has its own entrance. Together they
provide a total of 50,000 square feet of space.
Bendheim Hall houses the Center of International Studies of
the Woodrow Wilson School, with faculty offices, conference and
meeting rooms, and space for visiting scholars from around the
world. It is named for its principal donor Robert A. Bendheim '37.
2
Fisher Hall houses classrooms, faculty offices, conferences rooms,
and a library for the Department of Economics. It is the gift of
Doris and Donald Fisher hc'76 and their sons, Robert J. Fisher '76,
President of Banana Republic, William S, Fisher '79, Vice President
of The Gap International, and John J. Fisher '83, Project Manager,
Specialty Retail Development for the Gap.
The spectacularly cúrved front of Fisher Hall encloses the Jacoby
Library, the gift of Robert E. Jacoby '51.
The library in Robertson Hall that serves the Woodrow Wilson
School has had a major facelift through the generosity of John H.
Scully '66. The Vincent and Celia Scully Library, named in honor
of Mr. Scully's parents, is at the hub of the daily activity of the
School.
The outdoor area that unites the social sciences complex is
extraordinarily beautiful. The flowering trees and dynamic Foun-
tain of Freedom are two of the highlights of any tour of Princeton.
This beautiful outdoor space has been refurbished and named
Scudder Plaza in honor of Edward W. Scudder '03 by his sons
Edward W. Scudder, Jr.'35 and Richard S. Scudder '35.
Within the new facilities are spaces which recognize other
significant gifts. On the third floor of Fisher Hall, there are faculty
offices, space for professional and technical staff, and a research
library dedicated to international economics. This suite of rooms
has been designated the Merrill Lynch Center for International
Finance in recognition of the gift of the Merrill. Lynch Company
Foundation. The third floor conference room in Bendheim Hall
has been named the John Eddy Klein Seminar Room in recogni-
tion of the gifts of Mr. and Mrs. John E. Klein '67 and Bunge
Corporation.
The architect for the spaces being dedicated is Robert Venturi
'47 of the Philadelphia firm Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates.
Venturi has become one of the most influential architects in the
world. He has won numerous awards, including gold medals from
the American Institute of Architects for Gordon Wu Hall and Lewis
Thomas Laboratory at Princeton and, most recently, the presti-
gious Pritzker Architecture Prize for 1991 honoring his entire body
of work. Venturi has met the formidable challenge of fitting the
new structures into a site surrounded by existing buildings of
disparate character: he has designed a structure which fits with
Minoru Yamasaki's Robertson Hall on one side and the eating
3
clubs on the other. The firm has also solved beautifully the diffi-
cult planning problems associated with the needs of the different
academic units served by the new complex.
The foundation of what we complete today was laid by the
magnificent gift that endowed the Woodrow Wilson School and
built Robertson Hall, releasing Corwin Hall for use by the Politics
Department. Today we express renewed appreciation for that gift
and celebrate the exceptional contributions of those whose names
grace Fisher Hall, Bendheim Hall, Scudder Plaza, Scully Library,
and Jacoby Library, as well as the generous support of John E.
Arens '34, John H. Arens '60, John E. Klein '67, Merrill Lynch and
Company, and Bunge Corporation. It is donors such as these who
make it possible for Princeton to stay at the forefront of teaching
and research in these challenging times.
4
ROBERT A. BENDHEIM '37
A
fter graduating from Princeton in 1937 with an economics
major, Robert Bendheim joined the textile manufacturing
firm of M. Lowenstein Corporation. He was president of
this company, and its chairman, from 1964 until his retirement in
1986. He is now president of the Leon Lowenstein Foundation,
Inc. For many years Mr. Bendheim has been a generous benefactor
of Princeton. Before his gift of Bendheim Hall, he gave the Bendheim
Room in the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library and made a major
contribution toward the Lewis Thomas Laboratory for molecular
biology.
Mr. Bendheim considers support for the Economics Depart-
ment and the Center of International Studies (where he serves on
the Advisory Council) to be especially important at this time, since
the issues they are working on are of major significance. He said:
"We must provide the distinguished Princeton faculty working
and teaching in these areas, and their students, with the resources
and surroundings they need to do their best work."
5
DORIS AND DONALD FISHER
P'76, '79, '83, HC'76
oris and Donald Fisher have been enthusiastic volunteers
D
for Princeton for almost two decades. Their three sons
graduated from Princeton-Robert in 1976, William in
1979, and John in 1983.
Mrs. Fisher, a graduate of Stanford University and Mr. Fisher, a
graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, cofounded the
Gap, Inc. The first store opened in 1969, taking its name from the
generational rift of the 1960s. The Gap's simple, all-cotton, no-
frills clothing has made its label the third largest seller in America.
The Gap's 1,090-store family now includes Banana Republic,
GapKids, and babyGap.
The Fishers are former Co-Chairmen of the Parents Fund which
solicits gifts from nonalumni parents. They were also the first
Chairmen of Princeton Associates, the major gift society for par-
ents, and have been named Lifetime Honorary Associates for their
contributions to the program. Besides Fisher Hall, the Fishers'
generosity can be seen in a beautiful new gallery in the Art Museum.
Mrs. Fisher serves on the Art Museum Advisory Council.
6
ROBERT E. JACOBY '51
A
fter graduating from Princeton with a degree in economics
and a Phi Beta Kappa key, Mr. Jacoby began his business
career as an economic analyst with Shell Oil. Following
that, he spent eight years at Compton Advertising, first as Associ-
ate Research Director and, ultimately, as Vice President/Account
Supervisor.
In 1962 he joined Ted Bates Advertising as Vice President and
Account Supervisor. After an interim period at Needham, Harper &
Steers as Senior Vice President and Board member, Mr. Jacoby
returned to Ted Bates Advertising in 1965 as Senior Vice President
and Management Representative. He became President of Ted Bates
Advertising/New York in 1969, a position he held until 1981. In
1973, he added the title of CEO of the parent organization, Ted
Bates Worldwide, Inc., and became Chairman in 1976, positions
he held until his retirement in 1986. He is now Chairman and CEO
of Decipala, Ltd., a private firm dealing in investments and corpo-
rate acquisitions.
Mr. Jacoby was attracted to the "social science archipelago"
project both because of his undergraduate economics major and
his subsequent business career. Since his company had 102 offices
abroad, Mr. Jacoby said, "I spent most of my life traveling all over
the world and therefore was interested in international affairs."
His gift toward the new complex came at a crucial time for Prince-
ton: it was the first major gift after the completion of A Campaign
for Princeton and helped develop momentum for new initiatives.
Mr. Jacoby also serves Princeton as a Class of 1951 volunteer and a
member of the Economics Department Advisory Council.
7
EDWARD W. SCUDDER, JR. '35
AND
RICHARD B. SCUDDER '35
dward "Ned" and Richard "Dick" Scudder come from a dis-
E
tinguished New Jersey family. One of their collateral fore-
bears, a member of the Princeton class of 1751, signed New
Jersey into the Union; their grandfather Wallace founded the
Newark News in 1882/83; their aunt, Antoinette Scudder, founded
the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey; and several
relatives-Nathaniel Scudder 1751, a member of the Continental
Congress who died in the Revolutionary War; Edward W. Scudder
1841, a justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, Frankland Briggs
1898, President of New Jersey Bell, and their father Edward W.
Scudder '03-preceded them at Princeton.
It is appropriate that the memorial to Edward W. Scudder '03
should be associated with the name of Woodrow Wilson 1879. Mr.
Scudder was Wilson's student at Princeton, and they remained
close friends. Wilson was godfather to Scudder's eldest daughter.
At the end of World War I, Mr. Scudder was appointed by Wilson
to the commission which traveled to Paris to make arrangements
for the Treaty of Versailles. President Wilson offered both Edward
and his father Wallace ambassadorships, but both declined on the
ground that newspaper publishers must be free of political obliga-
tions.
Both Scudder brothers majored in economics at Princeton and
went to work for the family newspaper after graduation. Edward
W. Scudder, Jr. spent thirty-five years at the Newark Evening News
where he became Chairman of the Board. He also founded and ran
radio station WVNJ and was manager of Orange Mountain Com-
munications in West Orange, New Jersey. Mr. Scudder has served
on the board of the Paper Mill Playhouse, as a Director of the
Newark Museum, and as Treasurer, Director and Vice President of
the Lake Placid Education Foundation.
Richard Scudder served as publisher of the Newark Evening
News. Mr. Scudder also developed a process for getting ink out of
used newspapers and reconstituting the fibers as newsprint. His
Garden State Paper Company and affiliate companies, which have
8
been recycling for thirty years, will produce 1.1 million tons of
recycled newsprint in 1991. r.Scudder received a Class Tiger for
his recycling and environmental charity work. Like his brother, he
was active in running the Paper Mill Playhouse, serving as a Vice
President. In recent years, Mr. Scudder has continued his career in
the newspaper business as co-owner of the Houston Post, the Denver
Post, and publisher of papers in New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut,
California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
9
JOHN H. SCULLY '66
r. Scully majored in the Woodrow Wilson School at
M
Princeton. After receiving an MBA at Stanford Univer-
sity in 1968, he began a career in investment manage-
ment and became affiliated with the Bass family. His activities
have included public market investing and the acquisition of pub-
lic and private companies. He is a director of the Bell & Howell
Company, Inc.; New American Holdings, Inc.; and Wometco Cable
Corporation.
Mr. Scully was named a director of the Princeton University
Investment Company (PRINCO) in 1987. He became a Trustee of
the University in 1990.
Mr. Scully's current philanthropic activities focus on children
and educational opportunity. He is the founder and President of
the Making Waves Foundation, a program to benefit inner city
youth, and is a trustee of the Branson School.
10
DONORS
Princeton University hereby gratefully acknowledges the follow-
ing donors to the campaign for new and renovated facilities for
the social sciences:
John E. Arens '34
John H. Arens '60
Robert A. Bendheim '37
Bunge Corporation
Doris and Donald Fisher hc'76
John J. Fisher '83
Robert J. Fisher '76
William S. Fisher '79
Robert E. Jacoby '51
John E. Klein '67
Leon Lowenstein Foundation
Merrill Lynch and Company Foundation
Robertson Foundation
Edward W. Scudder, Jr. '35
Richard B. Scudder '35
John H. Scully '66
11
Einstein in Princeton
Einstein in Princeton
3
"I am privileged by fate to live here in Princeton
as if on an island," wrote Albert Einstein in 1936
to a friend. "Into this small university town, too,
the chaotic voices of human strife barely
penetrate."
Einstein's famous quote "God is subtle, but he is not malicious" is
carved in German over the fireplace of the Common Room in the
University's Jones (originally Fine) Hall, where Einstein had his
office for six years.
4
Einstein walks before Fuld Hall,
the main building of the Institute
for Advanced Study.
Einstein came to America from Germany in 1933
By this time, his celebrated theory of relativity had
to accept an appointment as life member of the
elevated him to a renown he never expected and,
newly founded Institute for Advanced Study, an
indeed, never relished. But Princeton, a "quaint
independent and privately endowed research
and ceremonious village," as Einstein described it,
center in Princeton. At first, Einstein and his four
accorded him privacy and quiet respect for 22
colleagues in the Institute's Department of
years, until his death in 1955.
Mathematics were housed on the Princeton
University campus. He kept this office, in the
original Fine Hall (now Jones Hall, room 209),
until 1939, when the Institute's first building was
completed.
5
Einstein was a familiar figure on the streets of
His fame as a physicist, of course, assured his
He received visitors-including Princeton
Princeton with his mass of white hair, unruly and
place as one of Princeton's most memorable
University students-graciously. One group of
unconventional, his pipe in hand, very often
residents. But those who knew him were also
students who went Christmas caroling to
wearing sandals or shoes with no socks.
impressed with his humility, kindness, good
Einstein's house recalled his warm attention to
humor, and compassion. Beyond Einstein's
them as he stood on his porch listening (in
idiosyncratic appearance were gentle eyes and a
marked contrast to their visit to the other famous
sympathetic, thoughtful nature.
person in town at the time, Thomas Mann, where
no one even peeked out the window at them,
despite an apparently elegant party going on
inside).
6
Taken the day after Einstein died, this photo
shows his Institute office as he left it.
Einstein held the title of professor of theoretical
physics at the Institute for Advanced Study. His
research there revolved around his search for a
"unified field" theory-using a geometrical
framework to investigate the relationship between
gravitation and electromagnetism.
While he lived in Princeton,
Einstein spent most afternoons
researching at home in his office.
Weekday mornings he would walk from his home
People who worked with Einstein remark on his
in Princeton to his first-floor office in the Institute's
tremendous persistence, his dogged pursuit of a
Fuld Hall. There he would usually be joined by
problem until he arrived at an answer. Coupled
one, two, or three friends or assistants to work on
with this was his ability to concentrate intensely
equations, frequently using a chalkboard. The
and to think clearly and simply. When he came to
group broke up around noon and each worked
an impasse in a problem, Einstein often
independently during the afternoon. Einstein
announced with his German accent, "I will a little
himself returned home for luncheon and retired to
think," at which point he either paced or stood
his study. If something exciting came up during
still, twirling his hair, his face betraying no
their afternoon calculations, the researchers often
particular strain.
called one another on the telephone to discuss it.
9
Outside his hours devoted to study, Einstein
In addition, his efforts on behalf of world peace,
keenly enjoyed playing the violin. As often as
disarmament, and Jewish causes kept him busy
possible he joined friends and acquaintances in
writing and making public appearances.
town to form chamber groups and play some of
his favorite composers-especially those of the
18th century. He also loved taking long walks in
the fields and woods around Princeton and
occasionally sailed on nearby Lake Carnegie.
10
Einstein's Princeton home,
at 112 Mercer Street.
Einstein lived in a white frame house at 112
Mercer Street (now privately occupied and not
open to the public) with his wife Elsa (who died in
1936) and their secretary-housekeeper, Helen
Dukas. Elsa's daughter Margot came to live with
them in 1934. Later Einstein's sister Maja also
took up residence there. A wirehaired terrier,
Chico, and Tiger the tomcat completed Einstein's
domestic picture.
11
At the age of 75, when he died at home in his
Otto Nathan, a longtime friend and professor of
sleep, Einstein was still investigating his unified
economics at Princeton University, and Helen
field theory and continuing the political activism
Dukas were named executors of his estate.
that had occupied him during his years in
According to Einstein's wishes, his house was not
America.
turned into a museum. His papers, archived at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem, are being
published by Princeton University Press.
12
Opening quote from Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann,
eds., Albert Einstein: The Human Side, copyright the
Route 206
Route 206
Albert Einstein Estate (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1979), 52.
Published by the
Mercer Street
Office of Communications/Publications
Princeton
Battlefield
Institute for
Theological
Nassau Street (Route 27)
Princeton University
Princeton
Princeton, New Jersey
Advance Study
Seminary
Princeton
Photographic credits: page 3, William Choi;
University Place
University
page 6, © Allen Richards; page 10, William Choi
The
VISTAS
of
Princeton University
Gardens, landscaping,
and courtyards of the campus
A PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PUBLICATION
Office of Communications/Publications, Stanhope Hall, Princeton University,
Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264
With special thanks to James Consolloy,
manager of grounds,
whose time and horticultural expertise
made this book possible;
The
John Wisniewski and John Mellody,
who enthusiastically shared their experience of
more than 35 years as University grounds foremen;
VISTAS
Earle E. Coleman, University archivist;
and Yetta Ziolkowski.
of
Published by
the Office of Communications/Publications
Princeton University
Princeton University
Stanhope Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264
Written by
Gardens, landscaping,
Susan C. Jennings
and courtyards of the campus
Illustrated by
Heather Lovett (flora)
Charles McVicker and Lucy Graves McVicker (campus scenes)
Designed by
Bonnie McVicker Wilson
Lauri McVicker Hein
Art directed by
Laurel Masten Cantor
Concept for the guide book series developed by
Mary Jane Lydenberg
Annual Giving
Typeset and printed by
the Office of University Printing Services
Princeton University
Princeton's beautiful campus is the
List of Illustrations
product of creative minds and
countless hours of labor. When
Paeonia (peony), Heather Lovett, title page, page 4
first planted, the natural materials
Kalmia latifolia (mountain laurel), Heather Lovett, page 2
that give form and interest to
Wisteria sinensis (Chinese wisteria), Heather Lovett, page 3
today's campus only hinted at the vision
Hedera helix (English ivy), Heather Lovett, page 5
that guided
their selection. But tended with care and
Graduate College, Charles McVicker, page 6
patient expectation, they have matured into an environment
Cornus florida (flowering dogwood), Heather Lovett, page 7
of uncommon verdancy.
Graduate College New Quadrangle, Charles McVicker, page 8
James McCosh, president of the University from 1868 to
Cercis canadensis (eastern redbud), Heather Lovett, page 9
1888, was instrumental in transforming an austere campus
Blair Walk, Lucy Graves McVicker, page 10
into an arboretum of native and rare plant species. McCosh,
Magnolia grandiflora (southern magnolia), Heather Lovett, page 11
a Scot and lover of the informal English garden, delighted in
Pyracantha coccinea (scarlet firethorn), Heather Lovett, page 12
planning new buildings and pathways. It was McCosh who
Blair Walk, Dodge Memorial Gateway, Charles McVicker, page 13
recommended hiring Princeton's first landscape gardener,
McCosh Walk, Charles McVicker, page 14
Donald Grant Mitchell. Ik Marvel, as he was known, was
Ulmus americana (American elm), Heather Lovett, page 15
responsible for planting many of the trees in front of Nassau
Woodrow Wilson School, Scudder Plaza, Charles McVicker, page 18
Hall and for landscaping the original Dickinson Hall.
Magnolia x soulangiana (saucer magnolia), Heather Lovett, page 19
Much of Princeton's present beauty is the work of Beatrix
Voorhees Courtyard, Lucy Graves McVicker, page 20
Jones Farrand. Commissioned in 1912 to work with archi-
Pieris japonica (Japanese andromeda), Heather Lovett, page 21
tect Ralph Adams Cram at the new Graduate College,
Hibben Garden, Lucy Graves McVicker, page 22
Farrand was appointed University consulting landscape
Buxus sempervirens (English boxwood), Heather Lovett, page 23
architect in 1915. Her work at the Graduate College was an
Prospect Gardens, Charles McVicker, page 24
auspicious beginning to a 30-year association with the
Delphinium elatum (candle larkspur), Heather Lovett, page 25
University. Farrand's work (and that of her head gardener,
McCosh Infirmary Garden, Lucy Graves McVicker, page 26
James Clark, who served from 1928 to 1962) survives today
Hamamelis mollis (Chinese witch hazel), Heather Lovett, page 27
almost in its entirety at the Graduate College and in
Class of 1941 Court, Charles McVicker, page 28
remnants throughout the main campus. Still evident are her
Parrotia persica (Persian parrotia), Heather Lovett, page 29
basic design principles-to emphasize rather than conceal
Walker-Cuyler Courtyard, Lucy Graves McVicker, page 30
the architectural lines of the buildings, to simplify and unify
by avoiding random planting, and to consider the seasonal
2
use of the campus in selecting plants. Her style is exemplified
by the more than 90 varieties of shrubs and trees espaliered
against the towering walls of the Graduate College and main
campus, the evergreen materials on buildings and in borders,
her judicious selection of deciduous trees, and the huge
splashes of cascading forsythia on Holder Hall, hydrangea in
the courtyards of the Graduate College and at Lockhart
Dormitory, and white and purple wisteria throughout the
campus.
The nursery Farrand started also survives. It was not only
a means of saving money but also expressed fundamental
ideas about landscape design. Landscaping,
Farrand thought, should not impose a
design upon a space but should shape it
using indigenous materials. The Univer-
sity nursery supplied plants grown in the
soil and climate of their eventual home.
It served an educational purpose too, for
the nurseries Farrand established at the
three campuses where she worked
(Princeton, Yale, and Chicago) shared
the results of horticultural experiments as
well as their surplus plants. Although
Yale's and Chicago's nurseries no longer
exist, the Princeton nursery continues to
supply
some plants for the grounds. Landscape architect Diana
Balmori plans to draw from the nursery for landscaping the
University's new swimming pool complex.
Farrand respected the noble and monastic character of
GO
University life, and her creations were consonant with this
vision. "Pettiness of detail" was inappropriate at an institu-
3
tion of learning, and her landscapes were both grand and
Class of 1941
dignified. Few would call Princeton a monastic community
Court
today. More recent designs for planting reflect the diversity
of the modern university and consider the
more mundane problems of traffic, air
The plaza between Lourie-Love and 1941 dormitories is an
pollution, budgets, and security,
example of the urban landscapes formed by the newer
as well as the University's increas-
architecture and plantings on the campus. The formal
ingly diversified architecture. The
repetition of pink saucer magnolias provides a visual rhythm
landscaping by Clarke and Rapu-
and a sense of place and scale. The regularly spaced benches
ano of Firestone Plaza and the
invite students to gather and socialize. Several steps at the
Woodrow Wilson School of Public
west end of the plaza divide the large space, preventing
and International Affairs illustrates the more urban feel of
monotony, and lead to an upper terrace shaded by thornless
the modern campus. The architectural values inherent in the
honey locusts (a favorite of urban land-
newer buildings are extended into the landscape. The result
scape designers), Washington hawthorns,
is a hospitable, beautiful setting in which people mingle and
and Japanese parrotias. The lacy-leafed
carry on the exchange of ideas that is the essence of Univer-
locusts form an open crown, which
sity life.
filters the light and casts a lovely
If contemporary landscaping efforts are less grand in
dappled shade on the terrace.
concept and scope than in Farrand's time, they nevertheless
The foliage of the smaller
serve a similar end. In an article in the Princeton Alumni
parrotias next to the locusts
Weekly (June 9, 1926) Farrand stated her goal this way:
adds color, especially in the fall when the leaves
turn a splendid bronze. Viewed from the plaza they
Although the Princeton University plantings have
also serve as a transitional element between the magnolias
been designed primarily as appropriate settings to
below and the canopy of locust foliage above. The courtyard
various buildings, there has also been a second
evokes the Gothic tradition of Princeton's past-in its
object.
We all know education is by no means a
mere matter of books, and that aesthetic environment
quadrangle layout and the color of the brick that recalls the
contributes as much to mental growth as facts
stonework of older buildings nearby-while remaining
assimilated from a printed page. No life is well-
faithful to contemporary style.
rounded without the subtle inspiration of beauty.
Beauty brings to it refreshment and renewal
[The]
gardening organization at the University is trying its
4
29
best to make the dwellers in and around the campus
demand beauty in their daily life as part of their right
and essential to their development.
Each of the sites featured here serves a different need.
There are places to congregate, to meditate, and to appreci-
ate nature. There are places where one can simply escape
from the noise of daily life. This little book is an invitation
to view Princeton from the perspective of its natural, albeit
planned, surroundings. Refreshed and renewed by this
beauty, one acquires a deeper understanding of the
intellectual ideals that have nourished the Uni-
versity for more than two centuries.
-S.C.J.
5
McCosh Infirmary
Garden
Literally off the beaten path is a
small garden behind McCosh
Infirmary. Hidden behind a brick
wall covered in English ivy, the garden
was intended for the enjoyment of the
infirmary's patients and staff. After
climbing a slight incline where jasmine blos-
soms cascade over a wall in the late winter, one
descends from a terraced area, where two saucer magnolias
grow, to the garden itself. Here several species grow against
the walls: a southern magnolia, English holly, Chinese
photinia, and nandina, whose foliage and red berries are
brilliant in the fall. On the east and west walls is Chinese
witch hazel. (Crush its bright yellow flowers in midwinter
and the lovely fragrance provides an intimation of the
coming spring.) The center flower bed blooms in spring and
summer with tulips, daffodils, irises, geraniums, daylilies,
and perennial hibiscus. The serenity and beauty of this
secluded spot illustrate the restorative effect careful land-
scaping can have on both body and spirit.
27
Graduate College
The Graduate College was Beatrix Farrand's first Princeton
project, and it is the site where her work is best preserved.
One enters the College via a curved road planted with
Douglas fir, Norway spruce, white pine, and hemlock.
Groups of tulips, oaks, and gum trees lighten the effect of
the evergreens, while dogwood and forsythia add color in
the spring. A low wall, built at Farrand's direction in order
to give visual support to the vertical lines of
the building, borders the road and forms
the entrance court at the base of
Cleveland Tower. This wall continues
around the south side of the building
forming a terrace that provides a lovely
vista of the grounds. Viewed from the
golf course, the English yews and stately
American elms that grow here frame the building
and relate it to the natural setting. The wisteria
and English and Boston ivy that twine up the walls do not
overpower the structure but emphasize its elevation and
illustrate one of Farrand's landscaping principles for the
Collegiate Gothic campus: Windows are unobstructed;
"salient angles" are emphasized; nothing must distract the
eye from the soaring verticality of the architecture.
Visible at the west end of the terrace is Wyman House,
the dean's residence. The gardens behind Wyman House
were also Farrand's creation and have been restored through
the efforts of Dean Theodore Ziolkowski and his wife,
Yetta. The terraced gardens feature roses, perennials, and a
L.D.M.
pleached alley of hornbeam.
7
Prospect Gardens
Now a social center for faculty and staff, Prospect
House was once the residence of Princeton's
presidents. Mrs. Woodrow Wilson (Ellen)
planned the present gardens after her husband
had a fence installed around the grounds in
1904 to cut down on student traffic. The
park-like setting of the Florentine-style house
invites visitors to enter the main gate. Here
rare and native plants grow side by side. The
main garden in the back of the house is
semicircular with paths radiating from the
center. The evergreen curtain of hemlocks
and rhododendrons in the background
provides a dark contrast to the riotous
display of color in spring, when tulips, daffodils, anemones,
and hyacinths bloom. In early summer candytuft, iris, fox-
gloves, delphiniums, and peonies begin their bloom, fol-
lowed by brightly colored petunias, zinnias, and other
annuals in midsummer. The chrysanthemums planted by the
gardening staff in August and September provide color into
the late autumn. On the west side of the house and visible
from the gardens is the cedar of Lebanon planted by an En-
glishman named Petrey in 1849. With its huge, sinuous
branches, which resemble entangled arms, and its canopy-
shaped foliage, the tree is a striking specimen.
25
Old and New
Quadrangles
The two inner courtyards of the Graduate College represent
an interesting contrast. In the Old Quadrangle (south) the
two graceful cedars of Lebanon given by Charles
Sprague Sargent (founder of the Arnold Arbore-
tum in Boston) to Dean Andrew West, first
dean of the new Graduate College,
dominate the courtyard. In the
spring the quadrangle is fragrant
with white wisteria (over the
arcade at the north end), climb-
ing hydrangea, and other flowering
shrubs. The New Quadrangle (north) is more intimate, less
uniform in architectural detail, and thereby permits a livelier
landscaping treatment. Except for the magnificent redbud
tree at one corner, the courtyard is open in the center. On
the perimeter of the courtyard Farrand planted English holly,
a southern magnolia, which flourishes in the protected court-
yard, and a poncirus covered in spring with orange-like fruit.
Espaliered against the walls are several varieties of ivy;
feathery, pink tamarisk; and purple-leaved plum, whose
foliage accentuates the purplish stones in the walls' predomi-
nantly gray mosaic. The witch hazel, which begins blooming
during warm spells in the winter, and the purple wisteria,
climbing hydrangea, oriental bittersweet, and honeysuckle,
which follow in the early and late spring, contribute to the
year-round beauty of this courtyard.
9
Hibben Garden
The small alcove on the north façade of the chapel illustrates
how landscaping can transform mere space into a place. The
garden is a memorial to John G. Hibben, president of the
University during the chapel's construction. Dean Mathey
'12, a trustee for more than 30 years, funded the project,
which landscape architect H. Russell Butler, Jr., designed.
Although white azaleas bloom in the spring, the main year-
round interest is the interplay of
textures. The elegant, sculp-
tured boxwood contrasts
with the lighter, coarser foliage of
the azaleas and the large rhododen-
drons. The Japanese holly adds a
pleasing ornamental accent while
providing a sense of privacy. A
narrow path leads to a limestone bench, which invites the
visitor to "Come ye yourself apart into a lovely place and
rest awhile." From this quiet spot one can contemplate the
small but perfect composition of the garden.
23
Blair Walk
The walkway from the dinky station to the heart of the main
campus gave Beatrix Farrand ample space in which to
demonstrate her talent, and it was a project in which she
took particular pride. The vista from the west side of Pyne
Dormitory up toward Blair Tower is pleasing in any season,
but it is breathtakingly beautiful in spring.
Blair Walk was designed as a major entrance to the
University. In fact, the path parallels the former site of train
tracks that once brought travelers to the foot of Blair Tower.
Near the present train station on University Place the
walkway is bordered by closely pruned Japanese yews. The
formality of the dark yews is softened by the saucer magno-
lias and two towering white pines that
grow on University Place.
On the southwest corner
of Pyne stands an
enormous southern
magnolia. Although
magnolia grandiflora,
with its glossy leaves
and five-inch, cream-
colored blossoms, usually
grows best in warmer climates,
several dot the Princeton
grounds, where they seem to flourish in protected corners.
As one passes through Dodge Memorial Gateway, which
marks the entrance to the courtyard between Henry and
1901 dormitories, the planting changes. Yellow jasmine
blooms on 1901's southwest façade in the winter. Widely
11
spaced elms, Kentucky coffee trees, and the espaliers on the
Voorhees Courtyard
stone walls (including cornus kousa, tamarisk, magnolia
kobus, climbing hydrangea, and winter honeysuckle) pre-
With its diversity of flora and its sculptural forms, the
serve the sense of spaciousness and simplicity within the
Voorhees Courtyard at the Engineering Quadrangle is a bold
courtyards while adding to their beauty. White and purple
composition. Named after Stephen Voorhees '00, University
wisteria grow on the east side of Henry and Foulke. A
consulting architect, the enclosure is a spacious outdoor
weeping Japanese cherry gracefully
sculpture gallery showcasing the works of Naum Gabo,
frames the middle entrance of Henry.
Masayuki Nagaro, and Dimitri Hadzi. The courtyard is
On Laughlin and 1901's west side the
bordered by flagstone paving, and the sculptures anchor
original planting of orange-berried pyra-
three distinct landscaping units. A sweeping, white gravel
cantha still clings to the stone walls. With
path unifies the three areas. The perimeter of the courtyard
Blair Tower's imposing form rising
is planted with shade-loving species-
in the distance, the quiet dignity of
azaleas, bayberry, and andromeda.
these courtyards makes a fitting
Serviceberry trees, with their gray,
introduction to the University.
striated bark, bloom in spring
with small fragrant, white
flowers and produce berries
that attract birds to the court-
yard in the fall. Birches accent the
total picture, while the tall white
pines provide a sense of scale in
this huge space. Native dogwood blooms in
May. Near Gabo's Spheric Theme and overhanging the
reflecting pool stands a lovely Japanese threadleaf maple.
The harmony here between nature and works of art is very
satisfying and makes this courtyard a peaceful shelter.
12
21
La C
A
Woodrow Wilson School
Scudder Plaza
Robertson Hall, home of the Woodrow Wilson School, and
the plaza in front of it form a self-contained unit on the edge
of the central campus. The formal and spacious court,
recently named Scudder Plaza, reinforces the symmetry and
classical proportions of the architecture. The row of saucer
magnolias, which are surrounded by a bed of
English spreading yew, echoes the rhythm of
the soaring quartz-covered pillars on the
northwest façade of the building. In
winter their delicate branches, with buds
borne like candles on the tips, are a foil
to the elegant, slender pillars. In spring
the trees provide a spectacular show of
pink blossoms under which students study and
socialize. The reflecting pool, with its bronze sculpture
"Fountain of Freedom" by James Fitzgerald, provides a
popular respite from the heat of midsummer for students
and visitors alike.
19
McCosh Walk
Tree-lined McCosh Walk is named after President James
McCosh, whose love of the informal English garden played
an important role in the evolution of the Princeton campus.
The American elms interspersed with American beeches
form a green colonnade along the east-west axis of the cam-
pus. The University planted the beech trees in the mid-1960s
on the assumption that the elms would
fall victim to Dutch elm disease. An
aggressive injection and pruning
program has halted the
disease's spread, and the hand-
some, well-formed elms con-
tinue to thrive.
A stroll along McCosh
walk is interesting from an architectural point of view.
Cutting through the heart of the main campus from Wash-
ington Road to University Place, the path takes the visitor
past a wealth of architectural styles-the eclecticism of the
High-Victorian Witherspoon Hall on the west, the modern
styles of the Art Museum and School of Architecture build-
ings, the Italianate design of Prospect House, and the Colle-
giate Gothic of McCosh Hall. Through the tiger-guarded
plaza between Whig and Clio's Greek Revival marble
façades, one can glimpse Nassau Hall, the University's oldest
building.
15
Spring Street
Bayard Lane (Rte 206)
Chambers Street
Palmer
Square
Paimer
House
Witherspoon Street
Street
South Turane ane
Avenue
Vandeventer
Moore Street
Chestnut Street
Pine Street
Maple Street
Linden Lane
Library Place
New Brunswick
Nassau Street (Route 27)
Monument Drive
Burr
185 Nassau Street
Madison
Maciean
Henry
201
221
House
House
Green
Holder
Olden Street
Murray Place
Place 9 University
Student
Nassau
Center
10
William Street
Engineering
Howrie
Hall
Quadrangle
2
Aiken Avenue
Hamilton
Princeton Avenue
Firestone
Stockton Street (Route 206)
Joline
Campbell
Alexander
Library
10A
1
Hoys
Mercer Street (Princeton Pike)
8
Blair
Computer Science
Energy
Research
West
Lab
College
Princeton
Chapel
Edgehill Street
McCosh
Dickinson
University
Press
Frick
Corwin
1A
Patton Avenue
Von
University
Clio
Whig
of
Robertson
Mudd Manuscript
Third
Store
Murr
Library
World
Bendheim
Lockhart
Architecture
Center
Hibben Road
McCormick
Art
Edwards
Museum
3
1879
116 Prospect
University
Fisher
Dial
Colonial
Tiger
Elm
Prospect Avenue
Foulke
Little
Dod
Laughtin
Woolworth
Campus
Tower
Quadrangle
Ivy
Cottage
Cap
Cloister
Charter
Stevenson
Gown
Halls
Prospect House
Brown
Notestein
901
Prospect
Palmer
Gardens
Terrace
Princeton Theological Seminary
71 University
Cuyler
Jones
Place
14
fL
26
Broadmead Street
1903
Pyne
Roper Lane
Feinberg
Computing Center
1937
4
70
Walker
18
College Road
Washington
Speliman
Dillon
Road
Hatis
Patton
Guyot
Ivy Lane
Gymnasium
25
Trenton
1939
woaso
Dodge
poor
McCosh Infirmary
Western Way
Peyton
Eno
Bullding Memorial
1927
Dinky
25
McCarter
Tennis
1915
Strubing Field
RR
Courts
Moffett
Rock Magnetism
FitzRandolph Road
171 Broadmead
Theatre
Station
Wilcox
938
Fine
Alexander
New
Tennis Pavilion
I
Lourie-Love
South
Tennis
1941
1922
Clarke Field
Thomas
Graduate College
90
Courts
1942
Jadwin
Palmer
22
5
Stadium
15
and
Fields
Sexton
Baker Rink
24
120
Forbes
Boiler House
Finney Field
Field
College
7
Poe Field
Pardee Field
15
Campbell
Fitzervatoiph
12
Alexander Street
Armory
Frelinghuysen
12
Field
21
912 Pavilion
15
Wyman
Springdale Golf Course
7
House
Caldwell
Field House
21
Chilled
Lab
Water
Plant
Lourie-
7
Gulick
Princeton
Love
Field
20
Washington Road
Swimming
95 Field
Pool
Cooling
Field
Towers
Jadwin
19
University
28
Lenz
Gymnasium
Tennis
Elementary
Particles
N
Center
Butler Apartments
0.50
200
500 feet
16
Main Campus
Restricted Parking Areas
Z Transit
Bedford Field
52 Field
23
Springdale Road
Elm Drive
Lake Carnegie
Faculty Road
Boathouse
Route
Rev. 4/23/90
Conversations
on the Character
of Princeton
with
Carlos Baker
By WILLIAM McCLEERY
William G. Bowen
Marvin Bressler
J. Douglas Brown
Peter J. Carril
Natalie Zemon Davis
Joan Stern Girgus
Robert F. Goheen
Robert G. Jahn
Suzanne Keller
Stanley Kelley, Jr.
Alvin B. Kernan
Aaron Lemonick
Arthur S. Link
Eugene Y. Lowe, Jr.
Alpheus T. Mason
Robert M. May
Neil L. Rudenstine
Carl E. Schorske
William R. Schowalter
Elaine Showalter
Conrad D. Snowden
Donald E. Stokes
Theodore R. Weiss
Theodore Ziolkowski
Introduction
Foreword
Afterword
LEWIS THOMAS
HAROLD T. SHAPIRO
THOMAS H. KEAN
Conversations
on the Character
of Princeton
Conversations
on the Character
of Princeton
By WILLIAM McCLEERY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Copyright © 1986 by William McCleery. All rights reserved.
Published by Princeton University, Office of Communications/Publications
First printing-1986
Second printing-1986
Third printing (revised edition)-1990
Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press
Set in type by Elizabeth Typesetting Company and
the Office of University Printing Services
Designed by Mahlon L. Lovett
Cover drawing by Gillett Good Griffin
To order additional copies, write or call-
Office of Communications/Publications
Stanhope Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264
609-258-3600
Contents
Introduction. Lewis Thomas
vii
Foreword. Harold T. Shapiro
ix
Preface. William McCleery
xiv
1. Carlos Baker
1
2. William G. Bowen
6
3. Marvin Bressler
12
4. J. Douglas Brown
20
5. Peter J. Carril
26
6. Natalie Zemon Davis
33
7. Joan Stern Girgus
39
8. Robert F. Goheen
44
9. Robert G. Jahn
50
10. Suzanne Keller
55
11. Stanley Kelley, Jr
59
12. Alvin B. Kernan
65
13. Aaron Lemonick
70
14. Arthur S. Link
74
15. Eugene Y. Lowe, Jr
78
16. Alpheus T. Mason
82
17. Robert M. May
90
18. Neil L. Rudenstine
97
19. Carl E. Schorske
102
20. William R. Schowalter
108
21. Elaine Showalter
114
22. Conrad D. Snowden
119
23. Donald E. Stokes
128
24. Theodore R. Weiss
134
25. Theodore Ziolkowski
139
Afterword. Thomas H. Kean
145
Introduction
LEWIS THOMAS
I
don't know how many of the graduates of Prince-
ton are beset, as I am from time to time, by guilty
feelings for having gotten less than they might
have from having studied in that great, dear place. I
would guess that the number is large, maybe the
majority that it should be if all were honest with
themselves. For there is, and always was, more there to
be taken away than even the more absorptive minds
could possibly carry.
My father (1899) told me that I (1933) was lucky,
luckier than he and his brothers Lew (1898) and Tom
(1903). I could have, he said, a modern education. He
had learned only the things that were known just before
the turn of the century, an education in ignorance he
called it, while I had before me all the vast store of
knowledge accumulated during the first third of the
twentieth century, and now I could get at it. It would be
up to me.
He took for granted, as I came to do, that Princeton
was a place designed primarily, maybe solely, for learn-
ing. He envied me the preceptorial system, which had
come in after his time, and wished he had that experi-
ence, but even without it his memories were filled with
the teachers he had known for the four years between
1895 and 1899; his one regret was that he had learned
less than he could have if only he'd kept his socks pulled
Lewis Thomas, M.D., Princeton Class of 1933, is president emeritus of
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and author of the prize-
winning books The Lives of a Cell and The Medusa and the Snail. He has
been on the medical school faculties of Cornell, New York University,
Rockefeller University, and Yale.
vii
viii
LEWIS THOMAS
up and tried harder. When he talked of this, about how
much Princeton had offered him and how much less he
had been able to take, he sounded wistful. If he had it to
do over, he said, and eyed me with purpose.
It is like this for me, looking back more than a half
century. I had no idea at the time, back in the thirties,
that the university was unique. I took it as simply given
that the faculty were there as my friends, almost an
extension of my family, ready to explore life itself in any
complexity with me tagging along as a younger cousin,
yelping in curiosity, everyone perplexed together. I
could, I discovered, take it or leave it. I took some,
enough to get on with, and left some. Ever since, I've
wished I'd had more sense and taken it all, or anyway
more than I did.
The term "research university" had not yet been
invented, but it was plain that a lot of people on the
faculty were devoted to research, and it never crossed
anyone's mind that this endeavor was secondary to, or
interfered with, the teaching of undergraduates. In-
deed, as I recall, teaching was not the word to describe
what went on, learning was.
The pages of this book are testimony that Princeton
has not changed. In the face of a spectacular expansion
of her research and graduate education programs, the
undergraduate students remain, as always, at the center
of the university's concern. Best of all, the faculty take
vast pleasure in this concern, they take pride in the
quality of their undergraduate teaching, they even
appear, for all the seriousness of this intensely serious
institution, to be having the greatest fun.
Foreword
HAROLD T. SHAPIRO
hen the decision was made to bring out this
W
new edition of Conversations (first published
in 1986), it seemed appropriate to lead it off
with some words from an educator who had spent much
of the last two years intensively studying Princeton's char-
acter in his role as its new president.
Harold T. Shapiro readily agreed to sit for a conversa-
tional foreword, saying he had read the book while first
considering the Princeton presidency, it had contributed
to his understanding of the University, and he would be
glad to talk about it and about his own view of Princeton's
character.
Our conversation took place in his large Nassau Hall
office looking out on Cannon Green, he in shirt sleeves
seated behind his desk, looking young for his 55 years, and
eager to get to the subjects at hand.
Speaking first of the book, he called it "a self-portrait of
Princeton at one point in its recent history. It has changed
some since the conversations took place, but not in the
fundamental principles set forth. The book is to some
extent an idealization, but we still subscribe to the ideals.
Some of the persons who appear are no longer with us, but
Harold T. Shapiro-A.B. McGill University, Ph.D. Princeton (1964)-became
Princeton's 18th president in January 1988 after eight years as president of the
University of Michigan. He is also a professor of economics as he was at
Michigan. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the Conference Board
Inc., the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology, and the Govern-
ment-University-Industry Research Roundtable of the National Academy of
Sciences. A trustee of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Interlochen Center
for the Arts, and the Universities Research Association, he serves as a director of
the American Council on Education, the Dow Chemical Company, and the
National Bureau of Economic Research.
ix
X
HAROLD T. SHAPIRO
I believe they still fairly represent today's faculty and
administration and, I hope, tomorrow's. Anyone reading
their remarks will gain useful insight into Princeton-and
into education generally-and will get acquainted with
some educators well worth knowing."
Turning to Princeton, he said he obviously could not
come up with a significant characteristic that no one else
had mentioned, "but the more I study the place, the more
I find some of its basic characteristics combining to form
an institution that, in many ways, seems to symbolize
American education.
"The look of Princeton-its historic buildings and
lovely campus-backed by its worldwide reputation for
scholarship and research, and its dedication to the teach-
ing of undergraduates-all of this seems to stand for,
seems to say, 'education.'
"Princeton of course is not alone in having a symbolic
quality. There are other institutions that have a grasp on
the educational psyche of the country. But because of its
uncommonly small size for an institution of such emi-
nence, the symbolism is especially concentrated here."
He said the notion of Princeton as symbol had first
struck him when he returned to the campus in 1987 to
discuss the presidency (which he assumed in 1988), after
being away since his days as a graduate student (1961-64).
"My old friends told me I wouldn't recognize the place,
it had changed so much. The wonderful thing was, it felt
just the same! New buildings had gone up, but in such a
way that the old ones still dominated. There were changes
around the edges but not at the center. I felt I had come
back home. It had the impact of an environment I very
clearly remembered. As Neil Rudenstine puts it (chapter
18), Princeton has a 'presence.' It doesn't leave you
neutral. This presence is felt not just by Princetonians;
even casual visitors to the campus seem affected by it.
"Partly because we're aware of Princeton's symbolism,
I think most of us who work or have worked here, as
HAROLD T. SHAPIRO
xi
students, faculty, or administrators, consider ourselves
lucky-and duty-bound to do what we can in this genera-
tion to make sure that succeeding generations will have
the same opportunities, and the same passion for the place,
that we have. And this attitude is a significant element in
Princeton's character, as it is in the character of any
institution that arouses loyalty in its people."
Princeton's historic emphasis on serving the nation is a
characteristic Shapiro considers major, and one he greatly
admires. "Universities, public or private, have a broad
public purpose: they exist to serve the country. Educate
people, yes; produce new knowledge, yes; but in doing
these things also provide leadership in various aspects of
national life. That doesn't mean we should tell New York
City whether to centralize its school system, or General
Motors how many divisions it should have. We can't deal
directly with substance abuse or air pollution or toxic
wastes. We're not quick thinkers, we're deep thinkers. We
can't give instantaneous advice; we're for careful and
reflective thought. But people do look to us for help-and
leadership-in dealing with whatever is bothering them.
Most of what we discover does, eventually, contribute to
solving down-to-earth problems, even though we don't
always address them directly. There are institutions that
do, and should, respond quickly. We're not one of them.
But we should, and do, think deeply about things that
matter.
"By being what we are, we draw talents upward and
maximize those talents, and humankind is bound to bene-
fit."
He said Princeton's status as a symbol placed a special
responsibility on it to offer leadership.
In any special area today?
"In many areas. But since this book will be read mainly
by students and teachers, let me say I think it's important
for all institutions of higher learning to demonstrate more
commitment to elementary and secondary education,
xii
HAROLD T. SHAPIRO
which is now undergoing a major crisis in this country."
As for what Princeton can do, and is doing, to help, he
said, "We have to be careful not to over-promise; but our
scholars are exploring how people learn to learn, how they
learn to think. Our faculty conduct special summer pro-
grams for teachers from surrounding communities. Every
year at Commencement we pay symbolic tribute to secon-
dary education by giving only one set of awards, other than
degrees, and those are to outstanding teachers in New Jer-
sey secondary schools. We encourage our students to
consider teaching as a career through our Teacher Prepa-
ration Program.
"There may be other special programs we ought to
develop, but, in the end, we help most by being what we
are: an institution that puts a very high premium on
teaching. Students work here under talented, dedicated,
caring professors-the conversations in this book make
this very clear. I don't see how any teacher, from kinder-
garten through college, could read these conversations
without having his or her spirits lifted by discovering how
scholars at the peak of their professions still feel about the
art of teaching.
"Another way Princeton stands as a valuable symbol is
by having kept its focus on the arts and sciences, even while
giving serious attention to professional education in
engineering, in architecture, and- at the Woodrow Wilson
School-in public and international affairs. It's almost
uncanny how Princeton has these strengths at a time when
many students elsewhere have fled the arts and sciences—
particularly the humanities-and when there is an extraor-
dinary need in the country for broadly trained talent in en-
gineering and public affairs.
"Finally, Princeton's steadfast commitment to under-
graduate education when other research universities were
concentrating on their graduate schools gives it a special
timeliness today, because undergraduate education is
where the greatest challenge in higher education is com-
HAROLD T. SHAPIRO
xiii
ing, where the most creativity and leadership will be
required."
As he walked me out into the hall, he said it was
surprising that Princeton's presence had made so deep an
impression on him in his graduate school days since,
during that earlier stay, "I didn't get inside more than
three buildings!-Firestone Library, where my classes
were; the Chancellor Green Center, where I often had
lunch; and the dining hall at the Graduate College, where
friends sometimes took me to dinner. I lived off campus
with my wife and three children. It's a characteristic of
Princeton that if you work hard, you can get a graduate
degree in three years." He smiled. "I worked hard!"
While he declined to draw any invidious comparison
with the University of Michigan, of which he was presi-
dent before returning to Princeton, he did allow that
because Princeton is so much smaller, "there are far fewer
administrators between the president and both the stu-
dents and the faculty-and that's a characteristic I like very
much." He said that despite problems in American secon-
dary schools "our students are coming in better educated
than ever before, incredibly accomplished. They represent
a treasure coequal to the faculty."
He called Princeton "a small, personal, and one-on-one
community. You can feel the place vibrate with excite-
ment. Alumni and visitors know it on special occasions—
reunions, athletic events, performances, and exhibits at
the Art Museum. I wish they could see students as we do,
passing them on campus between classes, or meeting with
them in class. I think you get a better sense of them from
watching the teams practice than from seeing them play!"
-W. McC.
Preface
WILLIAM McCLEERY
M
uch as they have in common, all universities
are different, and this anthology of informal
conversations is intended to shed light on
how Princeton is different-not just superficially, in
personality and style, but fundamentally different:
What distinctive traits give Princeton its character?
That was the question I took, in various forms, to
more than forty Princeton scholars and admin-
istrators-and one coach-recommended to me as
being extremely knowledgeable about Princeton and
unusually qualified to compare it with other univer-
sities, particularly but not exclusively those of the Ivy
League. Being by choice associated with Princeton, they
obviously had some favorable bias toward it. But they
also knew and cared about universities generally, and
had reputations for objectivity and probity-and far
better things to do with their time than sit around
paying Princeton easy compliments.
They understood that I wanted testimony, not
testimonials.
My hope was that their educated impressions would
define Princeton more clearly for its present faculty,
students, administrators, alumni, and friends, and
would be of practical help to scholars and admin-
istrators considering joining the Princeton family, and
William McCleery-A.B. Nebraska-has been a reporter in the Associ-
ated Press Washington bureau, executive editor of the AP Feature
Service, Sunday editor of PM, associate editor of the Ladies Home
Journal, and editor of University: A Princeton Quarterly. Author of ten
professionally produced plays (two on Broadway), he taught playwriting
for twelve years at Princeton. He edited the public papers of Robert F.
Goheen '40 into the book The Human Nature of a University.
xiv
WILLIAM McCLEERY
XV
to prospective students and their parents and guidance
counselors. That remains this book's principal aim.
But as the conversations proceeded I came to believe
that they might interest a broader audience as well; that
much of what was being said about learning and
teaching was applicable to other human organizations,
including secondary schools, businesses, governments,
churches, even families.
Some of those I talked with were reluctant at first to
compare Princeton with other universities. But this
seemed to me a good way to get at Princeton's character,
and I supported my argument with some lines from
Samuel Johnson's 1765 Preface to Shakespeare:
As among the works of Nature no man can properly call a
river deep, or a mountain high, without the knowledge of
many mountains, and many rivers: so in the productions of
genius, nothing can be styled excellent till it has been
compared with other works of the same kind.
To minimize repetition and achieve an anthology of
manageable length, my forty-some conversations have
been reduced-with a good deal of personal pain and
professional advice-to the twenty-five that appear
here. My warm thanks to those who talked with me and
deepened my understanding of Princeton-and of
learning and teaching-but whose remarks do not
appear.
Some repetition remains. Any institution has a lim-
ited number of genuinely character-determining traits,
so it is not surprising that some of Princeton's are
alluded to more than once. But each allusion, I think,
casts a different light, colored by the personality and
perceptiveness of the alluder. However many times the
senior thesis had been mentioned before, how could one
omit Carl Schorske's characterization of it?
The chapters are arranged alphabetically because that
seemed a practical, even-handed method, but they need
xvi
WILLIAM McCLEERY
not be read in that order-though Carlos Baker does get
right to the heart of Princeton's differentness even as
William Bowen then delimits the number of traits that
combine to form a university's character, and Theodore
Ziolkowski wraps it all up with a fine philosophical
flourish.
The material in the conversations might have been
presented differently to make a quite different book,
with chapter headings such as "Relations between Fac-
ulty and Students" and "Woodrow Wilson's Influence."
But this would have deprived the reader of the pleasure
of sitting down and conversing vicariously with some
articulate, often witty human beings whose association
with and enthusiasm for Princeton may say as much
about the place as their words do.
Some readers may feel there is too little criticism here,
but in fact many of the positive statements about
Princeton have their negative connotations. "Princeton
is small for a major university, and set in a small town"
may be taken as praise by some, but not by those who
want a large university in a large city. "The faculty is
close to the students"-but not all students and cer-
tainly not all professors consider that a blessing.
The simple truth is, Princeton is a certain kind of
place. The people quoted here make pretty clear what
kind. Because they like it, their comments generally
sound favorable. People who disliked it might have made
much the same points, but would have colored them
differently-and with less perceptiveness if one accepts
the principle that we only truly understand what we
love. This book does not attempt to touch on Prince-
ton's every fault or every virtue, for many of both she
shares with similar universities, and the aim here was
an exposition of Princeton's differentness, not her every
characteristic.
It may strike the reader that an anthology like this
could be assembled about any university, with some of
WILLIAM McCLEERY
xvii
its own professors and administrators dwelling on its
distinguishing traits. I agree-and believe we would all
be the wiser for them. Each would add to our under-
standing of education the way a good biography of one
however atypical human being sheds light on all human
nature.
As Woodrow Wilson said in June 1907 to a gathering
at Harvard on the occasion of his receiving, as president
of Princeton, an honorary Harvard degree:
Princeton is not like Harvard, and she does not wish to be.
Neither does she wish Harvard to be like Princeton. She
believes, as every thoughtful man must believe, that the
strength of a democracy is in its variety, and that where there
are a great many competing ideals, the best ideal will
survive the competition Now we at Princeton are in the
arena and you at Harvard are in the arena; and, though ideals
in the field of mind are not ideals in the field of politics, while
it is not necessary that one should go down and the other
survive, I do believe that every ideal flourishes by reason of
the opposition made to it.
"You want to project not your own
superior knowledge but your
1
enthusiasm for the material, for
finding
the buried notions beneath
the lines."
CARLOS BAKER
I
n the mid-1930s young Carlos Baker, A.M., was
teaching at a preparatory school in Buffalo, New
York. Already decided on scholarship as a career, he
was pondering where to go for his Ph.D. in English
when his headmaster, a Princeton alumnus, having sized
him up, said, "Go to Princeton: you'll get to know your
professors."
He took the advice and it turned out to be sound. As a
graduate student, Baker so enjoyed Princeton that he
stayed on for forty years as a member of the faculty.
"This is a place where students and faculty get to know
each other, and if I had to choose the one aspect of
Princeton that most clearly distinguishes it, that would
be it: The way the learners and teachers relate to each
other.
"The same relationship exists at many excellent col-
leges. My own alma mater, Dartmouth, is similarly
devoted to undergraduate teaching. But Princeton is a
university and its faculty has access to graduate students
and research facilities. There are, of course, other
universities where individual scholars and scientists are
Widely known as essayist, critic, editor, and biographer (Ernest Heming-
way: A Life Story), Baker has also published novels, short stories, and
poems. His most recent published works include Ernest Hemingway:
Selected Letters 1917-1961 and The Echoing Green, a study of poetry. He
taught English at Princeton for forty years and was twice chairman of
that department before retiring in 1977. He has a Dartmouth A.B.,
Harvard A.M., and Princeton Ph.D.
1
2
CARLOS BAKER
dedicated to teaching undergraduates, but those indi-
viduals tend to be exceptions. The concept of scholar-
teacher is better realized here than at any other place I
know of. There is less of the huffy standoffishness on
the part of professors who'd like it known that what
they say is The Truth; is not to be questioned; who
regard the student as 'an ear attached to a digestive
system.' To me, after four decades, Princeton seems
more modest."
Now retired, Baker guest-lectured at many univer-
sities during his teaching years. "I was always glad to
get back to Princeton-not only because the rela-
tionship between faculty and students was different but
because, as a consequence, the quality of the students
was different."
Different how?
He combed a sun-tanned hand through his thick
white crewcut. "More reachable; more demanding, in a
good way. Having been treated with a kind of respect
that acknowledges their humanness, Princeton students
seem less awed by their professors. This makes possible
a kind of dialogue between the two that can't go on
when the gap between them is too wide.
"Not all students and professors like, or function best
in, this kind of dialogic relationship; there are those
who prefer to distance themselves-and some do so
even here. Most students, however, can learn more from
someone they feel they know, who treats them as
individuals and seems to care about them. But this
caring is a matter of degree; a graded, graduated thing;
not sentimental, though feelings enter in. You might
call the relationship 'familial' if you acknowledge that
parents have to exercise authority and take respon-
sibility: I don't like the idea of professors getting palsy-
walsy with their students. You might say at Princeton
the student is a temporarily adopted child-in an intel-
lectual sense."
CARLOS BAKER
3
Because of the Princeton faculty's accessibility, "stu-
dents frequently acquire an unusual attitude toward
learning: Some of their professors' enthusiasm for the
material rubs off on them. They discover learning can
be fun-serious fun, but fun. And they get enthusiastic
about the give-and-take of teaching and learning. A
kind of union develops between professor and students,
a sense of common purpose.
"I don't say this goes on at no other university or
invariably goes on at Princeton; but it's institutional
and traditional here, and the high ratio of faculty to
students makes it physically possible."
Does Princeton sacrifice something to get this rela-
tionship between faculty and students? He nodded.
"Some outstanding scholars leave, or decline to come,
because they want more nonteaching hours to do what
they regard as their 'own' work. They go elsewhere and
attract graduate students we'd like to have. Luckily
other great scholars enjoy relating to undergraduates."
There is, he conceded, conflict between teaching and
scholarship. "When you're deep in teaching, your schol-
arship is bound to suffer some. But Princeton is more
determined than most places to provide leaves for its
faculty; by putting together leaves and summers you
can get a good chunk of time for scholarship." Working
this way it took him seven years to write his biography
of Hemingway and another two and a half years to
assemble and edit the Hemingway letters.
Good teaching is fostered at Princeton, he said, by the
"preceptorial" system introduced by President Wood-
row Wilson in 1905: One faculty member working with
a small number of students to discuss material covered
in lectures or assigned reading. "That was one of
Wilson's greatest contributions. In somewhat modified
form it still goes on. Lecturing is considered more
prestigious, but I always found 'precepting' more fun.
"It's good teacher training because you can see the
4
CARLOS BAKER
reaction of students to the material. In fifty minutes you
can reach an extraordinarily high level of excitement and
intellectual joy. But it takes skill. You learn-you teach
yourself, and your students teach you-to keep it on
track, and yet spontaneous and exciting.
"Not all preceptorial sessions attain this level. Some-
times the students sit around like logs, depending on
the material-and the time of year! But when it's good
there's nothing like it. Lecturing, for me, never pro-
duced the same intellectual excitement.
"Precepting rarely goes on at its highest level for the
entire fifty minutes; and it doesn't happen early in a
course; you have to get to know your students. I always
got on a first-name basis with mine-before that was
the fashion-got to know their characteristics. You can
do this, given a small group; get a degree of familiarity
that's a necessary groundwork. You get them coming
forth quite soon, in the third or fourth session, if you
establish friendliness, what I call 'associationism,'
which is the basis for really good exchanges.
"You see one student getting excited about the mate-
rial and you pull him along-Thar's a good idea! Let's
kick it around!' -to stimulate general participation.
You say to a nonparticipant, Joe, can you add anything
to that?" A 'star' student can help you teach. But if you
let one student talk too much, you may lose the others.
You try to get at the center of an assignment while
working the edges as well.
"You have to guide-and push-without seeming to;
stay on top of the material and of the students, who
sometimes surprise you with their understanding and
sometimes with their almost total lack of it.
"You're out to sell the material, but you don't want to
seem overprepared. You want to project not your own
superior knowledge but your enthusiasm for the mate-
rial, for finding its deeper meanings, the buried notions
beneath the lines. You have to come across as the leader
CARLOS BAKER
5
and yet convey a sense of codiscovery. You can't pretend
you're coming on new truths at the same rate they are.
But in the course of eliciting from them-and 'elicit' is
the key word-you do learn things yourself. You have to
be aggressive-keep introducing new ideas to encour-
age them to have ideas of their own-and yet modest, in
the sense that you can't be dictatorial about what the
material should mean to them. At one extreme, mono-
logue; at the other, bull session. You need a genuine
feeling that you, too, have something to learn."
Summing up, he said, "This may sound banal, but it's
true: Under the guidance of good teachers, Princeton
students do educate themselves. The excitement of
arriving at truth-that's what learning is all about."
In contrast to-?
"To having it thrust upon you." He sighed.
"I can still see the faces of students in precepts, of one
young woman in particular. We were discussing a poem
by Wallace Stevens, reading it aloud. Suddenly dawn
spread across her face like Aurora! Pink and rosy! 'Oh! I
see!' The sense of discovery! Columbus couldn't have
looked more excited and pleased when he first spotted
America. That came-the-dawn effect is rare, but for a
teacher it's one of the real rewards."
"It's the combination of
characteristics, as much as the
2
characteristics themselves, that
defines an institution or a person;
the way the different components act
on each other."
WILLIAM G. BOWEN
A
S president of Princeton for more than a decade
he must have gained unusual insight into how
his university works, and how others work.
Had this experience given him a new appreciation of
how Princeton differs from others?
William Bowen was shaking his head. No?
"No," he said, "not a new appreciation. What I see
today as Princeton's most significant characteristics I
saw when I came here nearly thirty years ago as a
graduate student. They were why I came."
What were those characteristics?
"Princeton seemed to me to combine two fundamen-
tal elements: one, outstanding academic quality, es-
pecially in my own field of labor economics, in which
Princeton ranked as one of the leading universities in
the world, and still does; and, two, a human scale that
Before becoming its seventeenth president in June 1972, Bowen-A.B.
Denison, Ph.D. Princeton-served Princeton as an economics professor
(he was appointed a full professor at age thirty-one, a record at that
time) and as provost for the final five years of Robert F. Goheen's
presidency. His books include The Wage-Price Issue-A Theoretical Analy-
sis; (with Professor W. J. Baumol) Performing Arts: The Economic
Dilemma; and (with T. A. Finegan) The Economics of Labor Force
Participation. He has been chairman of the board of the Center for
Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and is a regent of the
Smithsonian Institution, a director of NCR Corporation, and a director
of the Reader's Digest Association.
6
WILLIAM G. BOWEN
7
appealed to me. This combination still seems to me
what is really special about Princeton. Not just one or
the other, but the combination.
"I have, of course, become aware of institutional
differences-in administration and structure-as a re-
sult of my experiences in this office." Including dif-
ferences in the way decisions are made? "Yes. But these
differences are not what I would call basic charac-
teristics. They are means, not ends. They reflect Prince-
ton's character, and support it, but they don't shape it as
do the teaching and scholarship that occur here."
He paused.
"There are two other characteristics of Princeton that
I've become more conscious of since my graduate stu-
dent days and which I think are basic. One is the
setting. Some of the learning that takes place here is a
consequence of the physical beauty of the place, and
its-at times!-tranquillity.
"The other element I now see more clearly as affecting
Princeton's character is its history, by which I mean not
only its tradition of academic quality but its commit-
ment to service. This university simply wouldn't be
what it is, or work as it does, if its history were
different.
"So Princeton is the product of an intimate inter-
twining of several elements: of the way both under-
graduate and graduate students are taught-by a single
faculty of scholars doing serious research; in a relatively
small place; of a certain beauty and atmosphere; and
with a pervasive history. These elements cohere to a
quite extraordinary degree and give the university a
coherence I'm much more conscious of now than I was
before becoming president."
By "coherence" he meant-?
"Most faculty members here see themselves as having
responsibilities to the university as a whole. This is true
to a greater extent at Princeton, I believe, than at
8
WILLIAM G. BOWEN
comparable universities. And it's not only the faculty.
The students, alumni, and staff seem to feel an affinity
for the entire university, not just for their own part of it.
"Obviously, other places have each of the charac-
teristics I've mentioned, but not in the same combina-
tion. And it's the combination of characteristics, as
much as the characteristics themselves, that defines an
institution or a person; the way the different compo-
nents act on each other. To return to your question
about decision making at Princeton-our pattern in-
volves extensive participation, which wouldn't be possi-
ble without the cohesiveness; and the wide
participation reinforces the cohesiveness."
Is Princeton's decision-making pattern unique, then?
"Let's say it's at one end of a scale."
At the other end of which would be what?
Dictatorship?
He laughed and said he would prefer a more moderate
term.
Is the president's job at Princeton very different from
that at other universities of its caliber?
"Yes. Each presidency is different from the others,
and Princeton's probably more so."
Different how?
"The president here is unusually fortunate in that the
scale of the place allows a degree of intimate involve-
ment with the essential business of a university-
education and research-that isn't possible generally. I
get a great deal of comfort and encouragement and
pleasure, for example, from my teaching [in an intro-
ductory economics course] and from writing letters of
recommendation for students I've had in my classes. It's
a refreshing change from the administrative detail any
president has to handle. I also enjoy the direct contact
with faculty members, some of whom I came to know.
when they were deciding whether to come to Princeton.
And as chairman of the Faculty's Advisory Committee
WILLIAM G. BOWEN
9
on Appointments and Advancements, I have an oppor-
tunity to examine closely the health of each department.
"Hardly a day passes, when I'm here and not 'on the
road,' that someone doesn't just drop in, from a student
to a faculty member to a trustee passing through or a
person from the town. There is an assumption of
accessibility here that's unknown at more complex
places. It's a desirable characteristic. While I'm not able
to satisfy all the expectations created, I'm glad they're
there, and I do my best."
So the Princeton presidency probably attracts a dif-
ferent kind of person?
"Well, anyone who doesn't like myriad roles would be
unhappy in this office. I know personally the coaches of
many teams, for example. It's something I happen to
enjoy, but it is expected here. Princeton alumni expect
the president to attend all sorts of gatherings, and I do a
great deal of that. Major donors to this university
generally expect to deal with the president. And that,
too, is possible-and fine and healthy-here."
Does the character of the university shape the presi-
dency to the point where an individual president has
little chance to develop his own style?
"No. It's true that there are patterns and traditions.
But Princeton doesn't run on the basis of detailed
directives from the president or anyone else. It is less
hierarchical than most similar institutions. A large
number of people are responsible for making decisions
here. In one sense, we are all kibitzers here, encouraged
to take an interest not only in our own special area but
in all areas. This permits a genuinely collegial mode of
operation. For example, both the dean of the chapel and
the general counsel sit on the president's cabinet that
meets weekly.
"We derive a sense of unity, I think, a sense of being
knit together, from the university's basic character. This
is reflected in the way we are able to adapt, and evolve,
10
WILLIAM G. BOWEN
while holding onto first principles. When we became
coeducational, we resisted the idea of a coordinate
college, or of a separate dean of women, but insisted
that women be included in the life of the university on
the same terms as men, so the unity of the institution
would be preserved. And I think that our judgment on
that question has proved correct."
What about Woodrow Wilson? Is Bowen conscious of
his influence on the presidency?
"Oh, I think all of us at Princeton feel an institutional
kinship with him. We are his descendants, the benefi-
ciaries of his ideas. But we are descended from James
McCosh, too, who made this a university."
Bowen does not, we gathered, in confronting every
crisis ask himself "What would Woodrow Wilson do?"
He laughed. "Emphatically not. The influence of a
man like that is powerful, but subtle. We each have to do
things in our own way in our own time, with a clear
sense of current objectives.
"There is a basic sense of mission here so pervasive
and powerful that we don't have to begin each day
proclaiming it. The influence of Wilson is so evident
that we don't have to overdo the explicit announcement
of it, and that is, in a way, the greatest compliment we
could pay him."
One more question, and he could get back to review-
ing the Economics 101 midterm exam papers spread out
on the conference table of his Nassau Hall office: With
all its emphasis on instruction, has Princeton come up
with some original principles of teaching that might be
generally applied?
"Well, one, it's very hard."
Why?
"Because it depends not only on a continuing mastery
of one's subject but also on thinking about how one
communicates, and developing one's own style; on
being willing to take the time to listen, and engage
WILLIAM G. BOWEN
11
another person, the student, in serious intellectual
discussion. Students don't come here expecting simply
to write down what the teacher tells them. They come
expecting to argue-to participate in the learning pro-
cess, not just to be recipients. They see education as a
two-way process. In my economics class, I work very
hard to get students to explain the principles to them-
selves and to each other. The test of whether one has
learned something is whether one can explain it.
"Learning and teaching involve respect for thinking;
acceptance of the work it involves; a determination to
pursue questions. Obviously, to be a learner or a
teacher, you have to enjoy such interactions. Friend-
ships often grow out of shared intellectual interests.
Learning has its solitary moments, but it is not a
solitary activity."
"The quest for truth-or rather for
alternative versions of the truth-
3
should be nonrancorous. It's
conducive to good teaching and
learning if people who disagree do so
agreeably."
MARVIN BRESSLER
M
arvin Bressler said he would talk only about
the Princeton differences deriving from its
relatively small size and special atmosphere.
Atmosphere being the harder to describe, would he
start with that? How had Princeton struck him when he
first joined its faculty?
"Coming here from NYU, with its center in Green-
wich Village, where I was sensitive every day to the
subterranean violence of the city, I was impressed by
several differences. First, by what I can only describe as
Princeton's serene sense of self-sufficiency; as if the
university were an independent duchy-complete with
its own foreign policy-which carried on diplomatic
relations with other sovereign powers such as the
United States of America."
He was impressed also to encounter here "the joys of
competence. Princeton seemed to do things so well. I
had the feeling that if the president-then Robert F.
Goheen-were to form an ad hoc committee selected at
A graduate of Temple University, Bressler earned his Ph.D. at the
University of Pennsylvania, where he taught sociology, as he did at New
York University. At NYU he was chairman of the Department of
Educational Sociology. He has been a professor of sociology at Princeton
since 1963, and twice chairman of that department. He was also
chairman of the Commission on the Future of the College, which spent
two years examining undergraduate education at Princeton and com-
parable institutions.
12
MARVIN BRESSLER
13
random to plan, say, an annual picnic, no one on it
would say anything stupid.
"At the same time, Princeton appropriately enough
seemed to have some of the characteristics F. Scott
Fitzgerald had as a novelist. I regard Fitzgerald as a
better artist than is generally acknowledged. He wrote
dialogue on the ordinary details of human housekeep-
ing that somehow, on another level, expressed hidden
truths about his characters.
"In much the same fashion, when I attended meet-
ings, went to parties, or engaged in tennis post mor-
tems with colleagues, the most casual observations
seemed to me to carry significant implications; to be
rooted in historical memory; to rest on a sense of a
Princeton community which I didn't yet share. The
others knew the code; I hadn't mastered the an-
thropology of the place, didn't know its heroes and
taboos."
For example, during his first days at Princeton he
attended an orientation session on the preceptorial
system. It was conducted by James Billington '50, then
a professor in the history department, now director of
the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. "Jim
spoke in fervent, Wagnerian tones. I struggled to under-
stand the special mystique of preceptorials. They
seemed to me indistinguishable from the small discus-
sion sessions with which I was familiar at other institu-
tions. Finally it dawned on me that what at first glance
seemed merely a sensible pedagogical device was, in
Jim's mind, an extension of Woodrow Wilson's biogra-
phy-and that precepts, therefore, represented a kind of
homage to American history. This recognition made an
otherwise incomprehensible performance meaningful,
even moving."
If he, Bressler, were describing preceptorials today to
a group of incoming junior faculty, would he be
Wagnerian?
14
MARVIN BRESSLER
"Absolutely!" He laughed. "I think it's characteristic
of Princeton that one begins to share its ethos very
quickly-or never. 'Ivy may be the fastest growing plant
known to man,' and the soil in New Jersey is par-
ticularly fertile."
Is this important educationally?
"Yes, I think so. But my views stand at the intersec-
tion of love and irony. On one hand, I think our intense
self-consciousness, our invincible conviction that we are
a chosen instrument of a higher purpose, and our
insularity, are an invitation to satire. But it is partly
because of these excesses that we are able to realize our
most ambitious conceits. Nothing truly great was ever
produced by people with a flawless sense of proportion.
The writers we honor in the history of social thought-
for example, Smith, Marx, Pareto, Freud, Veblen-all
'went too far,' took their ideas to their outer limits. The
best institutions are like that.
"If Princeton had had a more accurate sense of its
location in the cosmos, its very real achievements would
have been far less substantial. During the discussions on
coeducation a decade ago we sometimes behaved as if
we were about to bring forth a startlingly radical
educational innovation-although most American col-
leges had been coeducational for more than a half-
century. It was not just 'Should we admit women?' but
'Should WE admit women?' While it's easy to lampoon
our exaggerated sense of self, I secretly hope the Prince-
ton mystique will survive."
He was silent for a moment. Then: "I've often won-
dered why Norman Thomas, John Foster Dulles, and
Adlai Stevenson came back for reunions year after year
and put on funny hats. I'm not sure. But I do know that
such strikingly different people-in both political con-
viction and temperament-shared a dedication and
loyalty to Princeton, and a desire to convey to succeed-
ing generations that the experience here was infinitely
precious. Not long before his death, Thomas cut short
MARVIN BRESSLER
15
an interview about the Vietnam War on the stated
ground that it was time to listen to the Princeton-
Dartmouth football game. Norman Thomas! The pro-
cess by which such things happen is mysterious. The
Alumni Council capitalizes on it but didn't invent it."
What is the source of this mystique?
"Well, it is in part aesthetic: the beauty and
agelessness of this campus, whose physical setting has a
kind of inevitability and whose buildings seem to have
been here eternally, evoke in most of us a sense of
continuity with the past. We've all had sentimental
memories of places where important things happened
to us, only to discover, on returning some years later,
that the actual site has all but disappeared. Not SO at
Princeton, which is wholly recognizable as the place it
was when first encountered."
Has Princeton's attitude toward itself, and the feel-
ings of affection and loyalty this seems to engender, a
bearing on the university's ability to educate young men
and women and discover new knowledge?
"Yes."
How?
"This university is serious."
Meaning?
"Meaning endowed with the dignity that comes from
confidence in its mission-the conviction that a univer-
sity is the keeper of the books, responsible for preserv-
ing, extending, and transmitting their treasures."
Isn't this true of other institutions?
"Sure-but not to the same degree, because most
don't have the same certainty of the validity of their
announced purposes."
As to differences resulting from Princeton's size,
Bressler cited seven.
"First, Princeton is probably the only university, in or
out of its own class, in which the fundamental unit of
loyalty, for the faculty, is the university itself and not
one of its departments. Clark Kerr once defined a
16
MARVIN BRESSLER
university as a group of private entrepreneurs loosely
held together by common parking grievances. This
emphatically does not describe Princeton.
"One tangible consequence of this unity is seen in
faculty appointments. When a department is consider-
ing adding a new person, it takes into account the
consequences this would have for the whole university.
It makes a serious effort to get someone who will enrich
not only its own work but that of other departments.
This is one reason Princeton's interdisciplinary efforts
are much more extensive than one would guess from
merely observing its structural arrangements, and
stronger than those at most other institutions.
"A second significant difference related to size is the
absence here of the automatic antagonism between
faculty and administration which exists at larger univer-
sities. Where you know one another, where people have
faces and not just titles, where the president calls faculty
members by their first names in general faculty meet-
ings, it is difficult to project a world of heroes and
villains. And of course the low level of hostility results
also from the way size affects decision making."
How is that?
"More democracy is possible in a place where people
know each other, where they relate as human beings and
not as desks or offices talking with each other or, more
likely, writing memos." He spoke of one huge corpora-
tion "in which you can tell by the water pitcher in an
executive's office-gold-plated, silver, pewter-where
he or she stands in the power structure. Princeton is at
the opposite extreme. Here the fact that so-and-so is a
dean and so-and-so an assistant professor tells you very
little about the nature of their relationship.
"All of this is strengthened at Princeton by the
processes of participation and consultation. There is
full discussion of even fairly minor matters, involving a
special vocabulary developed for the purpose. When it
seems politic to discuss something with a superior, you
MARVIN BRESSLER
17
'run it by' him or her; when dealing with someone at
your own level, you 'touch base'; and if you have to
consult somebody really ominous, say the students,
that's called 'testing the waters.' In the course of a day
here there is a fearful amount of by-running, base-
touching, and water-testing-some of it purely pro
forma-but the result is that final decisions are not
imposed on you; you have a chance to influence policy.
"There is an extraordinary degree of civility here
among people who disagree strongly on issues. People
arranged at different points along the spectrum, politi-
cally or ideologically, rarely transfer their feelings into
personal enmity."
In contrast to other universities?
"Yes. I've discussed this with colleagues on many
campuses and the situation just doesn't prevail
elsewhere."
And is this significant educationally?
An emphatic nod. "It's the way scholarly disputation
ought to be conducted. The quest for truth-or rather
for alternative versions of the truth-should be nonran-
corous. It's conducive to good teaching and learning if
people who disagree do so agreeably." He said Prince-
ton's atmosphere of civility is the more remarkable
"when one considers that a university is a very difficult
institution to administer because of the large number of
constituencies all with equal-and insistent-claims on
limited resources. What goes to one frequently has to
be taken away from another, so everybody is more or
less sullen all the time, at some subliminal level. At
most institutions it isn't subliminal."
Bressler's third point was that because Princeton has
emerged in recent years as a great research university-
"in the fullest sense of having become a national
intellectual force"-without greatly increasing its size,
"it has resolved a common dilemma for both faculty and
students: Do I want a small liberal arts college with its
emphasis on teaching, or a major university with its
18
MARVIN BRESSLER
commitment to research? Princeton is unique in offer-
ing the virtues of both with the drawbacks of neither."
The fourth difference: "Faculty members here tend to
know more students than at larger places; know them as
an extension of the family norm. And because your
relationships are familiar and not impersonal or institu-
tional, you tend to care more about the outcome of
policies, to give more careful thought to your own role
in formulating them. As institutions become larger, and
their boundaries can no longer be seen, one's sense of
personal responsibility and obligation tends to
decline."
Point five: "A university of Princeton's size, because a
lot of people do understand it in its totality, is manage-
able. A discussion involving six or eight people can
begin a movement that ends in actually solving a
problem."
Point six: "The mode of social control. Faculty and
student behavior is governed not so much by specific
regulations as by responsiveness to community opin-
ion. People heed campus norms because everybody is so
visible!"
Point seven: "Princeton's size has helped it in recent
years to respond effectively to the changed composition
of the student body. The welcome addition of women
and racial, ethnic, and religious minorities to what had
previously been a virtually exclusive preserve of wealthy
WASP families has made the life of the campus more
broadly representative of the wider society and has
enabled members of diverse groups to gain a more
complex appreciation of both the resemblances and
differences among humankind."
But hasn't that happened at most institutions in
Princeton's class?
"Let me put it this way: At Princeton, some students
are offended by particular corporate practices adopted
by the university, others feel alienated from campus life,
and some groups believe that they suffer from academic
MARVIN BRESSLER
19
neglect. These are terribly delicate and difficult issues,
but they are mostly approached here in a spirit of trust
and forbearance fostered by the small size of this
community.
"As a result, Princeton has been able to respond to the
needs of various constituencies tolerably well, given the
constraints imposed by its financial and intellectual
resources, and in a manner consistent with its tradi-
tions. By contrast, some other institutions either have
been insensitive to altered conditions or else have
changed dramatically-and not always for the better."
Bressler had to leave for a class, and on our way out I
noticed on the back of his hall door a large poster of a
Chinese basketball player. He explained it was a gift
from President Bowen, brought back from his 1974 visit
to China. "First time I felt a sense of solidarity with a
'Red Guard."
Reminded that Bressler is a sports fan and a close
friend of basketball coach Pete Carril, I asked if he
perceives anything singular about Princeton's approach
to sports.
"Not only is there a higher level of participation in
sports here than at most places but, more significantly,
athletes are fully integrated into the student body-they
are not a separate cadre who have 'come to play ball.' But
talk to Coach Carril. More than anyone else I know, he
personifies the simultaneous respect for learning and
athletic achievement. I've long thought that despite
obvious differences in background and vocation, Pete
Carril and Robert Goheen actually have much in
common."
To wit?
"A kind of monumental integrity, enormous compe-
tence, an overwhelming commitment to the work ethic,
and the conviction that character is to be cherished over
talent."
I phoned Carril and set up a date.
"A good teacher, whether in a school
or a machine shop, has regard for
4
the mind and soul of the student
You respect me, I respect you.'
American leadership must have this."
J. DOUGLAS BROWN
L
iberal education is not content, but process,"
said J. Douglas Brown. "A great mistake made
at some of our sister institutions has been to
think liberal education means taking certain courses.
I've visited them. A professor up on the rostrum
unloads on his students, and what he says may be
profound and valuable, but liberal education is the way
you deal with students.
"A person doesn't learn tennis by standing up and
having balls knocked at him. There is no impression
without expression. The classics are generally thought
of as important elements in a liberal education-but
they may not be liberal at all unless they are taught in a
liberal way.
"It has been a Princeton tradition not to depend on
dogmatic statements by professors, but to encourage
students to discuss, to come back with questions, to use
Though he earned his A.B. (1919) and Ph.D. at Princeton and spent
most of his working life there as economics professor, dean of the faculty
(for twenty-one years), and provost, Brown has been a lifelong student
of other universities and human organizations in general, as his best-
known books attest: The Liberal University: An Institutional Analysis and
The Human Nature of Organizations. He was one of three major
architects of the Social Security system under Franklin Roosevelt, a
trustee of the University of Rochester and Princeton Theological
Seminary, and a director of McGraw-Hill. He was eighty and had been
retired for two years when this conversation took place.
20
J. DOUGLAS BROWN
21
a variety of books. The professor doesn't assume he's the
master and the authority, but his function is to open
doors to students, so they can make up their own
minds."
He said the Princeton undergraduate curriculum,
"going all the way back," has been well organized. "And
in modern times it was not Woodrow Wilson alone who
put his mark on it, though he made a great contribution
with his introduction of the precept system. When
Luther Eisenhart was dean of the faculty (1925-33), he
set up an undergraduate plan of study whose best
feature was that it called for, in the first two years,
breadth-to see the world as it is, see what science is,
and history, literature, and so on-before narrowing
into a special field. This makes for a better educated
person for any career-business, law, even medicine-
because it arouses curiosity in more than a single
speciality. There is great danger to personal develop-
ment in specializing at too early an age.
"A student once asked me to release him from all
studies except chemistry; he intended to become a
chemist and didn't want to waste time on other sub-
jects. I insisted he take a course in history. He fell in
love with it and became a history professor!
"Unity of the educational enterprise is an outstand-
ing characteristic here. You find it also in the way
underclass work merges into upperclass, and upperclass
into graduate work, for those who go that route. An
Oxford don once told me he'd rather get a student with
a Princeton A.B. than one from any other American
undergraduate college because he has already developed
his own interests; his intellect and curiosity are already
aroused by teaching that has not been dogmatic.
"Princeton's emphasis on the individual goes back a
long way, to the college's very beginnings in the 1700s."
He took from his bookshelves a slim volume-The
Princeton University Library in the Eighteenth Century by
22
J. DOUGLAS BROWN
the late William Dix, longtime librarian of the univer-
sity-and read aloud from a 1752 document by Aaron
Burr, Sr., the college's second president:
It may be said, without any intention of disparagement to
other learned seminaries, that the governors of this college
have endeavored to improve upon the commonly received
plans of education. They proceed not so much in the method
of a dogmatic institution, by prolix discourses on the dif-
ferent branches of the sciences, by burdening the memory and
infusing heavy and disagreeable tasks; as in the Socratic way
of free dialogue between teacher and pupil, or between the
students themselves, under the inspection of their tutors. In
this manner, the attention is engaged, the mind entertained,
and the scholar animated in the pursuit of knowledge.
"We've always stressed the growth of the individual,
the enhancement of his powers of analysis, evaluation,
organization. Now how do you treat individuals as
individuals? By making them responsible. For example,
the junior paper is an important piece of independent
work, preparing the student for the senior thesis. Many
students say they learned more from their senior theses
than from any other aspect of their Princeton educa-
tion. Why? It's not primarily the subject matter. It's the
experience of getting hold of oneself and doing an
arduous job that involves analysis, evaluation, decision
making, all leading to the development of judgment.
This is the sort of thing that matures a person.
"There is-always has been-a lot of interplay here
between faculty and students on an individual basis,
made possible by the high ratio of faculty to students,
higher than at any comparable institution. The fact that
seniors have carrels in the library is both symbol and
evidence of Princeton's concern for individuality.
"I remember one spring while I was an undergradu-
ate, an English teacher said to me, 'Brown, your ideas
J. DOUGLAS BROWN
23
are all right, but you need to learn how to write. If you
will do some writing over the summer, I'll read it, and
work with you on it.' He did-and it probably changed
my life. That sort of thing still goes on at Princeton.
"From a human-organizational point of view, interest
in-and emphasis on-the individual, in all kinds of
relationships, results in affection for and loyalty to an
institution: a special attitude of mind and spirit. It isn't
thought of as just a place from which you take what you
think you need and get out, without ever looking back.
If you've been treated as an individual, you will respond
with loyalty, whether to a regiment, a football team, a
corporation, or a university.
"I don't like to call Princeton unique in this-just say
it differs from most of its sister institutions in putting
more emphasis on it; and on dealing with its faculty as
individuals, too. And the result is a high degree of
loyalty among them as well.
"And because it's a 'single' faculty there is no divisive
barrier between teachers of undergraduates and of
graduate students. Also, Princeton has a very liberal
sabbatical policy: We don't wear 'em down just teach-
ing; we find out early if somebody has the necessary
interest in scholarship by encouraging leaves to do
research and writing. Of course there's strong institu-
tional self-interest in this: When a faculty member takes
a leave and comes back with nothing, well, that suggests
he's not a creative scholar. Those fellows wear out, like a
carpet does; whereas the creative person is self-renew-
ing, like a good lawn.
"Teaching at Princeton is more demanding than at
most places. In 'precept' teaching you have to be much
better prepared than if you're merely lecturing, because
you're not in control of what will be discussed. It's more
interesting and more satisfying, but can be very tiring,
especially as the students get brighter and brighter."
24
J. DOUGLAS BROWN
He said both faculty and students "feel like individ-
uals" at Princeton because it is small enough so that
people are "within sight of each other."
But aren't there disadvantages in smallness-such as
fewer courses to choose from? "This can be a disadvan-
tage in some cases," he acknowledged, "but our students
can in effect 'create' courses. A senior can choose a
thesis topic and have as his or her adviser a faculty
member who is highly qualified to teach that subject
even though he or she is not formally teaching it at
Princeton. This gives amazing flexibility to the
curriculum."
He volunteered that avoiding smugness is a problem
for a university with Princeton's virtues.
Does Princeton avoid it? He laughed. "Yes."
How?
"Luckily for us there are Harvard, and Yale, MIT,
Stanford, Cal Tech, and other great universities out
there: many good keys to many good locks. We're kept
modest by knowing that because of their sheer size they
can do things we can't; and by having to compete with
them for faculty and students-and not always
winning!"
Not long after that conversation, Dean Brown, at 80-
plus, moved from Princeton to a "retirement com-
munity and health center" in nearby Hightstown,
where I visited him at intervals to talk about Princeton
and this book. On one occasion I said the more I
learned about Princeton's inner machinery-its empha-
sis on respect for the individual, its dealing with people
in small groups, its insistence on consultation-before-
decision, for example-the more I wondered whether
Princeton might be a model for American industry to
study in its current struggle to improve productivity.
J. DOUGLAS BROWN
25
Better, maybe, than the Japanese models then getting so
much attention.
He was lying on his side in an infirmary bed, but his
visible eye lit up. "The fact is, Japanese and American
people are SO different we can't learn much from them
about how to deal with our labor force. They have
traditionally, going a long way back, preferred con-
finement to insecurity. Americans, with some excep-
tions, are not that way. Individual freedom is a deep-
down craving here. We're a country of people who want
to maintain individuality and mobility; probably the
least conforming people on earth. I was visiting En-
gland once, and my friend wouldn't let me wear a cap.
Said, 'You look like a Yorkshire coal miner!' Japanese
workers carry over the same loyalty to their employer
that they once had to the emperor. America's popula-
tion is drawn from people who rebelled.
"Princeton's way of organizing itself and dealing with
its 'work force'-of faculty and students-reflects this
American difference. So, yes, I'd say American business
could learn a lot from studying Princeton, including its
attention to the look of the place it asks people to work
in; and its recognition that faculty will take things from
other faculty they won't take happily from admin-
istrators; and that a good teacher, whether in a school or
a machine shop, has regard for the mind and soul of the
student, has integrity in that relationship, a mutuality
of interests: 'You respect me, I respect you.' American
leadership must have this."
"The only way to get out of here
without hard work is to cheat, and
5
that's illegal."
PETER J. CARRIL
A
university is known to some extent by the
coaches it keeps, and Princeton had kept Pete
Carril as its basketball coach for fifteen years.
Believing this must imply significant compatibility
between his coaching methods and the university's
educational philosophy, and that a talk with him might
reveal facets of Princeton's character not visible to more
conventional observers, I dropped in at his Jadwin
Gymnasium office and asked whether he coaches ac-
cording to some set of basic principles for achieving the
teamwork that distinguishes Carril teams.
"Yes," he said. "There are four or five things that
dictate my philosophy of coaching." After a few
thoughtful puffs on his ever-present cigar, he began to
lay them out.
Number one: "The most important thing you can do
is what you're doing when you're doing it. I ask players,
'What do you stand for when you cross the line onto the
court?' When you're out there, basketball should be the
most important thing. When you play, play; when you
study, study. Then it's not hard to separate the two.
"A second principle is, I try to tell 'em we are all
creatures of habit. Good habits are hard to break and so
A graduate of Lafayette, Carril coached basketball at Easton and
Reading high schools, and taught government and economics at the
latter. After one year of college coaching at Lehigh, he became Prince-
ton's basketball coach in 1967. Despite admission standards that have
caused the rejection of "guys who would have made me famous," Carril
has produced teams whose teamwork has made him famous, in both
college and professional coaching circles.
26
PETER J. CARRIL
27
are bad ones. I try to get 'em to understand: If they
learn to do things right, or well, that gets to be the way
they do things, and whatever happens, that's not going
to change.
"Somebody once asked Fred Astaire when he was
practicing, Why do you work so hard?" He said, "To
make things easy.'
"Punctuality is a good habit-for its own sake, and
because when you're on time, and especially when
you're not, you're telling your teammates what you
think of them.
"Third-this pertains to basketball, but also to other
activities: Do something that helps someone else, and
then when it comes to doing something for yourself, it's
easier to do." He let me puzzle over that for a minute.
"It's a point I haven't had too much trouble putting
across at Princeton, but I have had trouble with it at
kids' basketball camps and coaches' clinics. The idea is,
you're on offense and you have the ball in hand and only
one idea in mind: to do a certain thing yourself. You
alert the defense to what it is you're trying to do, and
that makes it harder for you because they're going to try
to stop you. But when you have the ball in hand and
you're ready to do other things, like pass to another
player, set a screen to help another player score, make a
hard cut, then the defense has to try to stop all those
possible things and not just you and your thing. It's
amazing how this idea comes out in a game. One thing
that worries me about basketball today is the disap-
pearance of the cerebral or mental element, the ob-
viousness of the attack: 'Here I come! Try and stop me!'
Each guy intent on doing his own thing.
"Here at Princeton the players are smart. They under-
stand you have to take advantage of your strong points,
adapt to your environment. We don't have the big guys,
the stars, so we have to make the best of what we have.
Our game takes a tremendous amount of understanding
28
PETER J. CARRIL
of what you're doing. And something more. It gets
down to, 'What and who do you love?"
The real fun of being a coach, for Carril, "is to bring
twelve guys closer together. The better you understand
that, the better they play. It's hard to do this with
people from divergent backgrounds, with different
goals and ideas on how to accomplish something, and
being pressured by parents, friends, girlfriends; hard to
get them to behave for the common good. You do it by
becoming closely attached to each one, which depends
on their ability to let you do that, and your ability and
willingness to do it. If you run into a player with a low
degree of caring, you can't become attached. But with
the guys who give something of themselves each day,
that makes for a happy experience for everybody.
"It's hard to believe the great feeling our players have
for one another, the fellowship and love and respect, the
total harmony there is among them. As a result, the way
they play is not only good-looking and stylish, but
effective as hell." But, he said, it takes hard work. "You
can't have it by doing sloppy work, with a low degree of
trying and caring."
Carril respects Princeton because it works its students
hard academically. He likes that not only because he
reveres hard work but also because it means the basket-
ball players who choose Princeton are not afraid of hard
work.
In recruiting high school students, Carril stresses
Princeton's academic challenge. "Some coaches use a list
of how much their graduates are earning. I've never
done that. And of course they have big athletic schol-
arships to offer. When I talk with parents about the
financial sacrifices they'll be making if they send their
son to Princeton, I say, 'You have to work so hard at
Princeton, to learn to do so many things by yourself,
when you get out you can produce because you can work.'
Students know they'll learn and grow here. That's why
they pick Princeton.
PETER J. CARRIL
29
"I remember when Mickey Steuerer ['76] was here,
we'd sit and talk about how tough Princeton is. Things
become so rough, so unreasonable, so demanding, but
what's amazing is, the end result is just the opposite of
what you might think: instead of getting to hate the
place, you end up loving it, and as the years go by,
instead of diminishing, the love grows!" Pause. "The
harder a thing is, the greater the feeling of reward for
having done it.
"Everybody has to do a senior thesis here-even most
engineering students, where the load is so heavy you'd
think they'd end up killing themselves!" That evokes
awe and admiration in Carril. "Everyone here is an
honors student. I coached Gary Walters ['67] in high
school, and one of my remembrances of my first year
here was waiting for him to come out of Green Hall the
day he got the grade on his senior thesis. The look of
accomplishment on his face!-enough power to light up
any city! Greater than after any basketball victory!
"One reason Princeton alumni are so loyal is that they
could have been shortchanged here, but they weren't.
Oh, you could run into softness with a single professor,
maybe, but it's not part of the system. I tell my players,
The only way to get out of this place without hard work
is to cheat, and that's illegal."
But he worries about the decline of respect for work
in the U.S. generally. "Work used to be an attitude, now
it's an ability; something you used to grow up knowing
how to do, now it has to be learned. Our sports always
reflect our society, so this shows up in college sports."
Even at Princeton? He shrugged, then nodded. "Some
potentially good players come here with a very super-
ficial knowledge of the game. They've got the cart
before the horse. The simplest things they don't find
interesting."
Is Carril successful at turning them around? "I don't
know. I think so. They get SO they realize the impor-
tance of the intensity level. I've seen the way they grow."
30
PETER J. CARRIL
He said he must seem "like a relic from another era" to
them. "I'm willing to make some adjustments, but not
basic ones. I don't like half-efforts or slovenliness, it just
kills me-bad passes indifferently thrown He shook
his head. "The guy who really doesn't care and shows it,
that's OK. But when he pretends he cares and doesn't,
that's hard to deal with.
"Maybe I make more of basketball than I should.
Maybe it is 'just a game,' or an activity that for historical
reasons is part of the college program but doesn't really
mean anything, as in the case of England and Spain, for
instance, where intercollegiate sports really don't mean
anything. Am I going beyond what I should do? Should
I stop and try to get a hold of myself?" He looked
genuinely puzzled.
Back to principles.
"Number four has to do with fame, or notoriety,
recognition. Somewhere along the line, some players
get the idea this is a tremendous thing. But it's so
unnecessary! You ought to do things for the right
reasons: the satisfaction of integrity in performance,
the pleasure after a hard-fought game, especially when
you're the victor, of taking a shower, standing next to
your teammates, talking about the game and how much
fun it was-and what hard work!
"Fame comes out second, by far. Over the long run
you forget all the clippings, but not the meetings in the
shower, the great feeling of camaraderie.
"I noticed a couple of years before I came here, when
Princeton played in an NCAA tournament in North
Carolina, Duke and Connecticut and other schools had
big bands and cheerleaders. Princeton had five guys
sitting way up in the stands, where I was, playing
'Going Back.' They weren't even in uniform, and they
told me they had paid their own way there. But there
they were, playin' their hearts out!" He savored the
recollection. Then: "To be known for making a shot is
not as important as making the shot.
PETER J. CARRIL
31
"I've only had a few players here who wanted to be
famous. This is a bad place for guys like that, because
every day here, somebody on the faculty does some-
thing that deserves worldwide recognition. That's
going on all around you at any Ivy League college. It
helps keep you down to size.
"I've worked here under two presidents-Goheen and
Bowen-and neither was as well known as his counter-
parts in a lot of places. The reason is that they don't
want to be. There's a tradition of modesty here, of doing
your best each day in substance and not in the papers.
"It's something that runs throughout this university.
And it's going against a national tide. People are
climbing skyscrapers, parachuting down on 'em, jump-
ing off bridges, to get attention, publicity. Here, we just
do what seems natural to the institution. Princeton is
the sum of a countless number of things being done by
people content to operate that way.
"I remind my players: 'You're a part of that; take
satisfaction for the real reason you're doing things."
Carril stopped. Would there be a fifth principle?
"No," he said. "If you follow those four principles
you'll win a lot." And is that important? He gave me an
odd look. "How else can you be sure you're doing
things right?" He said Vince Lombardi's famous re-
mark, "Winning is the only thing," has been misin-
terpreted. "He wanted his players to have good work
habits, give it their best shot, knowing if they did they
would win. You win by accident once in a while, but
usually because you do the right things. Winning builds
character; losing reveals things."
As he walked me out into the corridor I asked why he
had stayed at Princeton fifteen years despite impressive
offers from other colleges and even a pro team.
"Whenever I get an offer, I ask myself one question:
'What and who can you love?"
"There's nothing to love in the pros, not for me.
When you come down to it, you can certainly love
32
PETER J. CARRIL
Princeton and the people here. It embodies a strong
tradition for excellence, and maintains high standards,
produces easy interaction between people, from pro-
fessors to roofers. It makes you feel humble, and for me
that's good.
"I've had big-figure offers. I couldn't believe anybody
would give me that much. But what would I do with it?
Take a longer vacation, drive a Mercedes instead of a
Dodge Charger, eat at swanky places, have people wait
on me, wear more expensive suits, read the Wall Street
Journal every day to see how my stocks are doing? What
does money mean if you don't love your work? A very
important part of my life is teaching-and they respect
that a lot here.
"At some big-time basketball universities the empha-
sis is all on recruiting. 'Let's get a coach who can bring
in the talent.' For me the basic thing has to be teaching.
A guy in the sociology department at NYU, when he
retired, told a reporter the kind of teacher he'd been.
When I read it, I said to [sociology] Professor Marvin
Bressler, 'That's a perfect description of me. The only
difference is, I swear.'
"The real question is, why does Princeton permit a
person like me to coach here? They could be looking for
some tall, handsome dude, with the right image. In-
stead I'm this small little guy smoking a cigar and losing
his hair."
Well, I said, why do they keep you?
He thought. "Basically I think it's because some of my
players seem to be better for the experience."
"I want to show students-and
encourage them to discover-what a
6
wide variety of human behavior
there has been over time and across
cultures, so that they will be both
realistic
and hopeful."
NATALIE ZEMON DAVIS
H
aving bicycled across the Princeton campus on
a frosty October morning, Natalie Davis said
it was hard not to open our conversation with
a comment on the obvious: " the beauty of the
setting; the trees, the space. I really savor it. It provides
the serenity and refreshment of soul so important to
learning and thinking.
"Of course if setting were all Princeton offered I
wouldn't be here, because I like the intensity of a city.
But one gets some of that here, from having an excellent
faculty concentrated in a small space; not only Prince-
ton's but the permanent and visiting faculty of the
Institute for Advanced Study. And New York and
Philadelphia are handy."
As person and scholar, Davis said, she is fascinated by
contrasts, and Princeton provides marked ones: "be-
tween its small size and its great stature; its bucolic
location and sophisticated architecture; its tranquil air
and the feverish intellectual activity that goes on here;
Before joining Princeton's faculty in 1978, Davis-B.A. Smith, M.A.
Radcliffe, Ph.D. University of Michigan-taught at Brown, University
of Toronto, University of California at Berkeley, and Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Her books include Society and Cultures in Early
Modern France and The Return of Martin Guerre, basis for an acclaimed
French film on which she worked as historical consultant. Her pub-
lished essays, in English and French, her editorships and professional
society memberships are numerous and varied.
33
34
NATALIE ZEMON DAVIS
between its conservative, rather 'closed' past and its
liberal, 'open' present. In fact these contrasts may be
what most clearly distinguishes Princeton from similar
universities."
When she left the Berkeley faculty to join Princeton's
in 1978-"admittedly, partly to be nearer my husband, a
professor in Toronto" -she did so with some misgiv-
ings, which were borne out on her arrival: "After
teaching at Toronto and Berkeley I found myself in a
place that reminded me of my alma mater, Smith
College! Small and beautiful! I thought, 'Have I re-
gressed?' But then I remembered how important Smith
had been to me as a student; how grateful I had been for
teachers who took me seriously, and personally. 'Where
would I be now if not for them?'
"So I began to see Princeton as having some of
Smith's good qualities plus an extremely good graduate
program that made it a leading world university." And
although her Berkeley colleagues had warned her that
Princeton students "ran to type," she recalled that
Smith, with a similar reputation for homogeneity, was
much more diverse than met the eye. So she kept an
open mind and was soon astonished at the range of
types in the Princeton student body.
"They may look more alike than Berkeley students,
who go in for costumes and actually do represent a
wider class range. But Berkeley draws undergraduates
almost entirely from California, and that leads to a kind
of provincialism: an attitude that Berkeley is the center
of the world; that whether the action is on campus or in
city council, 'this is where it's at!'
"Princeton has students from a wider range of places,
and there is a pretty good mix of social classes, races,
religions. Actually, I've had more black undergraduates
in my classes here than at Berkeley; and they're inter-
ested in European history, not just American. And the
range of political views among students here is
amazing."
NATALIE ZEMON DAVIS
35
She laughed as she recalled saying to herself on
leaving Berkeley, "I'm going to the most goyish campus
in America! I've got to teach at least one course that will
shake 'em up!" She decided to propose A History of the
Jews. "But when I got here I discovered such a course
was already planned in Near Eastern studies, that there
were kosher dining facilities on campus, and many
other evidences of Princeton's openness." (She did
eventually co-teach her course-on Jewish family and
social life in the sixteenth through eighteenth
centuries.)
As for women students, she had, of course, taught
them at Berkeley, "but the ones I encountered at Prince-
ton were somehow different for being a new element in
an old place; had a special air of independence. There
was even a girl who showed up in my History of
Women class two years ago wearing a big 'Reagan for
President' button. She turned out to be a feminist, too!
Again, it was the contrast between Princeton's present
and past that fascinated me. It's a kind of contrast that
prompts a tension people can learn from."
At Berkeley, she said, "it's easy to be a radical, or
almost anything else; easy to find a group of your own
kind and lose yourself in it. Here the struggle for
identity is more challenging-as it was for me trying to
be a young radical at Smith-and I think that's great.
And what's true of students is true of faculty members,
too. Beauty aside, Princeton has a quite human dimen-
sion. One can physically get around, and know a lot of
people. We see each other over and over in different
circumstances: at meetings, on campus, at the super-
market, jogging. It makes for multi-layered rela-
tionships with colleagues-and with students."
Students often come to her house at the edge of the
campus, and she sometimes holds classes there. "It
makes for a flexibility and informality I associate with
family life. Ideas get passed along-again with both
faculty and students. Questions get asked at super-
36
NATALIE ZEMON DAVIS
market checkout counters and in the library stacks.
Education and just living are not rigidly compart-
mented, thanks to the space here and the way one moves
through it.
"But, as I said, as person and historian I'm always
looking for 'corrections,' contradictions; and there is
another side of the smallness coin. Sometimes you want
anonymity; not to be always on tap, visible, gossiping or
being gossiped about over the back fence. It's easy in a
small environment, if you're not very careful, to fall-or
get pushed-into a single line. We don't have that here.
But it's a danger. In a larger environment, pluralism
comes easier. It's harder to disagree freely with some-
body you expect to bump into at a bicycle rack!"
Davis, who enjoys teaching and gets high ratings
from students, approves of such Princeton traditions as
the senior thesis and the custom of having senior faculty
teach at all levels. "It's wonderful for the students and
great fun for us; and encourages us to keep up with the
young."
Do professors work harder at Princeton than at other
research universities? "My guess is they do." She said
she was currently teaching an undergraduate course-
The History of France, 1500-1685-in which she does
both the lecturing, twice a week, and the precepting.
"That is, the thirty-six-person class is divided into three
preceptorials of twelve each, and I meet three times a
week with each group to discuss the material in the
lectures and assigned reading." She was also teaching a
graduate course, doing senior thesis advising and much
informal advising, serving on various committees,
meanwhile doing research for a book on "gifts in
sixteenth-century France" and arranging for American
publication of a book already published in France based
on the screenplay she helped write for the French film
The Return of Martin Guerre, which would soon open in
the U.S.-to excellent reviews. Her off-campus lectur-
NATALIE ZEMON DAVIS
37
ing was booked through the next two years. She had
more time for all this, she said, now that her three
children were over twenty-five. She said her schedule
was not unusual for a Princeton professor.
Walking her out to her bike I asked whether a one-
time Smith College idealist and admitted do-gooder
finds that teaching European history satisfies her urge
to save the world. As she unlocked her padlock she said,
"I feel what I'm teaching is infused with the quest for
truth: of how people have lived in the past, of how
important human values have evolved. I want my
students to feel-and I believe many do-a commit-
ment to carry life on as best they can, hoping and trying
to make it better. I'm not a utopian. I want to show
students, and encourage them to discover, what a wide
variety of human behavior there has been over time and
across cultures so that they will be both realistic-about
people and societies, which can lead to a certain amount
of pessimism-and hopeful, for which there is also some
foundation in the past; not in a magical, wishful way,
but based on reasonable possibilities.
"There is sheer delight, to me, in talking about the
past, in relating it, as a story. Whether beautiful or
troubled it's always engrossing. I like it when my
students see how you can seize on the past and find
something wonderful to think about there; feel some
connection; some hope based on other people's
experience.
"I haven't the same kind of urge to change the world
that I had in my undergraduate days. Instead it's a
combination of wanting to carry on, pass along the
torch of culture to young people who may be able to
make things better; and of having faith in human
nature, no matter what.
"And it's nice to work so closely with students who go
on, so many of them, into important and interesting
and influential jobs. I don't just mean in the govern-
38
NATALIE ZEMON DAVIS
ment; you can serve humanity in all walks of life. I'm
impressed with the students who aren't taken in by
facile careerism, who don't just want to conform. If I
can help them feel a commitment to realistic hope, and
be more creative in their work, whatever it is, I'd be
glad. If I thought I was just training students who'd do
what's safe, I'd be sorry. But my students don't seem to
be that way.
"Princeton is a place where you can encourage both
the ideas of service and of self-realization. It's a place
where I can be: as a woman, Jewish, not automatically
going along with the powers that be; where I can learn
from my colleagues and from my students. I wouldn't
go to a university just because the world considers it
Number One, but only if I think it has great pos-
sibilities and if I can be myself in creative tension with
it. I want to be an outsider and an insider at the same
time; a part of the family but not swallowed up by it;
and with all that I want it to have intellectual
excellence."
And Princeton fulfills those requirements? She nod-
ded, smiled, shook hands, and rode off into the leaf-
gold morning.
"There have been substantial changes
over the years at Princeton, but
7
not in what the faculty has
expected undergraduates to get from
their studies."
JOAN STERN GIRGUS
"
T
he careful and thoughtful way Princeton deals
with its undergraduate curriculum" is what has
most impressed Joan Girgus since she became
dean of the college, responsible for key aspects of
undergraduate life including the program of study,
academic standing, academic advising, admission, and
financial aid.
"There have been substantial changes over the years
in what undergraduates have studied at Princeton, but
not in the basic goals of a Princeton education; in what
the faculty has expected undergraduates to get from
their studies. Alumni returning decades after gradua-
tion can sit down with today's undergraduates and find
a lot in common to talk about: a similar educational
experience-which may help to explain why so many do
come back!"
What are those "basic goals" of a Princeton
education?
"We expect undergraduates to learn to think ana-
lytically and coherently; to express themselves in an
Before becoming Princeton's dean of the college in 1977, Girgus-B.A.
Sarah Lawrence, Ph.D. New School for Social Research-was dean of
the Division of Social Science at City College of the City University of
New York. As professor of psychology there and at Princeton she has
specialized in perception and perceptual development and is the author
of numerous journal articles and (with Stanley Coren) of Seeing Is
Deceiving: The Psychology of Visual Illusions.
39
40
JOAN STERN GIRGUS
effective way, both orally and in writing; to read with a
critical eye, looking for the concerns and meanings that
underlie the text; to appreciate the elegance of a mathe-
matical or scientific proof, or of a clear argument; to
stand by conclusions that have been arrived at in a
thoughtful way; to realize that a certain amount of
ambiguity is inevitable in most things; and finally to
understand that decisions must be made-or the paper
never gets written!
"Princeton has debated, through the years, the role of
foreign language study, laboratory courses, mathe-
matics, and so on. But there have been only two major
revisions of the basic undergraduate curriculum in sixty
years. Even minor changes-in the title of a course, or
its number in the catalog-are carefully weighed both
by the department proposing the change and by a
standing committee of the faculty-the Committee on
the Course of Study. Any proposal for a larger change
goes through an extremely elaborate and extensive
approval process. It is understood that nothing my
office does, or the faculty does, is more important than
keeping a careful eye on the curriculum."
Does this distinguish Princeton from its peers?
"There is seldom the kind of involvement of the entire
faculty in the entire curriculum that is routine at
Princeton."
She called it also distinctive for Princeton to devote
as much attention as it does to pedagogy, "to the ways
in which the curriculum is brought to the student."
"There is regular discussion, here, of how best to
teach this or that discipline; of the appropriate format
for each course. For example, most courses in the
humanities and social sciences use a format of two
hours of lecture and one hour of precept a week; but
some need three hours of lecture rather than two, while
others need two hours of precept-and some advanced
courses are taught entirely in a seminar format. It
JOAN STERN GIRGUS
41
depends on how the faculty believes the students can
best engage the material."
Does Princeton think more about pedagogy than
comparable institutions do?
She hesitated. "Woodrow Wilson was enormously
devoted to undergraduate teaching, and the
thoughtfulness he encouraged continues here as at no
other major university. The turn of the century, when
Wilson was Princeton's president, was a time of impor-
tant developments in American higher education-
elsewhere mainly on the graduate level, but here on the
undergraduate level as well: a shift from the recitation-
and-examination, memorize-and-give-it-back approach
to the idea that students themselves can contribute to
the discovery process that is such an important part of
education. I had heard about the preceptorial system
before coming to Princeton but had not realized how
effectively it brings out not only the material but the
student."
She had heard, too, about the senior thesis, but had
not understood its significance until she saw "a thou-
sand undergraduates-virtually the entire senior class—
going through the experience every year. And I didn't
realize how ambitious most thesis projects are-much
more so than simply long term papers. Of course not
every thesis is good, so not every student has this
experience, but a remarkable number do. They learn
how it feels to work, sometimes painfully, through a
difficult and complicated analysis essentially on their
own.
"I talked with a high school junior last spring at a
school I was visiting. She wanted to apply to Princeton
but was worried she might not be able to write a senior
thesis. I said, Thousands have!-and lived to talk about
it.' I tried to explain why the senior thesis is SO
important a part of a Princeton education. Finally, her
eyes lit up and she said, 'I see! When you do your thesis,
42
JOAN STERN GIRGUS
you learn how to become an expert in something; how
it feels to become an expert!"
In addition to its special emphasis on undergraduate
teaching, there were three other Princeton charac-
teristics that she said continually impressed her.
"One, the students here are not only very bright
academically, but very talented. All this talent leads
inevitably to an extremely rich extracurricular life."
Richer than at comparable places?
"There are surely as many talented undergraduates at
other leading universities-but because Princeton is so
small, the effect is more concentrated here, more in-
tense. This is an important part of the Princeton
atmosphere-and creates some tension, too, as all that
talent seeks outlets.
"Two, the extraordinary interest and support of the
alumni, who serve on schools committees recruiting
students, and on career committees, and really work in
these and other ways to generate a dialogue with
students. And because alumni are a part of everyday life
here they provide a kind of continuity. For me, knowing
and working with alumni from the earliest decade of
this century into the eighties has actually changed my
sense of time. I now think over a longer span-and even
feel younger because I see myself in relation to people
who have lived much longer and yet are part of my life.
"I think undergraduates, too, feel this continuity; see
themselves as eventually joining in the reunions P-rade
as the latest in a very long line. When I talk with
students about their-not infrequent!-requests for
changes in the way something is done here, I remind
them that decisions made at Princeton are expected to
last for a long time, and they seem to understand that.
"Three, the campus: I still have days when I turn a
corner or step out of a building and a sense of beauty
washes over me. I care about surroundings, and all this"
-an encompassing wave-"is a visible reminder of the
JOAN STERN GIRGUS
43
thoughtfulness and caring that have gone into the
building and maintaining of Princeton. It symbolizes
what has gone on in the university generally. I think
students, without always knowing it, take it that way.
We all do. One hears students elsewhere complain about
'large, impersonal universities.' I don't think they mean
only that the faculty doesn't know them by name, or that
it's hard to get answers from an administrator. I suspect
the buildings and trees of a campus also give messages,
suggesting the kind of place it is, whether it's a place
that is, and has been, cherished. The messages are not
explicit, but they're there."
"When a school puts stress on its
students to become active
8
learners that equips them-and
reinforces their desire-to be
responsible for other aspects of
their lives."
ROBERT F. GOHEEN
O
ne fall day in 1956 a thirty-seven-year-old
assistant professor of classics at Princeton was
called before the university's board of trustees
and asked, "What do you see as this university's most
distinguishing characteristics?"
His reply, as he recalled it for me:
"One, this is a small liberal arts college and a great
research university in one; and, two, all of the faculty
are teachers and scholars, not just one or the other, and
all teach at every level, SO that not only graduate
students but undergraduates, even as freshmen, are
engaged by the active, searching minds of scholars who
take teaching seriously and don't just spew out a lot of
facts and theorems and 'incontrovertible truths."
That must have been the right answer, because they
forthwith made Robert Goheen a full professor and
Princeton's sixteenth president.
Would he give the same answer today? Yes-but he
would emphasize also "Princeton's concept that educa-
Born in India of American medical missionary parents, Goheen-A.B.
(1940) and Ph.D. Princeton-served as U.S. Ambassador to India,
1977-80. He was president of Princeton, 1957-72, and then head of the
Council on Foundations. Now a senior fellow of the Woodrow Wilson
School, he is also director of the Mellon Fellowships in the Humanities.
He is author of The Imagery of Sophocles' Antigone and The Human Nature
of a University.
44
ROBERT F. GOHEEN
45
tion is something not to be passively received. All
along, through a heavy schedule of written work and
independent work, students here are challenged to
become inquirers, responsible for their own learning.
This is not unique to Princeton, but is at the core here
to an unusual degree.
"At the collegiate level, anywhere, a student begins a
process of search: to acquire facts and various tech-
niques of organizing them and acquiring more. These
are 'the tools of the trade,' and indispensable; but they
are not the end of education, which is the deepening of
understanding, the development of the spirit of inquiry.
This is especially important in times like these when
facts are so quickly outmoded. It's the urge and the
ability to get at the facts, and the judgment to evaluate
them, that we need.
"I can't prove this, but I believe that when a school
puts stress on its students to become active learners, not
mere recipients, to be responsible for their own intellec-
tual development, that equips them-and reinforces
their desire-to be responsible for other aspects of their
lives. Again, Princeton is not unique in stressing this,
but it is special in the way it supports it.
"What's difficult is maintaining a faculty of outstand-
ing scholars who, as such, have an almost fanatical
interest in their own subject matter and yet are deeply
interested in students as learners; who get a bang out of
seeing young minds grasp an idea or insight and carry it
further than they, or you as teacher, thought they could.
You have to know how not to overwhelm them with
your own learning-while being there when they need
you; know how to put questions in a form they can cope
with, that doesn't stagger them, cause them to fall
backward, lose their confidence."
Goheen would be going to Washington the following
day to join in ceremonies welcoming Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi of India. Had he during his ambas-
46
ROBERT F. GOHEEN
sadorship to that country noted any parallel between
teaching and diplomacy?
"Well, in both cases you're dealing with people of a
'culture' different from your own, you might say, and
you must be able to get outside yourself and your
'culture' and be willing to listen, learn what's going on
in the other person's mind and heart. So, yes, I guess
there is a parallel, whether you're dealing with someone
from another nation, another economic or social class,
or a different level of academic achievement. In each case
you need the ability to submerge, or at least temper,
your own self-assurance and share the other's mind-set
to some extent."
He stipulated, however, that "much can be learned,
and I learned much at Princeton, from professors who
were dominating and authoritarian, who simply knew
so much, so well, that they were worth listening to.
And we know that countries of the East, despite their
rote methods of instruction, do develop formidable
scholars and scientists."
Having served Princeton as professor, president, and
now occasional teacher, how would he sum up its
educational philosophy?
He said he would draw on his recollection of Alfred
North Whitehead's The Aim of Education, and con-
tinued: "In the early grades, starting in prekin-
dergarten, teachers work with the imagination, the
restless curiosity and creativity of children. Later there
must come discipline-step-by-step mastering of estab-
lished facts and theories and methods. As Whitehead
puts it, 'In education as elsewhere a broad primrose path
leads to a nasty place.'
"Much of American higher education tends to put a
heavy emphasis on discipline, but Princeton-like good
colleges-believes there should be a process of syn-
thesis, where intuition and imagination are called into
play alongside disciplined thought, where independent
ROBERT F. GOHEEN
47
inquiry and reflection are encouraged to test received
wisdom. We believe students will do better for them-
selves and for society if at every stage, from prekin-
dergarten to postdoctoral study, their creative and
critical abilities are encouraged and nourished; if in-
stead of being spoon-fed they are required to think for
themselves.
"It's Princeton's policy to treat every student that way,
though obviously not all are equally creative and crit-
ical. Other universities have honors programs in which
a few students are so treated; at Princeton every student
is."
Is there a connection between Princeton's educa-
tional philosophy and its having chosen to remain small
for a research institution; that is, not to have profes-
sional schools of law, medicine, business? Yes, he
thought so. "It goes back to Woodrow Wilson. He
believed intensely in liberal education and the sorts of
scholarship and research that relate to it, and felt that
was Princeton's primary mission, where its major re-
sources should be concentrated. He didn't even advo-
cate a law school, though he himself had gone to one, at
the University of Virginia. Wilson really had an enor-
mous impact on Princeton. He may not have 'made
Princeton what it is today'-other people had key roles
in that-but it wouldn't be what it is without him. The
preceptorial system was not his only contribution: He
initiated a major strengthening of the sciences here that
made possible, many years later, its becoming a major
research university."
He conceded Princeton suffers some from the absence
of large professional schools. "But there are offsetting
advantages, especially in an age of intense specializa-
tion. We have a campus not only lovely but integrated in
a way that provides more interaction among faculty
members than is possible in larger, more complex
universities. I've been reading an impressive report by a
48
ROBERT F. GOHEEN
commission on graduate education at the University of
Chicago. It stresses the importance of reaching beyond
disciplinary limits to deal with overarching concerns-
and they're increasing every day-that involve many
disciplines. The report, it seems to me, talks Princeton's
language.
"It is traditional at Princeton to be selective and
'build on strength' wherever possible, in the belief that
'quality is what matters, not quantity.' OK, we're an
arts and sciences place, primarily, and when we reach
beyond that core, then let's do things that relate to it.
For example, the engineering school is highly scientific
and theoretical as opposed to the day-to-day technical.
The architecture school reaches out and draws on the
capabilities of sociologists, political scientists, econo-
mists. The Wilson school, though it has a deliberate
applied-public-policy bent, draws enormous strength
from its shared faculty in the social sciences and other
departments. These are Princeton's only professional
schools-but they are not 'professional' in the usual
sense because all enroll more undergraduates than grad-
uate students.
"Even before the budget-cutting days of the late
1960s we studiedly forwent certain options because we
couldn't see how to achieve them without sacrificing
too much. It was a matter of personal regret to me,
while president, that I couldn't move Princeton into
South Asia studies, because that part of the world means
a great deal to me. We had strong programs in Near
Eastern and East Asian studies; there was a huge hole
where South Asia might have been. But I became
convinced that it was more important to maintain and
extend the strengths we had than to fill that hole-
especially as well developed South Asia programs were
available next door at Penn and Columbia."
As president, Goheen had a close look at the rela-
tionship between a private university and its alumni;
ROBERT F. GOHEEN
49
now, as an ex-president, he could speak candidly about
the phenomenon. Are Princeton alumni, reputed to be
unusually loyal and supportive, also unusually inclined
to be conservative and to put pressure on the admin-
istration not to change the old place they loved so well?
"There is that pressure," he said. "But the overwhelm-
ing majority of Princeton alumni take great pride in the
quality of the university and want it to remain first-
rate; do significant things; be a positive influence in the
present and future. That pride works to offset the
inevitable nostalgia."
"When you get good people and turn
them loose to do their own thing, you
9
get a depth and breadth of
accomplishment that no autocratic
type of organization can provide."
ROBERT G. JAHN
P
rinceton has a well-respected School of Engi-
neering and Applied Science, generally referred
to as a "professional school," and at first glance
this would seem to make Princeton like other research
universities with their complements of professional
schools. "But in fact," said Robert Jahn, "the Princeton
engineering school is so different from professional
schools generally, and interacts with the university in so
unusual a way, that its presence probably makes Prince-
ton more distinctive.
"Engineering education in the United States, and the
world, probably covers a broader spectrum of styles and
purposes than any other discipline. At one extreme are
institutes that are frankly career-oriented, for profes-
sional preparation, the development of skills. At the
other extreme is Princeton, offering surely the most
An authority on plasma acceleration and author of the standard text,
Physics of Electric Propulsion, Jahn-B.S.E. (1951), M.A., and Ph.D.
Princeton-taught at Lehigh and the California Institute of Technology
before returning to Princeton in 1962. During his service as dean of the
School of Engineering and Applied Science, 1971-86, the school's
research budget increased by a factor of two and a half, its undergradu-
ate population nearly doubled, and women and minorities were enrolled
in substantial numbers. He introduced interdisciplinary topical pro-
grams to address social and economic problems from an engineering
perspective. Jahn has served on several NASA advisory committees, as
chairman of the board of Associated Universities, as a member of the
board of Hercules Incorporated, and as a consultant to several aerospace
corporations.
50
ROBERT G. JAHN
51
liberal engineering education one can find, addressing
itself to the development of creativity through breadth
of instruction and broad opportunities for independent
study.
"Actually, we are not a 'professional school' in the
usual sense: We are not engaged exclusively or even
primarily in the preprofessional technical training of
graduate students, as other engineering schools are. We
do have graduate students-about 250 this year of
about 1,500 in the Graduate School overall. But our
larger component by far is undergraduates, and this is
one reason for our unique interaction with the univer-
sity. The numbers of these undergraduates-about one
fifth of the entire undergraduate population-suggest
that the impact of the school on the university's
character must be considerable.
"The significance of this becomes clearer when you
consider how tightly we are integrated into the liberal
arts college. I know of no other first-rate engineering
school that is so deeply involved in the academic and
nonacademic aspects of its entire institution. Academ-
ically, our students are exposed to a broad band of
creative humanistic and social science studies as a part
of their programs. There is no area of undergraduate
study in the whole university in which you are not likely
to find an engineering student, or several.
"And the impact of these students-on fellow stu-
dents and on faculty-is increased by their being ex-
tremely bright and articulate. Our freshmen typically
have about a 725 average on their S.A.T. math tests, and
verbal scores as high as those of their A.B. counterparts.
Incidentally, many candidates for the B.S.E. are ad-
vanced placement students who can start their engineer-
ing education at a gallop. By the time they're seniors,
many are doing the equivalent of graduate work.
"At the same time, not only do our high-caliber
students rub elbows with non-engineers in classes all
52
ROBERT G. JAHN
over the campus, but we have everything from econo-
mists to Shakespearean scholars coming into our class-
rooms. This close association has to have a significant
effect in a university whose middle name is 'dialogue':
where interaction is stimulated in so many ways. Our
students have a different way of thinking, of approach-
ing problems, which they can communicate to fellow
students.
"This is probably true especially in interdisciplinary
studies such as those on the environment, on energy, on
transportation. But even in other courses-in politics,
history, and so on-it stands to reason that engineers
bring distinctive points of view. This is not to belittle
what our students learn from others. More and more,
engineers need a good grounding in economics, pol-
itics, sociology, and the humanities, in order, as they
move out into careers, to increase their versatility and
to better their chances of getting their ideas accepted.
"And in fact, about half of our B.S.E. graduates don't
go into professional engineering careers, but into medi-
cine, law, business, and other sectors." Does this bother
him, that so many opt out? "Not at all! We cherish it!
They aren't dropouts but people who wanted an engi-
neering background for a broad range of purposes. One
of the basic tenets of this school is that an increasingly
technological society demands people in every profes-
sion and occupation who have some engineering
literacy.
"In the past, high government officials, and decision
makers generally, didn't need much grasp of tech-
nological principles, but if they don't have it today,
they-and the country-are in trouble! We're pleased
that so many Princeton students understand this."
On the nonacademic side, he said, "you have engineer-
ing students rooming with biologists, Wilson school
majors, architects, you name it-and communicating in
ways not possible at schools where engineering educa-
ROBERT G. JAHN
53
tion is factored off to one side. They are very active in
extracurricular activities, including sports. The number
of our students in athletics is often disproportionately
high, especially in baseball and football. And the
concertmaster of the University Orchestra for 1979 to
1981 was an engineer. A woman engineer."
The faculty of the engineering school can be reason-
ably assumed to have a comparably strong effect on the
university's character, he said, "not only because of their
numbers [about ninety of a total of about seven hun-
dred] but because of their high quality, and because in
this relatively small place they interact more with other
faculty members than their counterparts do at larger
institutions. They play squash with professors of clas-
sics; at seminars they sit next to professors from a
variety of disciplines. In interdisciplinary courses, and
in university governance, there is an unusual closeness
and interaction.
Would he call Princeton a "well-engineered"
university?
"Well, I'd say it's run on sound engineering principles.
It takes a complex problem involving entangled cross-
disciplines-with sociological, economic, political
ramifications-and breaks it down into component
parts, assembles the resources to deal with it, and
proceeds systematically to a solution. That approach is
just as useful in running a university as in operating an
airport. It has benefited Princeton immensely, and one
likes to think engineers have contributed to that."
Given the Princeton engineering school's dif-
ferentness, does it turn out a different kind of engineer?
"Yes, I think so. A disproportionate number of our
graduates end up in policy-making positions. They're
leadership material, and often this is quickly recog-
nized. They are placed not in line assignments but in
leadership, because of the breadth of their education,
their having seen more of the humanities and social
54
ROBERT G. JAHN
sciences than their counterparts at similar schools,
having enjoyed rapport with students from all fields,
and having been trained by a faculty that is more
broadly based.
"I think they have a special respect for creativity.
Those who become executives want to turn loose the
imaginations of their better people, handle them more
the way students are handled at Princeton; that is,
schedule their work to give them more freedom to
explore the byways and ramifications of their spe-
cialties; provide them with more dignity and indepen-
dence; put less emphasis on rote. They understand, from
their Princeton experience, that when you get good
people and turn them loose to do their own thing, you
get a depth and breadth of accomplishment that no
autocratic type of organization can provide."
"Princeton, as a matter of
institutional policy, in the way
10
professors treat students, does the
most to instill confidence in them."
SUZANNE KELLER
T
o Suzanne Keller, a sociologist with a special
scholarly interest in male-female relationships,
one thing that distinguishes Princeton is the
way it teaches and encourages students to deal with
complex problems, such as the "huge" one that most
concerns her- "how to achieve a gender-equal society
and congenial relations between men and women
within such a society."
The first woman to receive tenure at Princeton,
Keller considers herself extremely lucky to have been on
the faculty when the first class of freshman women
arrived in 1969, and to have witnessed at close range the
shift from an all-male to a male-and-female student
body.
"There is a saying in biology that 'ontogeny recapitu-
lates phylogeny'-or, the development of the individual
repeats the development of the species; the human
being in going from embryo to birth recapitulates the
evolution of the human race. As I watched women
undergraduates arrive and make a place for themselves
in a man's world, I had the feeling that here was the
Keller-A.B. Hunter College, Ph.D. Columbia-teaches undergraduate
courses in design of communities, contemporary elites, the changing
family, and sociology of the future, with emphasis on gender relations
and the influence of space on human behavior. She also works with
graduate students of architecture. She has taught at Brandeis, New York
Medical College, Vassar, NYU, City College, and-as a Fulbright
lecturer-at the Center of Ekistics in Athens, Greece. Her books include
Beyond the Ruling Class, The Urban Neighborhood, and Building for Women;
she is currently writing a book on "creating community."
55
56
SUZANNE KELLER
women's movement in America taking place in
miniature.
"The experience has given me a new appreciation of
how difficult it's going to be for both men and women
to reeducate not only their minds but their emotions to
deal with equality."
She said the applicability of Princeton's educational
philosophy to this broad societal problem struck her
with particular force when she was preparing a maga-
zine article for an editor who had asked her, on the basis
of her scholarly work and many contacts with students,
to suggest principles young men and women might
profitably follow in relating to each other in this
confusing, rule-less period.
"When I read over my suggestions I realized that the
approach I was advocating to this one problem is the
one Princeton advocates-not uniquely, but in an un-
usually concentrated way-to all complex problems."
What was that approach?
"I said to both young men and young women-who
come to a relationship from different directions but
with similar confusions— 'Acknowledge that you are
dealing with a tough problem. Don't underestimate its
complexity or its subtlety or the hard work you will have
to do to solve it. Approach it with a flexible and open
mind, confronting and admitting your own deep-seated
prejudices-we all have them-that will have to be
overcome. But finally, believe in your mind and heart
that the problem can be solved and that you can solve it.'
"This element of self-confidence is enormously im-
portant, and of all the universities I know, Princeton, as
a matter of institutional policy, in the way professors
treat students, does the most to instill confidence in
them; the feeling that they are not insignificant kids,
undeserving of a full professor's time of day, but are in a
sense the equals-or at least the respected junior part-
ners-of the faculty, and as such have formidable prob-
lem-solving powers."
SUZANNE KELLER
57
Was she suggesting that because of the way they're
educated, male and female Princeton students have no
trouble getting along with each other?
"Far from it! They may even have more trouble,
because the more forthrightly one confronts this prob-
lem, the larger it gets. So much of it has been covered up
for so long. I am saying that their liberal education gives
them a handle on it and other personal problems if they
will make the connection, which increasing numbers
seem to be doing."
For her, light was shed on Princeton's character by
the way it handled coeducation, "demonstrating that
despite its traditionalism-its feeling that what it has
done in the past is so excellent there can't be much need
for change-once it decides to do something, it does it
better than any other institution I know. Coeducation
was a profound departure from more than two hundred
years of tradition, but once it came, it came with speed
and grace, thanks largely to the leadership of then
President Goheen and then Provost Bowen, two men I
greatly admire for their firm principles and ultimate
flexibility."
She feels Princeton has been unusually successful in
integrating women into classrooms and extracurricular
activities, including sports, and that its educational
arrangements-emphasis on liberal education, close fac-
ulty-student relationships, and so on-make it un-
usually attractive to women students.
Its record for hiring women faculty is less impressive,
she said, but probably no worse than other universities
of its type, and getting better. "Women are still by far
the 'outgroup' as to numbers, but some distinguished
and some promising women have been hired, and the
outlook is probably good that more will be."
As for her experiences as Princeton's first tenured
woman, she smilingly recalled that in the letter from
the dean of the faculty advising her of her promotion
she was inadvertently saluted as "Dear Mr. Keller."
58
SUZANNE KELLER
She said, however, that she has encountered no rude
behavior from fellow professors. "I was never accused of
being stupid or incompetent, as the long history of an
all-male faculty implied I might be; or at least not to my
face. But individuals can escape that sort of thing,
where a group cannot. When I first came, the men were
very chivalrous: much holding-the-coat, opening-the-
door sort of thing. And while it's not unpleasant to be
treated that way..." She shrugged. But surely chivalry
is better than hostility? She laughed. "It depends on
what the chivalry masks-which may be hostility!"
But things are better now? "Oh, yes. One feels less
conspicuous now. There is a freer exchange, more
openness. As a result of coeducation, and the addition
of even a small percentage of women to the faculty and a
larger percentage to the administration and staff, the
style of the university has changed. Not its basic
character, but its demeanor; its atmosphere. Before, it
was reserved: lots of closed facades; a definite dress and
speech pattern. The ethos of the place was much more
monolithic. To succeed here you had to adapt.
"Now there is a freer spirit, which I like better. It's
more ecumenical. There is more wit, humor, less preten-
tiousness. It's more improvisational. I wouldn't have
stayed at the old Princeton. Now there is more innova-
tion, more insouciance."
More than at similar universities?
"Well, because of Princeton's size, any change is more
pervasive and more recognizable here. So, yes, Prince-
ton has probably changed more, and for the better."
"There is a tradition here of
faculty members actually getting
11
acquainted with students, talking
things over with them."
STANLEY KELLEY, JR.
I
n the turbulent late 1960s when American univer-
sities were being pressed by their students, some-
times violently, to share their decision-making
authority, Stanley Kelley was chosen by the Princeton
faculty to head a special faculty-student Committee on
the Structure of the University.
For a full year, under his guidance, that group
intensively studied how Princeton and similar institu-
tions are run; who actually makes what decisions and
how. It then made recommendations for extensive re-
structuring, most of which were adopted.
Princeton's approach to this problem was signifi-
cantly different from that of similar universities, said
Kelley, and revealed something about Princeton's
character.
"Princeton anticipated trouble before it came, and
took it very seriously when it did come. Some two years
before student activists here began making demands for
more say in governance, President Goheen, aware of
troubles elsewhere, set up various committees to exam-
ine the role of students in decision making. As the
pressure grew, he broadened the study. So students and
everyone else knew the university was concerned."
More so than at other universities?
A professor of politics and former chairman of that department at
Princeton, Kelley holds an A.B. and A.M. from the University of Kansas
and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, where he has taught. Before joining
Princeton's faculty in 1957 he was on the Brookings Institution's staff.
His field is American political parties.
59
60
STANLEY KELLEY, JR.
"Elsewhere the self-examination tended to be more
superficial, designed just to 'take some of the heat off.'
Their committees were too large to function, their
studies went on and on, the makeup of the committees
kept changing so that very little was accomplished.
Here, Goheen himself served on our committee, which
was very unusual and indicated Princeton meant
business."
Kelley's committee discovered "a lot of careful
thought had gone into setting up Princeton's gover-
nance structure through the years."
Resulting in a structure peculiar to Princeton?
"Yes, in some important ways. First, and most strik-
ing, the Princeton faculty, long before the 'troubles' hit,
was routinely taking an important part in running the
institution. A professor at a university then in an uproar
told me there had not been a meeting of the general
faculty there since about 1810; that in fact there was no
'general faculty,' the faculties of the undergraduate and
graduate colleges being separately organized.
"But Princeton, going back to before Woodrow
Wilson, had been holding such meetings fairly reg-
ularly, and in recent years on a once-a-month basis. So
we in effect already had a mechanism for dealing with
such a crisis. We could immediately focus on specific
issues while faculties-elsewhere were wondering how to
organize themselves to do so.
"And our faculty was-I hesitate to use the word-
more democratic. Elsewhere, faculty committees were
appointed by deans, whereas here they were, and are,
elected by the faculty. There, general faculty meetings
were restricted to tenured professors; here, junior fac-
ulty had long participated, on a one-person, one-vote
basis.
"And the relationship between faculty and admin-
istration-the president and deans-was different here.
I don't know about the eighteenth and nineteenth
STANLEY KELLEY, JR.
61
centuries, but Princeton in the twentieth never seems to
have had a dictatorial president-such as Nicholas Mur-
ray Butler, whose high-handed ways caused friction
between him and the Columbia faculty. The president
here has long been seen as the leader of the faculty, as
one of them, and most deans are seen as faculty
members serving as deans. This is symbolized in faculty
meetings where each dean has one vote as a faculty
member. There has not been the 'us-versus-them' feel-
ing, as in some California universities, for example,
where the faculty meets separately and conveys its views
to the deans and the president.
"The traditional role of students also was unusual
here. The best example is the Discipline Committee on
which students have served, along with faculty and
administrators, and had a full vote, going back to about
1925. Some alumni and others thought it odd, our
giving students that much voice in something so impor-
tant. But the principle was adopted and digested long
before the 1960s.
"There is a tradition here of faculty members actually
getting acquainted with students, talking things over
with them. So as the atmosphere heated up, groups of
faculty members were already spending late hours talk-
ing with students-liberals with one group, con-
servatives with another-and this released a lot of
pressure. In universities where faculty members com-
mute to campus, and where the ratio of students to
faculty is much higher, there is much less of that
continuing, natural communication. There was also a
lot of discussion among faculty members across the
political spectrum here, more than in larger places.
"And confrontations were less bitter here because
students had fewer grievances. I had an undergraduate
research assistant about that time, a math major, very
able student. He decided to do graduate work in statis-
tics at a major California university, and before he had
62
STANLEY KELLEY, JR.
even completed a course in statistics they had him
teaching undergraduates-statistics! The results were
probably not bad, given his talent; but the thought
seems outrageous to anyone here.
"The practice was not unusual at lots of places in the
days of great increases in undergraduate attendance.
The disparity between what a student expected, in the
way of teaching, from a prestigious university, and what
he actually got fueled a lot of resentment and hostility at
other places; the feeling of having been 'conned.' The
absence of that feeling here-and at Yale, which is close
to Princeton in its attitude toward teaching-helped us
when the 'revolution' hit.
"And students here didn't have the feeling that
nothing could be done to improve their lot without
radical changes in governance, because there had tradi-
tionally been more participation in student government
here than at most places. Our students thought things
could be changed by nonviolent means."
Anything singular about how his committee went
about the restructuring process?
"Yes. At some universities a committee comparable to
ours would ask, 'What is the proper role of the admin-
istration? Of the faculty? Of the students?' -as if
decision-making power were a big pie to be carved up.
Each group wanted the largest possible slice, and that
maximized the conflict among them.
"Another approach, elsewhere, was: The students
want more participation in university governance, so
we will set up a committee to study their role.' Still
another was, We need a university senate: who should
be in it?'
"A fourth way-our way-was to ask, 'How is the
university governed and how could it be governed
better?' With this approach you ask, (a) 'How are
decisions being made in various fields?' (b) 'Who might
STANLEY KELLEY, JR.
63
contribute to making better ones?' Obviously not every-
one is interested in every type of decision, so you need
very different mixes of faculty and students on different
committees. The students sensibly saw some decisions
as not of interest to them, others as beyond their
qualifications to deal with.
"So you study the university, decision-area by deci-
sion-area, and then you ask question (c): 'What kind of
institution can we design, or redesign, for the better
making of all these decisions?"
Out of that process was born the Council of the
Princeton University Community (CPUC), with repre-
sentatives from all university constituencies: faculty,
undergraduate and graduate student bodies, admin-
istration, staff, and alumni, "a place where people can
say what's on their minds, get informed of problems-
including financial ones-at an early stage, and where
those who make decisions are able to explain them to
people who will explain them to others at their level.
"As a result of the governance restructuring, Prince-
ton students are now involved to an unusual degree in
many activities of the university once reserved to
faculty. There are undergraduate departmental commit-
tees, and similar graduate student groups, that review
departmental decisions and arrangements, and make
their views known. At the university-wide level, stu-
dents now participate in discussions held by the Faculty
Committee on the Course of Study; they sit on the
Priorities Committee, which makes recommendations
on the university's budget, and on the Judicial Commit-
tee which hears appeals from, and deals with cases that
exceed the jurisdiction of, any other disciplinary body."
With the "student revolution" over, does he feel the
changes in governance remain useful?
"Yes. The increased student participation in nearly
everything the university does is educational to those
64
STANLEY KELLEY, JR.
involved; and, through them, to students generally.
This will surely mean an alumni body that understands
how the university makes decisions. Given the extraor-
dinary degree of alumni involvement in Princeton
affairs, this is important.
"As Marvin Bressler has said, 'At many places the
administration's assumption is that most faculty mem-
bers are incompetent. Here the assumption is that
they're all competent.' Underlying the restructuring
here was the assumption that our students, too, are
competent, and identify with the place and care about
it, about upholding its quality."
"A little bit of isolation, such as
Princeton's location gives it, does
12
seem conducive to intellectual
creativity."
ALVIN B. KERNAN
M
ost of Alvin Kernan's remarks had to do with
Princeton in comparison with Yale and Har-
vard, and were made with a twinkle in the
eye, a warning that he would overstate now and then,
and the observation that "there are many different ways
of baking a cake. The only question is whether your way
works or doesn't-and they all do."
He began with location. "Princeton is in a small town
that's not a small town, that appears to be easy-going,
'just folks,' turn-of-the-century-but behind the doors
is something very different. That surface casualness,
folksiness, hometowniness carries over to the univer-
sity. Any dean, or alumnus, of the Graduate School can
tell you how well hidden the professionalism of the
place is. When I was dean I once overheard an under-
graduate Orange Key guide lecturing a group of sight-
seers under my window in Nassau Hall-with not a
word about the Graduate School!
"There is a pretense of amateurism that everybody
here has to play out-back of which is the reality of the
Graduate School and the research that is the educational
Kernan earned a B.A. at Williams, a B.A. at Oxford, and a Ph.D. at Yale,
where he taught English for nineteen years, and was associate provost,
acting provost, and director of the Division of Humanities before
coming to Princeton in 1973 as dean of the Graduate School, a position
he held for four years, and as professor of English. His books include The
Cankered Muse and The Plot of Satire. He has been chairman of the
Visiting Committee to the Harvard English department since 1978.
65
66
ALVIN B. KERNAN
life of the place. But even those most deeply involved in
it don't seem to want to appear professional.
"This is a point of real difference, particularly with
Harvard, where the great professors are conspicuously
involved in scholarship and research, and that's the role
you're expected to play if you want to amount to
anything. Harvard prides itself on its renowned schol-
ars, distinguished people who give the place its interna-
tional reputation. At Yale, the impression to be given is
that you're unbearably busy. At Princeton, the ap-
pearance has to be the opposite: you have an infinite
amount of time, are never harassed, even though the
opposite may be true. You have to seem 'laid back.' It's
not the reality but the role.
"If you want to occupy a visible, public position as
The Great Scholar, Harvard is probably the place to
go-though Yale and Princeton have many scientists
and scholars as distinguished as anyone at Harvard; but
to varying degrees at the former places the individual
gets absorbed into the group.
"The Harvard system concentrates on hiring pro-
fessors in their forties, after they've achieved reputa-
tions as scholars-elsewhere. It's a star system and it
draws stars who've achieved stardom not primarily by
teaching."
Turning to religious roots, he said the "established"
religion at Harvard has been Unitarianism, at Yale
Congregationalism, and at Princeton Presbyterianism.
"The characteristics of the religions have transferred
over to the universities and are still exerting an influ-
ence on them. Congregationalists were the sternest:
everything bare and plain, dealing with fundamental
realities. That high seriousness characterizes Yale's intel-
lectual approach as well. Unitarians have broad inter-
ests, the wide scholarly outlook that Harvard
cultivates-minimal doctrine and the avoidance of all
bias. Presbyterianism, which originated in Scotland and
ALVIN B. KERNAN
67
very quickly became the state religion there, has closer
ties to society. Not 'high society,' but the social order, to
whose realities the Presbyterians have traditionally
adjusted better than the Congregationalists or the
Unitarians. This social orientation echoes in Wilson's
Princeton in the nation's service'-or 'for' the nation's
service; he said it both ways. Of course Yale's motto is
the more metaphysical For God, for Country, and for
Yale.'
"As for the personalities of the three institutions: A
Harvard professor once said to me, 'We're like an old
New England house-everybody has his bedroom and
pretty much stays in it. Meals are brought on a tray. It's a
house of seven gables; like Emily Dickinson's.' At
Princeton some of the same things happen: Scholars
tend to work at home a great deal. But the public scene
is of a small town in which they're visible, which implies
accessible."
Well, aren't they? To students, at least?
"Oh, sure. If you play a role long enough it affects you
more than you affect it.
"One thing that's always intrigued me: The area in
which Princeton distinguishes itself is primarily theory,
not history or practice. This is true in mathematics,
physics, philosophy-even music, which focuses more
on the theoretical, or composer's, level here than on its
history.
"This might seem at first to conflict with what I said
earlier about Princeton's involvement with society; that
is, we might expect that this involvement would lead
Princeton to emphasize practical rather than theoretical
matters, the actual history of men and things rather
than abstract philosophical schemes. But Princeton is
far more 'social' than Harvard or Yale-and now I am
speaking in the 'high society' sense: more interested in
the way people dress, the wines they serve, the quality
of food, houses, international travel, manners. Prince-
68
ALVIN B. KERNAN
tonians are what you might call a very upper-middle-
class intellectual set trying for an aristocratic way of life,
or aristocratically-upward mobility.
"One characteristic of such a group is that it likes to
deal with things in theoretical terms rather than do the
day-to-day work of investigation or application at the
level of working details. So it's in theory that Princeton
is intellectually most active and effective. Physics and
mathematics, not history and sociology, are our most
distinguished departments. You realize, of course, that
I'm overstating and oversimplifying?"
Yes. But was he suggesting it's desirable or undesira-
ble to be the way he described Princeton as being?
He laughed. "I won't try to answer that. The argu-
ment has been going on since Plato and Aristotle.
Sometimes it has been the historian whose work was
considered most important, sometimes the theoreti-
cian. For some reason, though, a little bit of isolation,
such as Princeton's location gives it, does seem condu-
cive to intellectual creativity."
This emphasis on theory over practice is reflected in
"the small number of professional schools at Princeton.
And those professional schools it has-dealing with
public affairs, engineering, and architecture-are more
theoretical than most of their counterparts. When I
came here from Yale I thought Princeton might be wise
to add schools of law and of business; but I changed my
mind. They wouldn't fit the academic ethos."
Does Princeton attract a type of student who recog-
nizes and wants to sustain the characteristics he had
spoken of?
"I believe Princeton is perceived as being more fash-
ionable, socially, than the others. This is not true across
the board, but by and large students here do dress more
conservatively and are more polite. There is a softness of
tone as compared to the hard-edgedness-and
-edginess-at both Harvard and Yale, where students
ALVIN B. KERNAN
69
reveal a more aggressive quality in the classroom.
Princeton is more civil."
As for undergraduate teaching at the three univer-
sities, "I wouldn't say it's better here, but it's distinctly
different, and of high quality. The choice, for students,
would depend on their own characters. If self-sufficient
and highly individualistic and intellectually aggressive,
Harvard or Yale; if they tend to function better in an
academic community setting, then they're probably bet-
ter off here. Someone is always watching here, seeing
they don't get in too deep trouble. Harvard undergradu-
ates educate each other in the light cast by mighty
intellects. At Princeton they actually come up against
senior faculty members. Teaching styles vary at the
three places. But as to which is better" -he shrugged.
"You can learn from both kinds. I recall learning a great
deal from marvelous teachers who wouldn't give you the
time of day."
With respect to administrative style, he found Prince-
ton "clearly more efficient than either Harvard or Yale,
mainly because of its smallness." He also found that
Princeton has a "social" way even of resolving dif-
ferences. "Confrontation is dangerous to societies and is
avoided here. Things are more abrasive elsewhere. This
place is kept together by reasonable compromises. I was
surprised, when I came here, at the amount of careful
private consultation that goes on before anything is
openly discussed, much less debated and settled. But
that fits the Presbyterian pattern. Being small, Prince-
ton is more human, in that you can see people very
readily, get answers more quickly. Yale and Harvard are
no less humanitarian, but there the machinery grinds a
bit more loudly."
"Learning can be painful
to
be handed a hammer, then, as
13
soon as you learn that, to have it
snatched away and be handed
a screwdriver."
AARON LEMONICK
D
oes it make for a different kind of university
community when you have a faculty as in-
volved as Princeton's is in teaching
undergraduates?
Aaron Lemonick thought, and nodded. "You proba-
bly end up with a body of people who feel a special sense
of common mission. Whether you love it or fear it,
teaching is personal, and exhilarating. It's a shared
experience different from that of scholarship and scien-
tific research."
How?
"As a scientist I don't really understand the research a
scholar in the humanities does, because I haven't done
it. But teaching is the same in every field; it's something
we all do at Princeton, and take very seriously. We are a
closer community because of that shared activity. I feel
it when I meet someone who's never taught. I don't
mean it makes us better human beings!" He laughed. "A
community of shoplifters, or forgers, might be just as
congenial!"
Lemonick was said to have strong views about the
craft of teaching. What were some of them?
On completing high school in Philadelphia, Lemonick spent six World
War II years in the U.S. Army Air Force, then earned his A.B. at the
University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. at Princeton, in physics, which
he taught at Haverford College for seven years before joining the
Princeton faculty in 1961. He has been chairman of the physics
department and dean of the Graduate School, and was dean of the
faculty at the time of our talk.
70
AARON LEMONICK
71
"To me there is a joy that runs through teaching, at
three levels: The celebration, one, of what man has
achieved in the past; two, of what the student before
you has just achieved; and three, of what you have
achieved by getting the student to achieve.
"But if teaching can be a joy, learning can be painful.
Glorious, rewarding, exciting, yes! But not easy. Over
and over to be put in the position of a fledgling; to be
handed a hammer, then, as soon as you learn to use that,
to have it snatched away and be handed a screwdriver."
He shook his head and shifted metaphors.
"I think of students as standing on the shore of a
swamp they know they ought to cross, with the teacher
as a guide. It's not enough for the teacher to say, 'Come
on! Follow me!' It takes a certain amount of gathering
them up spiritually beforehand. You have to explain:
'I'm going to be out of sight some of the time, but I'll be
there, and you can follow me. You may be up to your
armpits in sewer water, but you won't be in quicksand!
And you won't be alone.'
"When I teach [as dean of the faculty he still teaches
physics to undergraduates] I become my students. When
what I am saying doesn't excite me I know it won't excite
them. When I write out a lecture, I am telling myself
the story as I write it. I put myself at the level of my
students.
"In telling students about a discovery, you can't tell
them every single thing that went into it. You have to
make certain leaps, and whether you make them suc-
cessfully depends on how well you understand your
students."
He is known as a spontaneous kind of lecturer: but he
does write out his lectures in advance?
"Sure-and then never refer to the manuscript. It's a
way of organizing what I want to say." He adjusts what
he's saying to how his students are taking it. For this, he
has to keep his eye on them and be flexible and
sensitive.
72
AARON LEMONICK
"I can tell I'm not doing well with a class when I find
myself talking to the blackboard, or raising my voice, as
people do when they talk to foreigners. In basketball,
according to Bill Bradley, you need 'a sense of where you
are.' Well, in teaching you need a sense of where they
are."
He said he usually spends the first five or ten minutes
of any class period "just getting them to come along-
like a guide introducing people to some historic place.
You try to give them a sense of the pleasure that's in
store; the worship; the awe.
"The students who hate a subject, how do you get
them to love it? Sometimes all you can do is make it
plain that somebody loves it-you do-and they can love
it vicariously through you. Sometimes the best you can
do is say to a student, 'I'll give you a skill; make it
possible for you to do a problem, or understand a thing
that now seems hopelessly baffling. I promise you, if
you come along with me, to give you something to take
home.'
"You have to pace yourself by saving some of the
surprises for later, some of the glory, to help motivate
your students to be willing to go along with you
through the dull and the trivial and the hard-like a
novelist has to have suspense and surprises in his story
to keep the reader interested through some unsurpris-
ing but essential parts.
"Sometimes I say to a class, 'I'm going to cover the
whole blackboard just to show you that little "a" and big
"B" are related. This will be a bore, but it's essential that
you know this in order to get on to the interesting
part."
What do you do when you feel you have lost the
attention of a class?
"What you do when you lose your way anywhere! You
ask questions: 'What's the matter, Harry? What have I
left out?" If you have enough sense of your students, you
AARON LEMONICK
73
know whose judgment to respect. If they tell you you're
doing something wrong, you go back, and do a little
soul searching."
Lemonick is not a permissive sort of teacher. "There
has to be some giving on the part of the student. I have
zero sympathy for the student who won't try to do the
work. We've struck a bargain, he and I; we've made a
pact. I will do my best for him, keep my side of the
bargain. I will not make it harder than it deserves-than
it needs-to be, as if there were some virtue in making it
hard. But sometimes it has to be hard. It isn't all
amusement. Then, if he won't keep his side of the
bargain, if he won't try, I won't weep for him."
What are some characteristics of a poor teacher?
"A tendency to look down on students, show scorn
for them, give them the impression they can't learn."
What about coldness?
"Coldness is all right. People who are cold by nature
would be making a mistake to pretend to be otherwise.
I remember being grateful that a certain teacher of mine
didn't make jokes and try to approach us personally."
Why?
"I didn't like her! It would have been an unnecessary
and distracting strain to have to be polite to her and
laugh at her jokes. Still, I could accept her as a good
teacher."
He especially disapproves of teachers who bully
students by giving them more work than can possibly
be done in the time allowed, and those who "pick on
students, tear them down, rob them of their dignity,
just to feed the teacher's ego. And it's almost as bad a
mistake, if a less common one, to try to build up the
egos of your students at your own expense. You've got
to maintain your dignity as a person and doubly as a
teacher, or you can't give them what you have to give
them."
"Wilson said, There is a very real
sense
in which the spirit of truth,
14
of knowledge, of hope, of revelation,
dwells in a place like this."
ARTHUR S. LINK
P
rinceton is the only university in the world,"
said Arthur Link, "to have had as its active,
policy-making president, over a period of sev-
eral crucial years, an educator who went on to become a
national and world statesman and the architect of a new
world order. What makes this more than merely an
interesting statistic is that Woodrow Wilson was a
creative philosopher and designer not only in world
affairs but in higher education as well. He left a lasting
mark on American colleges and universities generally,
but especially on Princeton.
"Today's Princeton reflects Wilson almost perfectly.
It's hard to believe: Everything he stood for is being
vindicated and realized-the withering away of class
privilege, which was never institutionalized here; his
belief that fundamental human values must underlie
everything; Princeton's openness, to people of all
cultures, religions, races; and its commitment to the
pursuit of truth.
"Partly because his influence was so broad, most of
Winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1957 and 1961 for two of his many
biographical studies of Woodrow Wilson, Link has been a Princeton
history professor since 1960 and director of the Papers of Woodrow Wilson,
now at forty-nine volumes, scheduled to total sixty-three. With an A.B.
and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, he has taught at
Northwestern and at Oxford, which awarded him an M.A. He has been
active in the national Presbyterian Church, and has been president of the
Southern Historical Association, the American Historical Association,
and the Organization of American Historians.
74
ARTHUR S. LINK
75
what can be said of Princeton can be said of other
universities of its type." But there are differences? He
nodded.
"One doesn't want to be invidious, but I believe that
among all major nonsectarian universities, Princeton is
the one that sustains most unabashedly the Jewish-
Christian tradition, its basic values and morals as
interpreted by Wilson, in this day of secularism, aliena-
tion, and cynicism." That was his conclusion, he said,
from looking closely at Princeton and similar institu-
tions as a member of the Princeton Faculty Committee
on the Chapel, which conducted a year-long analysis
prior to the search for a new dean of the chapel which
ended in 1981 with the appointment of the Reverend
Frederick H. Borsch '57.
"To me personally, this was the most important
thing to come out of the search, and it supported my
feeling that Wilson's religious attitude is still alive at
Princeton." How would he describe that attitude? "To
Wilson, truth was a vital component of religion. He
believed anything true was 'from God.' Therefore a
religious person should never be afraid of the truth:
should not only accept it, but seek it, glorify it. To him,
scientific or scholarly research was a religious act; there
was no conflict between education and religion in his
mind as there was-and is-in some people's.
"This was in harmony with the Jewish traditional
belief in freedom of inquiry. Most fundamentalism, he
felt, was based on insecurity about religion; ner-
vousness and personal anxiety; a fear of God. Wilson's
faith was SO strong that it could accommodate new
discoveries; celebrate them. The point is, Wilson
brought a religious zeal to his work as an educator, and
some of that persists at Princeton today, and helps to
characterize the place.
"There is something about having a man like Wilson
in an institution's history, in its bloodstream. Most of
76
ARTHUR S. LINK
us on the chapel committee felt this, I think; came to
understand better his idea that education, knowledge,
understanding were part of 'revelation' and, properly
understood and put together, brought wholeness and
spiritual health to a university; made it as religious a
place as church, because both have the same objective:
the search for truth, which is the word of God.
"I'd say that attitude is still alive at Princeton, though
it's unconscious in the minds of a lot of people." As we
walked out of Prospect, former home of Princeton
presidents including Wilson, now a lunching and din-
ner-meeting place for faculty and administration, Link
looked back and said, "You know, it's mind-blowing-a
term I don't often use!-to think that from this house
Wilson went on to a great place in history. Gives you a
ghostly feeling!" And as we passed the chapel, with its
niched sculpture of James McCosh, president during
Wilson's undergraduate days: "Wilson almost wor-
shiped, certainly idealized, McCosh. Both were nonfun-
damentalist Presbyterians to whom Christianity
represented a great liberating force. Both blasted away
at fundamentalism-but 'blast' is not the right word.
They did it quietly and effectively. They had the same
humanness and openness. And the university reflects
them both.
"Wilson broke the hold of the fundamentalist Pres-
byterian heretic-hunters on the Princeton board of
trustees, with help from other trustees and faculty
members; opened things up, freed the faculty appoint-
ment process from the board's control, raised the intel-
lectual standing of the place. He was building a first-
rate faculty and laying the foundation for Princeton's
preeminence in science. Many scholars he talked with
said he had the keenest mind they had ever encountered,
which was part of his ability to attract good people.
One said, 'After talking with him for a half-hour, I
would follow him anywhere.' He was instrumental in
rescuing Princeton from mediocrity and transforming
ARTHUR S. LINK
77
it into an incipient university. He kept it in the race at a
crisis point, at a time when there was a popular saying
that Harvard, with its system of electives, was 'dinner a
la carte'; Yale, 'table d'hote'; Columbia, with its three-
year degree program, 'a quick lunch; and Princeton-'a
picnic.'
"But after Wilson had raised academic admission
standards, tightened discipline, and revised the under-
graduate curriculum, it was said, 'Princeton used to be
one of the easiest places to get into. Now it's one of the
easiest to get out of.' Wilson took the view that 'I know
better than any sophomore what sophomores should
study,' an attitude that survives in Princeton's course
requirements, independent work, and so on.
"By the time in 1905 when the trustees accepted his
preceptorial plan, Wilson had already hired most of the
new young faculty members, having personally inter-
viewed-and, as many said, 'inspired' -them. What's
sometimes lost sight of is that through this device he
doubled the size of the faculty.
"He seemingly lost some big battles: to replace the
exclusive eating clubs with 'colleges,' and to locate the
Graduate College on the main campus. But he has won
in the fullness of time,' an expression he liked to use,
because those ideas, though buried, stayed alive in the
institutional memory. Recurring pressure from stu-
dents and faculty has changed the club system, opened
it up, and given birth to a college system now being put
in place; and the interaction he wanted between under-
graduate and graduate students is taking place to some
extent even though their residences are still separated by
a brisk walk."
As we reached his door, Link looked back over the
campus. "As Wilson said in his last baccalaureate ser-
mon: There is a sense, a very real sense, not mystical but
a plain fact of experience, in which the spirit of truth, of
knowledge, of hope, of revelation, dwells in a place like
this."
"To me 'maturing' means
learning to interact with
15
others as well as act alone-
and to enjoy doing it."
EUGENE Y. LOWE, JR.
A
S one person after another spoke of the close
relationship that can exist between undergradu-
ates and their professors at Princeton, in con-
trast to universities where the faculty is more remote, a
question grew in my mind: Does this almost familial
atmosphere tend to prolong students' adolescence, delay
their maturing, leave them less fit at graduation time to
face the "real" world?
Eugene Lowe seemed a good person to ask. He had
experienced Princeton as an undergraduate in the class
of 1971, as a university trustee for more than ten years,
and was now back on campus as dean of students and a
member of the faculty. He had a reputation for being a
student of students.
He said my question was a reasonable one "provided
it's understood that 'almost familial' does not mean
Princeton professors play a soft, indulgent kind of
parental role toward students. By being accessible they
do show a parental concern and respect for their
students, but they are far from being indulgent; in fact,
as a group, they may be unusually demanding because,
being personally acquainted with most of their stu-
An American church historian and Episcopal priest, Lowe, a member of
Princeton's Class of 1971, holds graduate degrees in theology and
history from Union Theological Seminary. He taught there and at
General Theological Seminary and served on the staff of Calvary/St.
George's Parish (New York City) before returning to Princeton in 1983
as dean of students and a member of the religion department.
78
EUGENE Y. LOWE, JR.
79
dents, they are especially aware of their progress or lack
of it. As to the effect of the atmosphere on students'
maturation
He drew on a freshly lit pipe, looked from his West
College office window across Cannon Green to the
chapel tower visible back of East Pyne, and said, "Let me
try an autobiographical approach to your question.
"When I was an undergraduate here, Professor John
Wilson of the religion department was my academic
adviser. It would be hard for me to describe how
important he was in my life then-and still is! I don't
believe I've made a single major vocational decision
since I've known him-from undergraduate days right
up to the present-without consulting him."
To suggest how deep the friendship with Wilson had
been-"as student-faculty friendships often are here"-
he elaborated on its continuation after graduation. "He
was a trustee of Union Theological Seminary while I
was a student there, and we often talked things over.
Now he is my senior faculty colleague in the religion
department and I'm the preceptor in two of his lecture
courses. He's the master of Forbes College-formerly
Princeton Inn-and I, as chairman of the Council of
Masters, work closely with him and the other masters.
Small point: I was in the first class of students to move
into that college, and I think Wilson was my first
faculty dinner guest.
"My relationship with John Wilson was probably
especially intense because we were in the same field and
because as a so-called 'University Scholar' I had an
unusual amount of curricular flexibility and so a greater
need for advice than most students have. But the fact is,
all Princeton students have access to that kind of
relationship with a professor. Even if they don't want it,
this is simply not a place where a student can get into a
position of isolation from the faculty; or not for long,
anyway. There are too many built-in arrangements for
drawing them together.
80
EUGENE Y. LOWE, JR.
"Now, do such relationships prolong a student's ado-
lescence? Did mine with John Wilson-and, on a lesser
scale, with other professors and administrators-delay
my maturing? Maybe I'm not the one to answer that!" A
characteristic quick laugh, a pause. "It depends on how
you define maturing. If it means learning to get along
without other people, to be a loner in pursuit of
knowledge and other goals-then no, I don't believe
Princeton does encourage that as much as some of her
sister institutions do, where the faculty is more aloof
and students are more on their own.
"But to me that is not what the term means. To me
'maturing' means learning to get along and work with
others, including some older and wiser than oneself,
and different in other ways; learning to interact with
others as well as act alone-and to enjoy doing it; to
acknowledge and embrace interdependence.
"That kind of maturity is very much enhanced by the
way students and professors interact at Princeton." To
illustrate: "When I came back to Princeton to become
dean of students, I might, in theory, have drawn into
myself, called on my own observations and reflections
to give me the ideas I needed. Instead, because of habits
formed as an undergraduate, and principles learned, I
sought out people to listen to, and drew on their
experience. Alone, I was not at all sure of myself in this
office, but in dialogue with my colleagues I could feel
their wisdom and strength-and maturity-become a
part of me."
He said it was, of course, common for especially
gifted and aggressive students at other universities to
establish close relations with professors in their fields,
"but it's not the accepted thing to the degree it is here."
He said he had heard more than one alumnus of other
universities speak of the need to "break down doors" to
get at senior professors.
The maturity-encouraging interaction between
EUGENE Y. LOWE, JR.
81
Princeton students and faculty "takes place in a context
of interaction that involves virtually everything this
university does, beginning, on the academic level, with
the preceptorial, which is symbol and essence of interac-
tion; of Princeton's recognition that education is a very
relational activity. Students bring their own experiences
and outlooks to bear on the subject matter, make up
their own minds; but they do it in interaction with a
small group of fellow students and a faculty member.
They're encouraged to put forth their own views, but to
listen to others, too; to put themselves in someone else's skin.
And you hear them saying of an argument opposed to
their own, 'Hey! That may have possibilities.'
"I can't imagine an educational device better calcu-
lated to prepare students to deal in a mature way with
today's world-whose problems call for working with
people unlike oneself, listening to them, getting inside
their skins."
His assistant put her head in: The student crisis that
had seemed only threatening an hour ago had now
materialized. He rose like a man accustomed to crises,
and as we walked to the door I asked whether there was
one word to express the institutional quality he had
been describing.
"Collegiality: The belief that the kind of decisions
one has to make in an educational institution-as in the
world generally, nowadays-are most likely to be sound
if the decision making involves a broad range of col-
leagues who know how to work together and are mature
enough to enjoy doing it."
[Weeks after my talk with Lowe I came across the
following lines by Christian Gauss, longtime dean of
the college at Princeton: "The art of learning to live
together and cooperate with each other is the most
important of all the liberal arts."]
"Separating sheep from goats is
very difficult in undergraduate
16
years
So I was always slow in
concluding who was and was not
worth my time."
ALPHEUS T. MASON
I
never visited a college or university I didn't like,
and I never taught a class I didn't enjoy," said
Alpheus Mason. "And the similarities I observed
are more significant than the differences."
But as a guest lecturer while still on the Princeton
faculty, and later on his twelve-year round of postretire-
ment visiting professorships, he noticed that "at other
major universities I was an object of surprised atten-
tion-found myself a bit of a freak-simply because I
treated students the way senior professors at Princeton
generally treat their students; paid them a respect many
had not felt from a professor before. At some sister
institutions the faculty attitude toward undergraduates
is almost contemptuous. At the end of my last class at
one of these, a student asked if he could come to my
room and talk. I said, 'Sure,' this being the kind of
thing that happens all the time at Princeton. Leaving,
after an hour's talk, the student said, 'Professor, you are
After teaching for forty-three years in Princeton's politics department,
Mason retired in 1968 and in the next twelve years was a visiting
professor at fifteen other colleges and universities, including Harvard,
Yale, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and the Universities of Virginia,
California (Santa Barbara), Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota. He
earned his A.B. at Dickinson College, Ph.D. at Princeton, and taught at
Trinity College (now Duke University) before joining the Princeton
faculty. He has published more than twenty scholarly books including
best-selling biographies of U.S. Supreme Court justices Brandeis, Stone,
and Taft.
82
ALPHEUS T. MASON
83
the first faculty member of rank I've talked with like
this in my four years here.' What was routine at
Princeton was apparently unusual there."
Such experiences "pointed up for me Princeton's
differentness in its attitude toward undergraduates.
There is a tradition, here, of appreciating each as an
individual; of helping each to find him- -and now
her- -self." Helping them how? "Basically, simply by
respecting them; which makes enormous sense, because
no one knows what the potential of a given student is at
that age and stage.
"Separating sheep from goats is very difficult in
undergraduate years. Sometimes a student who doesn't
seem like much at first will just grow like a weed if you
challenge and encourage him. Another, who seems very
bright, of whom he and everyone else expects great
things, will peter out. So I was always slow in con-
cluding who was and was not worth my time. You never
knew when a spark would flare." And that attitude, he
said, prevails at Princeton.
"There's a humanness about the place. The high ratio
of faculty to students makes it possible for professors to
spend time with students, but the impetus actually to
do this comes from the University's philosophy."
Which is—?
"That students and teachers should educate each
other. It's the opposite of the monologue method,
where you stand up and tell students what you know,
which is like trying to teach somebody to ride a bicycle
by riding it yourself and letting them watch you. No,
you have to let the student get on the bicycle, and fall
off, and perhaps even get hurt a little.
"It's the Socratic method: raising questions, letting
students find, or try to find, the answers. And one
thing they learn is, the best questions can't be fully and
finally answered. The greatest thinkers-and teach-
ers-are not the ones who answer questions but who
84
ALPHEUS T. MASON
raise them; and who encourage students to raise them.
In my life I've made a close study and analysis of the
classics. Do you know why they endure? Because they
ask questions that are baffling-and often
unanswerable."
He said Princeton's approach to teaching goes back
even farther, "but the real revolution came in 1905 when
Woodrow Wilson brought in fifty young professors as
'preceptors.' This sudden infusion of talent, dedicated to
a certain type of small-group teaching, was strongly
and immediately felt-and is still being felt, passed on
from generation to generation. Its influence may be
inexhaustible."
Instead of departing from it in later years, Princeton
supplemented it with-for seniors-the four-course
plan and the senior thesis, and with a general emphasis
on independent work. "It was Wilson's notion that each
teacher should be 'philosopher, guide, and friend' to his
students. This had been the attitude at Princeton all
along. It was at most American colleges in the early
days, but Wilson institutionalized it at Princeton."
Might it have survived without that? "It didn't
elsewhere."
Many times voted Princeton's "most inspiring
teacher," Mason volunteered that he had been "some-
thing of a prima donna," and that this was not unusual
among his fellow professors: "to love the plaudits of
undergraduates." I asked him to define "prima donna,"
which to me implied egotism and a difficult tempera-
ment. "No," he said. "To me it means a fella who for
whatever reason stands out in the eyes of his public.
And I made an effort to stand out! So did some others.
In my early years, Princeton had a lot of prima donnas,
and still has. 'Buzzer' Hall was a prime example, with
the bulldog he brought to class with him, and his
neckties, which seniors, singing on the steps of Nassau
Hall, said 'were made of Garibaldi's underwear."
ALPHEUS T. MASON
85
He said the principle of dynamic interplay between
teacher and student can be-and at Princeton usually
is-applied even in large lecture courses, where "a
professor has the choice of simply pouring out his
knowledge without concern for how it will go down
with students, or of planning his remarks with some
respect for students' curiosity; trying to figure out what
questions will be aroused in students' minds by each
statement, and organizing his material to be responsive.
"The best teachers have a gift for giving: an urge as
irresistible as the artist's. Human beings are the
teacher's material as surely as paint is the painter's. A
teacher's goal should not be to fill out his own self-
image but to help others discover and discipline and
develop their own God-given talents.
"Princeton has no monopoly on outstanding teach-
ers, but thanks to Wilson and others, a method of
teaching is standard here to a greater degree than at
larger universities. There is more opportunity here for
contact among professors: more cross-fertilization."
Would he agree with those who say Princeton works
its students uncommonly hard?
"You bet! Undergraduate and graduate students." He
said seventeen students turned up for the first meeting
of his graduate seminar on American Political Thought
at a leading Ivy League university. "When I announced
that I would expect each to write a paper a week-as had
been my custom at Princeton-the seventeen then and
there dropped to three! They just refused to do that
much work!" He quoted from John Stuart Mill's auto-
biography: "A student of whom nothing is asked that he
cannot do never does all he can."
One conspicuous way Princeton demonstrates its
respect for undergraduates, he said, is in having them
taught by the same professors who teach graduate
students (the "single-faculty" system), whereas at some
comparable universities undergraduates are taught
86
ALPHEUS T. MASON
mainly by graduate students and new Ph.D.s and sel-
dom see the senior faculty.
How significant is this, educationally?
"Very." Why? "The senior faculty member is, ob-
viously, a scholar-or a scientist deeply involved in
research. Unlike the graduate student or the freshly
minted Ph.D., he has been pushing at the frontiers of
knowledge in his field for some time, and not merely
reading of those who have done this. The odd thing is,
this can make for a kind of modesty: He knows better
what he doesn't know! And it can make him more
patient with undergraduates, more sensitive to un-
answered questions than the younger scholar who, in
earning his Ph.D., has just found the answer to one big
question and tends to be more preoccupied with an-
swers than questions."
Both graduate and undergraduate students profit
from the single-faculty system, he said. "The custom of
using original sources with graduate students carries
over to undergraduate teaching and puts it on a higher
plane. The effort needed to make such material more
accessible to undergraduates can carry over to graduate
teaching and make it livelier. Undergraduates at places
like Princeton, because of their youth and exceptional
brightness and openness, are very inspiring to teach,
and graduate students benefit from teaching thus
inspired."
If the Princeton method is so good, why don't all
institutions adopt it?
"Well, let's face it: The Princeton method is damned
expensive!"
But other institutions are as rich as Princeton or
richer-?
"Yes, but they're not spending their money that way!
Their primary interest is research, and undergraduates
are sometimes seen as a necessary nuisance; whereas
Princeton has retained, from its early days, the notion
ALPHEUS T. MASON
87
that teaching ranks with research as an activity de-
manding and deserving the very best talents, even of
scholars working toward the discovery of important
new knowledge."
In his postretirement teaching travels, he was struck
by the sharp distinction drawn elsewhere between
scholarship/research and teaching, "as if there were a
contradiction between the two; and when one has to be
sacrificed or downgraded, it has to be teaching. Well,
it's obviously possible for a very good scientist or scholar
to be so absorbed in research that he has tunnel vision, is
distracted by teaching. I know such people exist. But
I-and Princeton professors generally-found it not
only possible but necessary to combine the two. I
believe that to be a good teacher you have to be
continually pushing back the frontiers of learning,
through research. You can't be forever taking in other
people's intellectual wash and be a successful teacher.
But it's hard for me to understand how a person
working at the frontiers of some subject can fail to be
helpfully stimulated by the sheer fun of working with
young people just entering that field!
"In my own case, I've rarely given an undergraduate
lecture that didn't find its way into an article or book. I
always wrote out my lectures, didn't talk off the top of
my head. I know these lectures were enriched and
influenced-as was the research that went into them—
by my awareness that they would be delivered to an
audience of live bodies. It kept me from developing a
textbookish style." He paused. "Hell, a good many of
my books would never have been written if I hadn't had
an undergraduate audience to write them for in the first
place!"
From a bookcase filled with his own published works
he took Security through Freedom and showed me its
table of contents. "Every single chapter originated as a
lecture to undergraduates!" Next he showed me the
88
ALPHEUS T. MASON
preface to his biography of Justice Harlan Stone, in
which he acknowledged help from two undergraduate
"fellow researchers" whose digging for their senior
theses turned up material he could use. "Many univer-
sities fail to appreciate the creative capacities of under-
graduates-in all fields."
Another reason more universities do not adopt the
Princeton method, he said, is that not all professors are
equipped, emotionally or intellectually, to use it. "Most
teachers talk too much, which the Princeton method
discourages. Some students used to criticize me for
letting them talk so much. 'We'd rather hear what you
have to say.' I explained that I wanted them to become
involved. It takes patience."
What else?
"Deep self-assurance; confidence that you can relax
your control over students and yet get it back when you
need to, if things start to get out of hand. You need to
know people and not just an academic subject. You have
to know how to let a student know, without insulting
him, that he's being boring and tedious and wasting
everybody's time, including his own."
Would he as a keen observer of current public affairs
say the "Princeton method" has any special relevance
today? He said his answer would be oblique.
"When I came here, the tradition in teaching gradu-
ate seminars was to assign readings and one long
research paper each semester. But this seemed boring to
me as a teacher. I wanted more interaction. So I devised
a system nobody else was using: There would be a body
of reading all students would do, and then, each week,
each student would submit a 'query' on the material; a
question it raised in his mind. Then each student would
choose one of those queries and write a short docu-
mented research paper on it each week. Now what was
the virtue of that approach? It encouraged students not
ALPHEUS T. MASON
89
simply to seek answers but to seek questions, which
takes some humility.
"This approach is just heaven-sent today, when our
problems-energy, defense, the economy-are so nu-
merous and complex that no one has convincing an-
swers to any of them. There never was a time when we
so needed to break our problems down into queries, and
research each one, finding a few answers and a lot more
questions."
"I feel my research is improved
by my teaching, by the prodding
17
I get from inquiring young minds
of high caliber."
ROBERT M. MAY
H
e has the lean, expressive face and body of a
Marcel Marceau, and when Robert May feels
enthusiasm for a subject, he projects it-to
the back of a crowded lecture hall or across a lunch table.
His enthusiasm on this occasion was for the "spon-
sored" research done by all leading American univer-
sities, which he felt deserved the continued support of
government agencies, private industry, and
foundations.
He was less disposed to describe how universities
differ in their approach to research; but, prodded,
acknowledged that such differences do exist and help
define each institution's character.
"I would not go so far as to call Princeton unique
with respect to research," he said, "but it is at one end of
a continuum of the fifty or so top American univer-
sities." Which end? "Princeton has a clear view, deliber-
ately formed over many years, of the kind of university
it wants to be: A place committed to excellence in
research and to the integration of that research-and
After earning his B.Sc. and Ph.D. from Sydney University in his native
Australia, May taught applied mathematics at Harvard and physics at
Sydney before coming to Princeton to teach biology. His present
research deals especially with the role of infectious diseases in the
regulation of natural populations of plants and animals. He is author of
Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems and of Theoretical Ecology:
Principles and Applications, and is also editor of the series Princeton
Monographs on Population Biology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society
and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
90
ROBERT M. MAY
91
the men and women who conduct it-into the educa-
tional fabric of the university. It does not seek or accept
outside grants for sponsored research that might distort
that commitment."
And at the opposite end of the continuum-?
"Those universities that allow or encourage their
professional schools and departments to become free-
standing empires bringing in huge research grants
almost regardless of the shape-or shapelessness-the
resulting activities will give to the institutions. Some
people call these 'multiversities.' It must be emphasized,
though, that they do extremely important work.
"At Princeton, scientific and scholarly research not
only has to be carried out within a regular department
of the university but has to be clearly related to that
department's academic program. And the scientists and
scholars conducting the research are expected to teach-
not only graduate and postdoctoral students but under-
graduates. Some other private universities have similar
policies, but probably not as clearly articulated or as
closely observed.
"At very large public universities, and even at some of
the larger private ones, there are faculty 'superstars' who
are allowed to concentrate on their own research and
stay away from students; who cower at the prospect of
facing a freshman. At Princeton, senior and junior
professors are treated more nearly as equals, and this
creates an atmosphere of collegiality. We are not di-
vided, as some are, into superstars reigning in islands of
excellence, and a sea of drudges around them doing the
teaching. I'm not saying our system is all good and
theirs is all bad; they produce some brilliant work. I
happen to prefer the atmosphere at Princeton, but that's
largely personal."
Why does he prefer it?
"I feel my research is improved by my teaching, by the
prodding I get from inquiring young minds of high
92
ROBERT M. MAY
caliber to look at things in my field in a new way. And
whereas many-maybe most-scientists don't like being
involved in university administration, I find it stimulat-
ing to move from one world to another: from research,
to teaching, to administration.
"I like to see how things work; and to affect how they
work. Princeton, while large enough to provide me with
the graduate students, facilities, and financial support I
need for my research, is small enough for me to
comprehend. The other universities I know best, Ox-
ford and Cambridge, although fragmented into individ-
ual colleges that are significantly smaller than
Princeton, are so administratively complex that I doubt
if any mortal fully understands them. And Imperial
College, in London, where I spend my summers, and
Harvard, where I have taught, also appear to me to have
overall administrations that-because of their size-are
too complex for anyone but a full-time administrator to
grasp. I'm told this is true of most American univer-
sities, encrusted as they are with professional schools."
May does indeed affect how things work at Prince-
ton. He is chairman of the University Research Board
(URB), which oversees the seeking and accepting of
outside funds for scientific and scholarly research; and
ranking as an academic dean, he sits with the provost
and the deans of the faculty, of the college, and of the
Graduate School in making crucial decisions on matters
far removed from sponsored research, including the
undergraduate curriculum, student aid, student life, and
support of graduate students.
Is Princeton's URB significantly different from com-
parable bodies at other universities?
"Somewhat different from those at other private
universities, vastly different from those at vaster
institutions."
Different how?
ROBERT M. MAY
93
"Historically, Princeton recognized earlier than most
universities the need for faculty oversight of the accep-
tance of outside funds for research. In the post-Sputnik
1950s, when such funds were beginning to be available
on a large scale, we happened to have, in Henry DeWolf
Smyth '18 and Sir Hugh Taylor, two faculty members
who had had extensive experience in working as scien-
tists on the Manhattan Project during World War II,
and, as university people, in working with government
bodies after the war. They had definite ideas of what
should and should not happen in the inevitable evolu-
tion of these government-university relationships. They
wanted them to evolve in a coherent way, and not just
existentially as they were beginning to do at other
universities.
"So Princeton has been prepared for thirty years to
deal with the questions that are now confronting
universities as a result of research into recombinant
DNA and other matters with complex public-ethical-
commercial implications. Already set up to think about
these questions, we have done so with little fuss.
"As to its functioning, the Princeton research board is
somewhat unusual in that every proposal by a faculty
member seeking outside funding for research is looked
at by two of the six faculty members of the board [there
are also three administrators, and the chairman], not as
a 'peer review' but to see whether it is consistent with
university policies, which are broadly drawn but include
these points:
"One, no 'classified' research; nothing not freely
accessible to the public. Most universities have such a
policy now, but Princeton has had it for years.
"Two, research must be fundamentally integrated
into the teaching of undergraduate and graduate stu-
dents, not aimed solely or primarily at developing or
improving products for their own sake. We discourage
94
ROBERT M. MAY
the creation of those free-standing empires whose main
virtue, often, is that they bring in money. We don't say,
as some do, This money is available from an outside
source: What can you work up in the way of a proposal
to get it?' We say, 'What do you want to do? Lay it out
and we'll try to find support for it."
He said it was probably worth mentioning that "the
chairmanship of similar boards elsewhere is usually,
necessarily, a full-time job. Here, the chairman is
expected to go on teaching at all levels, and doing
research. This is possible because of Princeton's size.
"Although sponsored research at Princeton-exclud-
ing the Plasma Physics Laboratory out on Route 1,
which is the center of the U.S. fusion research effort-
brings in some thirty million dollars annually through
some seven hundred separate grants and contracts,
Princeton remains a small-scale enterprise in com-
parison with places like Michigan or Berkeley. Chair-
manship of the URB at Princeton is compatible with
being productive in one's own research, and with
teaching. A succession of chairmen-from Smyth and
Taylor in early days to Lyman Spitzer and Sheldon
Judson '40 before me-testify to this."
Is it advantageous to have a working faculty member
preside over the board that sets and monitors research
policy for other faculty members?
"Yes. A line is not drawn between 'them,' the admin-
istration, and 'us,' the faculty, as it tends to be
elsewhere. Things are done with greater understanding
and civility when you don't view a dispute-and there
are bound to be some in this work-as a Manichean
dichotomy. The atmosphere is different. It's partly the
size of the place, of course; you're less likely to get
confrontational with a colleague you may be playing
tennis with the next day."
Did he agree with those who say Princeton charac-
teristically tends more toward theoretical research than
its opposite?
ROBERT M. MAY
95
As he mulled over the question, I reflected that he is a
prime specimen of the theoretical scientist. He gave up
theoretical physics a decade ago to apply the mathe-
matical techniques of that field to ecology and evolu-
tionary biology, which he has helped to revolutionize.
He studies nature abstractly, mathematically, seeking
patterns in the data collected by empirical ecologists;
patterns on which to base predictions of the dynamic
behavior of populations of organisms from blue whales
to epidemic viruses.
"Yes," he said, "it's probably fair to say Princeton has
been especially drawn to theoretical research through
the years, partly because of its size: You don't need large
groups of people or large pieces of machinery or a large
and costly administrative infrastructure to support the-
oretical research.
"However, Princeton has long recognized the danger
of letting the theoretical dominate; the danger that you
may end up with a sort of Brahmin institution that
attracts people who don't want to get their hands dirty;
who have the Aristotelian attitude that all problems can
be solved just by thinking about them.
"Aware that a university, to be first-rate, needs to
have a blend of the theoretical and the empirical-with
all the laboratory work, the mess, and great and increas-
ing expense it entails-Princeton has devised an effec-
tive strategy for achieving this blend. It is a continuing
struggle, involving not only Princeton's concept of itself
but the deployment of funds."
In pursuit of this goal, May has been active at every
stage in the planning of Princeton's new molecular
biology department-"especially," with a wry smile, "in
insisting it would cost a lot more than was at first
thought"-and he believes its presence on campus will
weigh significantly on the empirical side of keeping
Princeton in balance as a research university.
"Not to end on a negative note," he said as we left the
lunch table at Prospect, "but there are some hard, almost
96
ROBERT M. MAY
cruel, aspects to being a small university with high
aspirations. One, only a small fraction of assistant
professors make it into tenure here; some who don't
make it are very able people, respected and liked, who
like it here but have to move on simply because there
isn't room for them to move up. Two, in a place as small
as this there are certain diseconomies of scale, one effect
of which, on scientists, is that to sustain a research
enterprise at a given level of funding, to be competitive
with larger institutions, you have to work harder here!"
He smiled and hurried back to work.
"The physical beauty of the place,
in combination with its history,
18
reflects accurately and harmoniously
what the institution is all
about."
NEIL L. RUDENSTINE
P
rinceton has a particularly clear 'presence," said
Neil Rudenstine, "one that demands a personal
response from students. While not the whole
story, the beauty of the campus contributes to this
'presence.'
"Princeton was the first university I visited as a
prospective student, and, fresh from reading This Side of
Paradise, I fell in love at first sight. It was a dazzling
spring day, and though I would be struck later that year
by the attractiveness of other campuses, especially
Harvard and Amherst, they didn't remove the spell of
Princeton: its stunning beauty, the whole sense of
quintessential college life.
"I still remember, vividly, spring evenings of my
freshman year, the lights shining in the darkness He
shook his head. "There is something about the sweep
and scale of Princeton, its architecture, the number of
vistas. They make indelible prints on the con-
sciousness-especially of undergraduates. And the phys-
After graduation from Princeton in 1956, Rudenstine went to Oxford as
a Rhodes Scholar for another A.B.; then, having been in the ROTC
program at Princeton, he served as an army first lieutenant at Ft. Sill,
Oklahoma, before earning his Ph.D. at Harvard, where he taught for
four years. He returned to Princeton as English professor and dean of
student affairs in the troublous late 1960s, later became dean of the
college, and at the time of this conversation was provost. His academic
field is Renaissance literature.
97
98
NEIL L. RUDENSTINE
ical beauty of the place, in combination with its history,
reflects accurately and harmoniously what the institu-
tion is all about.
"Princeton wouldn't have the emanations it has with-
out two and a half centuries behind it: the history that's
taken place here, and the concept of the university
sustained throughout all that. So the physical image has
depth: Princeton is weathered and strengthened by the
past. This, with one's personal experience of the place,
helps to account for the warm loyalty of many alumni.
Even if their ties are suspended or broken in the years
just after graduation, the experience and image are
potent enough to resurface."
Does Princeton's "presence" relate significantly to its
ability to educate students?
"Very much so. It means the air students breathe
here-the institutional atmosphere-has a 'charge' to it.
The visible and historical presence really forces every
student to come to terms with the university, one way
or another. At some universities the institutional pres-
ence is neutralized by its surrounding environment,
especially in a large city; at others, by the number of
'colleges' and 'schools' and the way they are spread over
a large area. It can be hard to come to terms with such
institutions.
"Princeton's presence is formidable and inescapable.
From the beginning, you powerfully identify with it or
resist it, love it or hate it; you can't ignore it. This is one
source of Princeton's energy, and of its ability to
communicate its energy: the way it refuses to take 'No'
for an answer. Even if you don't like it, you have to end
up with a positive feeling for what human attention,
care, and loving concern have created over many genera-
tions. The residential nature of the university, the total
environment-there is no alternative to finding one's
place in it. And yet it is open enough, large enough,
NEIL L. RUDENSTINE
99
varied enough not to be felt as constricting. It is now,
after all, a community of some ten thousand people,
students, faculty, and staff."
Had his being an English major perhaps made him
unusually sensitive to the Princeton "presence"? "No. I
had friends in many other fields, and roomed with two
engineering students during most of my undergraduate
years. Most had very similar responses."
Many other elements contribute to the strength of
alumni feelings, he said, including "a dispropor-
tionately large number of unifying rituals at Princeton:
things an entire class goes through as grueling experi-
ences on the way to a goal, particularly the junior paper
and senior thesis. Students also share a ritualistic
context within which work is done: the honor code,
preceptorials, the library, the relationship between fac-
ulty and students."
Is there a type of student for whom Princeton is
particularly appropriate?
He prefaced his "Yes" by saying "there is more elbow
room for diversity at Princeton today than ever before,
making it hospitable and attractive to students from a
wide variety of regional, ethnic, social, and economic
backgrounds, with widely divergent talents and inter-
ests. This diversity is crucial to maintaining educational
quality. At the same time, there are probably some
characteristics shared by a great many of our under-
graduates. I believe most want to participate in an
institution. Princeton invites this, saying, in conscious
and unconscious ways, We want you to identify with
this place, care about it, help shape it.' This gets
communicated by our Alumni Schools Committee
members in interviewing applicants; by the faculty in
the clear way they commit themselves to so many
aspects of undergraduate education; by the way the
university describes itself in its literature. We stress,
100
NEIL L. RUDENSTINE
probably more than most institutions of our kind, the
possibilities and advantages of an association that can
last a lifetime.
"So-granting the elbow room for diversity-a great
many of our students probably tend to be unusually
public-spirited and service-minded; they want to par-
ticipate fully in this or any other institution they join.
Not all of them, of course; and there are, fortunately,
many different ways in which one can serve. But
whether it's the spirit of James Madison, Woodrow
Wilson, or Adlai Stevenson, it's very powerful. You see
it in applications for admission, where students discuss
their goals in life, and the kinds of activities they wish
to be involved in."
Is there a type of student for whom Princeton is not
ideal?
"I'd hate to divide all humankind into categories on
this issue! And I believe virtually any talented,
thoughtful young person can have a rewarding time at
Princeton. But perhaps the alternative to the attitude
I've been describing could be called instrumental; that
is, the feeling that a college is mainly a resource one
'uses'-and I don't mean that term in a pejorative sense:
a place you want to go through and out of, not feeling
you've entered a precinct that you will always, in some
sense, remain in, and that will always remain in you.
Princeton invites a more lasting connection."
As provost, Rudenstine has special responsibility for
the university's budget, and thus for determining pri-
orities. Does a small university need to pay more
attention to "priorities" than a larger one?
"Yes. Here, there is constantly the question of choice,
the need to select: 'Do we want this-or that?" At larger
places there may be a tendency to think, 'Maybe we can
have this and that.' Princeton has about the smallest
faculty that could successfully mount major programs
on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. We're
NEIL L. RUDENSTINE
101
really just at the 'critical mass' size, where every single
faculty member and every course simply has to count.
This makes for a highly disciplined curriculum."
But less flexibility?
"Yes, to some extent. But that question should be
looked at in the context of particular historical eras.
There are times when it may be appropriate to place a
special premium on flexibility and adventurousness in
academic fields because the society may be suffering
from a lack of these things. There are other times when
society, in its desire for flexibility, loses some of its
ability to distinguish between what is really fundamen-
tal, important knowledge and what is ephemeral. In
such times, the need in universities will almost certainly
be for structures that force a careful evaluation of
alternatives, a concentration on absolutely central aca-
demic and other values.
"My own feeling is that this is, and has been for some
time, and will be for some years to come, nationally and
internationally, the latter kind of period, when the great
need is for intelligent selection and focus. A number of
institutions have been injured by too much flexibility.
We see some evidence of this in current efforts across
the country to eliminate some of the things added in
the last fifteen to twenty years, to return to a 'core.'
Princeton, because its intrinsic structure is not unsuited
to difficult times, may in the end be in a better position
than most to sustain intelligent selectivity and genuine
flexibility."
"The senior thesis makes you do
the kind of original work that
19
makes you feel you're an original
human being."
CARL E. SCHORSKE
D
uring his "first teaching stand" at Wesleyan
University in Connecticut, Carl Schorske
spent a leave of absence at the Center for
Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto.
He guest-lectured at nearby Berkeley and was invited to
join its history faculty.
"On that visit I was exhilarated by the large, respon-
sive student audience. Immediately I got the feel of a big
urban university, impersonal yet pulsating, far removed
from my previous experience. And after fourteen years
at Wesleyan, though I loved it, I felt I should leave it,
and not become an elder statesman too early! So I took
Berkeley's offer.
"Berkeley gave me my first exposure to graduate
students in a serious way. I liked that, and liked the big
lecture courses; but I missed the personal contact I'd
had with undergraduates at Wesleyan, my main contacts
at Berkeley being with graduate students and faculty.
Those undergraduates I did know at Berkeley seemed
unusually mature for their age, having come, many of
them, from a wide variety of social subgroups in large
cities. They hadn't been protected from the maturing
Now Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Emeritus, Schorske came to
the Princeton faculty in 1969 with a Columbia A.B., a Harvard Ph.D.,
and having taught at Wesleyan (1946-60) and Berkeley (1960-69). He is
known as a multidisciplinary scholar and has taught and written on a
wide range of subjects from German politics to urban development. His
Fin-de-siècle Vienna won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981, and the same year he
received a five-year MacArthur Foundation Award.
102
CARL E. SCHORSKE
103
effects of the outside world as had most of my students
at Wesleyan-and, later, those I would teach at Prince-
ton. It was more like a European university."
During the 1960s, he was in the middle of the "Free
Speech" movement at Berkeley, which he said was much
misunderstood. "It began not over the freedom to use
dirty words, as was widely thought, but over the right
of students to invite persons of any political persuasion
to speak on the campus and to carry on political
activity. I was instrumental in getting the rules
changed to permit that, having been involved in the
civil liberties movement for many years."
Berkeley fascinated him. "Public life in all forms was
represented: from agribusiness to racial minority agita-
tion: all the politics of California were refracted and
intellectualized. It provided a link between public life
and academic life, something this country very much
needs; something deep in our tradition but now at a
very low ebb. As an Enlightenment society, we've always
believed in it; but it's been a parlous, fragile rela-
tionship, with, at one end, scholars tending to become
totally abstract or merely neutral experts, and, at the
other end, the public or the state often moving in and
becoming destructive of the truth-seeking respon-
sibilities a university is charged with when social inter-
ests are involved.
"California is the U.S. writ small, and Berkeley is
California writ small. I've always been intrigued by
'places' -cities, villages, universities; always enjoyed
getting familiar with some new corner of the U.S. or
Europe; whenever I travel, I look for someone who can
take me around, show me inside."
So he enjoyed Berkeley, but "became too involved in
campus affairs," serving for a time as assistant to the
chancellor for educational development, and felt his
scholarship was suffering. He accepted an invitation to
the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and
104
CARL E. SCHORSKE
while there guest-lectured at the university, "liked what
I saw, and said 'Yes' when asked to join the faculty.
"But leaving Berkeley was hard. When one lives
through troubles one makes fast friends. There were
people there I loved-and not always the ones I agreed
with! The wonderful thing about the history depart-
ment there: We provided the leaders for all factions, at
both faculty and student levels. But when we met on
departmental business we made our decisions along
quite different lines: someone politically far left would
be aligned with a person on the far right when it came
to academic policy. This was exemplary and heartening;
and not true to the same degree in other departments.
"Princeton, being middle sized, with very strong
undergraduate teaching supported by the whole faculty,
is more like Wesleyan; but it is like Berkeley in having
an important graduate program as well, a strong schol-
arship-and-research commitment and orientation. It
put the two pieces of my life together.
"I was very much impressed, while at the institute
here, with the way President Goheen responded to the
first tremors of student unrest. So far as I know,
Princeton was the only major university-besides Chi-
cago-that didn't say, 'It can't happen here.' Goheen
recognized it could happen and went out to meet it.
"Princeton's performance in those times was in
character' -and therefore says something about its
character. The Princeton administration, though con-
structed on a centralized executive model, charac-
teristically proceeds-with the utmost sensitiveness-
to consult the feelings of community members, es-
pecially the faculty, before making a significant deci-
sion. It's the custom here to 'touch all bases.' When I
was trying to help establish the European cultural
studies program [at which he was ultimately successful],
I became impatient with all the touching of bases-and,
sure enough, the effort failed the first time around
because all bases had not been touched.
CARL E. SCHORSKE
105
"What Princeton has is a kind of administrative
autocracy which relates itself to the opinions of crucial
opinion-making sectors of the campus, particularly fac-
ulty and alumni. It's a system that doesn't allow the
opening of fissures in the body politic, and works by
addressing issues before they arise, prophylactically. It's
characterized by the very great skill with which the
administration gives most individuals the feeling they
have been consulted.
"There are tremendous advantages to this system
when it comes to riding out storms; but in some ways,
the absence of open debate reduces the kind of tensions
an institution can tolerate and probably needs. All the
base-touching tends to inhibit, or mute, not only op-
position but also public debate. Princeton has had a low
tolerance for tension; a tendency to be better academ-
ically than intellectually."
Moving to Princeton's undergraduate program,
Schorske praised the senior thesis as "the crown of
independent work: the point at which Princeton's com-
mitment to both education and research is most evi-
dent. Other universities have something similar, but
only for honors students.
"As a student here you win your maturity by doing
what scholars do: You pose new questions and damn
well get the answers yourself. The students know, when
they come here, a senior thesis will be demanded of
them, and it infects most students with a healthy
anxiety from the start. When meeting with alumni,
older ones especially, I find the first thing they want to
talk about is the great lecturers of the past; the second is
the senior thesis. Ask where they think they learned the
most and inevitably the answer is, 'the thesis.' Ask how
they liked it, and they almost always say, 'I damn near
died!' But that's where they learned."
I had been told he was a great lecturer, had received a
rare standing ovation from students at his last lecture
before retiring in 1980. "No, I'm not a great lecturer.
106
CARL E. SCHORSKE
I'm a good one, though! The great ones of the old school
carefully prepared their lecture texts in advance and
delivered them for rhetorical effect as well as substance.
My style is spontaneous-which takes enormous en-
ergy: You have to be like a tensile spring. But by thus
doing your thinking out loud you demonstrate the
process by which one gets learning."
The test of a good teacher, he said, is, "Do you regard
'learning' as a noun or a verb? If as a noun, as a thing to
be possessed and passed along, then you present your
truths, neatly packaged, to your students. But if you see
'learning' as a verb!-the process is different. The good
teacher has learning, but tries to instill in students the
desire to learn, and demonstrates the ways one goes
about 'learning."
The senior thesis is one such way. "Students are
encouraged to go out and interview authorities in a
field, go to original sources. Many of my students were
helped by Princeton to go to foreign countries where
they got a sense of what it is to use an archive. The thesis
makes you do the kind of original work that makes you
feel you're an original human being!"
Is Princeton, because of its size, more hospitable to
interdisciplinary teaching than larger universities?
"From the faculty point of view, yes. Elsewhere the
departments are so strong, the walls separating one
from another are so hard to breach. Here you have the
walls, all right-Princeton is extremely conventional in
its departmentalization-but you also have a capacity
for breaching them." Musing on the interdisciplinary,
Schorske said, "research people often live on the mar-
gins of their fields. Biochemistry is born when some-
body in biology can't get a problem solved without
chemistry; demography comes out of the interaction of
statistics and genetics."
One of his particular interests is "where the margins
of a discipline are: those peripheral areas celebrated in
CARL E. SCHORSKE
107
research but resisted by institutional structures, one
trying to break out, the other trying to hold them in. If
you have a good research faculty, you have people who
are willing to mix it up. If you have a faculty committed
to teaching, they want to mix it up. And students
benefit from the mixing."
On balance, however, he thought Princeton not an
easy place in which to implant interdisciplinary pro-
grams. "Princeton is rule-bound; the administration-
and especially the faculty-is 'from Missouri': has to be
shown; is not libertarian. But if you mobilize your
evidence, you can move it. In some ways I regret
Princeton's conservatism as to structure. You have to be
extremely persistent to set up anything new. But if it's
too tight here, it's too loose at other places. Here you
have to show cause why something should be done: put
up or shut up. I think there are times when the burden
of proof should not be on the innovator. Here innova-
tion has to follow demonstration. But-," he shrugged
philosophically, "that's where you get your muscle."
"New scientific discoveries
can
profoundly affect
how
the
20
human race will evolve. No one
wants such power in the hands of
men and women insensitive to
the human dimension of what
they're doing."
WILLIAM R. SCHOWALTER
"
T
he scientist at Princeton," said William
Schowalter, "is 'broadened' by having to come
up against undergraduates.
"Most scientists, to further their careers, have to
know precious little about anything not immediately
related to their current research. A scientist doesn't have
to know about, say, the latest Mideast crisis or trends in
the modern novel to determine whether certain gas
molecules colliding with a catalyst surface are going to
sit on it right-side up, upside-down, sideways, or not at
all"-an example that came to mind, he said, from his
interest in current experiments to find practical uses for
the otherwise noxious waste products of oil refineries.
"In science, anything done in a field other than your
own, or even in your own more than two years earlier,
may seem virtually irrelevant-on the surface. Even if
Theoretical and experimental aspects of fluid mechanics are the special
interests of chemical engineer Schowalter, who earned his B.S. at the
University of Wisconsin and his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. He
is the author of Mechanics of Non-Newtonian Fluids, has been a Sherman
Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at California Institute of Technology,
and a Senior Fellow of the British Science Research Council at the
University of Cambridge. He is on visiting committees at Cornell,
Lehigh, and MIT, and the editorial boards of several scholarly journals.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
108
WILLIAM R. SCHOWALTER
109
the world is falling apart around you, you can go on
with your work and say, 'Don't bother me.'
"But it's hard to maintain that kind of single-minded
concentration on your own specialty if you teach under-
graduates, particularly the kind we get at Princeton. At
some universities the undergraduates in science and
engineering are almost preprofessional, locked into
their future careers the way graduate students are, and
they don't demand that their science professors be very
broadly educated or interested.
"But at Princeton many students of the sciences are
also very much interested in history, economics, liter-
ature, politics. When I was doing a lot of freshman
advising for the engineering school I often heard stu-
dents say they could have gone to some other dis-
tinguished school, 'but I came to Princeton because I
wasn't sure I wanted to be an engineer.' About 40 to 45
percent of our engineering school undergraduates don't
go into professional engineering but into medicine, law,
or business.
"I think it's fair to say the average undergraduate a
scientist deals with here is very different from the
average nationwide. We simply don't get many who
dutifully copy down what you say without questioning
it. Our students are broadly curious and try to fit what
you're saying into a broader context-and they press
you to do that, too. And given the small class size
Princeton strives to maintain, and the individual stu-
dent counseling professors do here, you feel that pres-
sure! That's what many of us find stimulating. I find it
comfortable, too, to be in an environment where you
can teach your own discipline with enthusiasm know-
ing your students are being exposed with equal enthusi-
asm to other disciplines."
The common notion that scientists dislike teaching
undergraduates is contradicted by what Schowalter has
observed at Princeton. "Some young faculty members
110
WILLIAM R. SCHOWALTER
come in with lukewarm feelings about having to teach
so much, but get caught up in it, have ideas for new
courses, and we have to tell them, 'You're teaching too
much. Whether you get tenure here is going to depend
on your research as well as your teaching, so don't get
carried away with teaching."
It is not the contact with students, alone, that encour-
ages breadth of mind in the scientist at Princeton, he
said. "There are also the unusually, if not uniquely, close
and amiable relationships that exist here between fac-
ulty and administration, and among professors of dif-
ferent disciplines. A scientist is much more likely here
than at other research universities to sit on important
committees with professors from a wide variety of
other disciplines, including the humanities; to sit be-
side them in monthly faculty meetings and to have other
professional and personal relationships with them in
this relatively small, close-knit community."
Schowalter at the time of our talk was serving his
fifth one-year term as a faculty-elected member of the
committee that reviews all faculty appointments, ad-
vancements, and salary changes. "When I first heard of
this committee I couldn't believe it made sense. How in
the world could someone whose field is religion partici-
pate in the choice of a chemical engineering professor?
But I've seen how similar the marks of superiority are in
scholars from very different fields, and how much
people of good will, working together, can contribute
to good decisions.
"You learn to appreciate the insights differently
trained minds, from widely different backgrounds, can
bring to bear on the same problem. At Princeton we
operate in what could be called 'a constructively reso-
nated mode.' You're always saying to yourself, when
someone makes a point, 'Aha! I hadn't thought of that!"
Had he observed a lack of this sort of collaboration at
other universities?
WILLIAM R. SCHOWALTER
111
"Yes-and I've noticed it affects people in one of two
ways: Some narrow specialists conclude they're superior
because they don't have to waste time working with
people outside their own specialties; others tend to feel
inferior, or guilty, because they feel they ought to be
more involved with matters and persons outside their
fields."
As to wasted time, he said that if undergraduate
teaching takes time away from research at Princeton,
this is partially offset by the university's "efficient,
time-saving support structure," and the absence of a
"we-they" mentality between faculty and administra-
tion. "Professors from larger universities say they're
amazed at how fast things get done here. One reason is
that when you talk with a senior academic administrator
here, you're talking with a fellow faculty member, and
not, as at most places, with a professional administrator.
"At those larger universities, people tend pretty early
in their careers to move into academic administration
and become professionals at it. As a rule, the larger and
more professional the bureaucracy, the longer it takes to
get decisions and the less likely you are to be happy with
the ones you get. Our deans seem to feel they are here to
serve the faculty and not to protect their own turf; they
still have one foot in teaching. Elsewhere the deans have
come up from the trenches, all right, but their admin-
istrative duties are so time-consuming they tend to
forget what the university's purpose is."
Going back to his earlier point about the scientist's
tendency to develop tunnel vision: How important is
this?
"Very. It's not new, but is becoming more important.
But before going into that, let me say that if you take
scientists who are well known in their fields, nationally
or internationally, they are probably more broadly edu-
cated and informed than the average nonscientist
scholar. It's surprising how much these scientists know
112
WILLIAM R. SCHOWALTER
about the humanities. I recall Robert Oppenheimer,
testifying before a congressional committee, telling
how as a boy he loved walking through the library
stacks in his town, and checking out and soaking up the
classics he found there. I doubt whether many scholars
in the humanities could say, 'In my youth I soaked up
science.'
"Still, as a group, I suspect that scientists, and
engineers, tend to be more one-track-minded than
humanists, and this is a serious problem."
Why?
"Because scientists are becoming more influential
and powerful in their effect on human life through
experiments in new fields such as recombinant DNA
research. New scientific discoveries in communications,
and robotics, can profoundly affect the way people live,
and work, and behave; how the human race will evolve.
No one wants such power in the hands of men and
women insensitive to the human dimension of what
they're doing."
While scientists, given their new importance, need
an awareness of the world outside their specialties, he
called it comparably important for nonscientists to gain
a better grasp of science: for sociologists to know some
biochemistry, and political scientists some plasma
physics.
"The time is ripe for the second coming of C. P.
Snow, for the emergence of a writer-philosopher who
can carry Snow's 'two-cultures' thesis into an era in
which the tremendous increase in the flow of informa-
tion, largely as a result of more sophisticated computers,
threatens to unhinge mankind. Information, because of
its sheer bulk, is becoming another form of life-threat-
ening pollution. Experiments have shown that mice
crowded into too small a space will go berserk. I'm
afraid too much information impacting on human
beings can have the same effect unless they can be
WILLIAM R. SCHOWALTER
113
taught to live with it; to avoid retreating deeper and
deeper into their own narrow fields.
"What makes Princeton significant in the battle
against narrowness is not that individuals in other
universities don't recognize the problem and try to
confront it. They do. When I was a boy, my uncle, a
professor of chemical engineering in a large Midwestern
university, belonged to a 'dinner club,' a group of
professors of various kindred disciplines who met
monthly for a good meal and to talk about what they
were doing. This sort of thing went on in other
disciplines and other universities, and still does.
"The difference is that at Princeton it's institu-
tionalized, facilitated by the teaching and administer-
ing arrangements I've described. Princeton is the
essense of interaction. It symbolizes a virtue that larger
institutions respect but by their size and nature are
discouraged or prevented from practicing."
"Even those students locked into
career studies seem less
21
'preprofessional' here
more
disposed to broaden themselves
while they have the chance."
ELAINE SHOWALTER
D
espite its historic halls and traditions, Prince-
ton, said Elaine Showalter, "because it is un-
dergraduate-centered, is pervaded by a spirit
of youthfulness unusual in research universities." This
spirit greatly appealed to her during her nine years as a
Princeton "faculty wife" teaching at another university,
and still appeals to her now that she is a tenured
Princeton professor.
"Collaborative" she called the attitude of most
Princeton professors toward students. "There is a mu-
tual exchange between the two which I find most
rewarding. I hope I contribute to my students' maturing
intellectually; I know they help keep me immature-in a
good way, taking 'maturity' to mean to some extent
rigidity, narrowness, and conformity. I find I get new
ideas from students, new interests. Some of their open-
ness and curiosity rubs off on me. I don't want to be in a
place where I relate only to senior scholars working in
my field, at my level. I love knowing that every year the
A prolific writer, especially on Victorian literature and women writers,
Showalter-B.A. Bryn Mawr and M.A. Brandeis-earned her Ph.D. and
taught at the University of California at Davis, then at Douglass
College, University of Delaware, and Rutgers (Distinguished Professor
of English). Elected to the Academy of Literary Studies in 1981, she has
served on the Supervising Committee of the English Institute and the
editorial board of Publications of the Modern Language Association.
Her books include A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from
Brontë to Lessing, and (as editor) The New Feminist Criticism.
114
ELAINE SHOWALTER
115
freshmen will be eighteen!-and I'll be working with
some of them."
Princeton's spirit of youthfulness manifests itself in
many ways, she said. For example, "I was surprised and
impressed, when I was being considered for an appoint-
ment here, by how friendly and informal people were. I
felt genuine enthusiasm for the 'sample' lecture I gave.
It's the usual academic style for people to seem some-
what jaded on such occasions, to have a 'seen-it-all-
before' attitude; hauteur; distance. Here people seemed
willing to be excited and to let it show.
"Later in the hiring process I was talking with Dean
Lemonick in his Nassau Hall office one Saturday
morning when President Bowen dropped in, joined the
conversation, suddenly said, 'Shall I make you some
coffee?' I was startled but said, 'Yes, I'd like that.' He
took off for his own office and coffee machine, was back
in a few minutes with my cup. To this day I can't help
laughing when I try to imagine this happening at the
other Ivy League university whose offer I was weighing
at the time."
As a specialist in gender matters, has she found the
gap between male and female Princeton students to be
unusually narrow, owing to the atmosphere she had
been describing?
She stopped eating her lunch and looked out over the
snow-covered Prospect gardens.
"Maybe-but not a lot. I was surprised by the interest
of male students in the feminist work I've done. I'd
anticipated some hostility, found none. In fact, the
contrary: Half the students in my Gender and Literary
Theory course are men. From my teaching elsewhere,
and from talking with colleagues, I'd conclude the
situation is rather unusual here, but the fact is, the
college years in any coed institution are apt to be the
most egalitarian of most people's lives; the time when
men and women, however much they've been separated
116
ELAINE SHOWALTER
and unequally treated before, and may be after, do so
many things together. This student period is a culture
of its own, at both the undergraduate and graduate
levels. Intellectually and socially, there is an unusual
amount of equality, many things done together or in
parallel-academic projects, sports, career counseling.
"As the percentage of tenured women on university
faculties increases, this atmosphere will be enhanced-
and Princeton has made a better start than most toward
eventual balance, has brought in women scholars at an
unusually high rate."
She gives the "spirit of youthfulness and openness"
some credit for Princeton's having an outstanding
women's studies program, "one of the strongest among
Ivy League schools and by far the strongest among
those only recently coeducational. There has been pres-
sure from students everywhere-encouraged, of course,
by a lot of publicity over the past decades about the
women's movement-to develop such programs; but
Princeton has gone about it in an unusual and I think
characteristic way. Elsewhere they've said, 'Let's get
someone in to "cover" women's studies.' Princeton's
approach has been, This is one of those rare phe-
nomena, a new field of intellectual inquiry. Let's build
our program the way you build one in molecular
biology: a research team of people who will stimulate
each other.'
"At the same time the English department hired me,
they also hired Sandra Gilbert, one of the leading
feminist critics in the world. We were good friends, had
worked together, but never in the close and mutually
reinforcing way we can now. Both of us had been
approached by other universities wanting to hire one or
the other. Princeton wanted us both!
"It's amazing the way ideas develop when you get the
right people together-and this was the first university
to take this revolutionary approach to women's studies."
ELAINE SHOWALTER
117
She credits Princeton's youthful flexibility but also
good communication between faculty and administra-
tion. "It's easier to coordinate when you don't have an
enormous bureaucratic structure, with some people
doing one thing, some another, and some spinning off
into space: and of course, this is not a mega-university
where the ability to discuss things one-on-one is lost."
She paused as the student waiter started to clear the
table. Would she explain for the reader-not to mention
the writer-exactly what is meant by "women's studies."
"Women's studies deals with the achievements and
roles of women, and with theories of gender, across the
disciplines. Since for centuries all knowledge has been
in effect men's studies-history, for example, being all
men's wars and men's politics and men's trading-now
we must study what women were doing all that time, as
writers, members of the labor force, and so on, in order
to understand what was really going on.
"Eventually all disciplines will deal with the expres-
sions and achievements of men and women; but mean-
while research on women and gender theory have
become important areas of disciplinary specialization
which will continue to grow."
Did anything surprise her about Princeton when she
joined the faculty?
"Yes: How hard we work!" Harder than faculties
elsewhere? "I think so. Not only is there the commit-
ment to students, on which Princeton puts such a high
priority-the personal advising and conferring in addi-
tion to lecturing and precepting-but all faculty, es-
pecially senior professors, are responsibly involved in
some aspect of administration. All this plus their own
research, and the outside commitments a senior scholar
has." In her case, the latter are numerous. As a leading
authority on Victorian and American literature and on
women's writing, she is much in demand for lectures,
serves on many national committees and editorial
118
ELAINE SHOWALTER
boards, and is drawn into controversies-most recently
in the New York Times Book Review-over such questions
as whether "women writers" should be singled out as
such or dealt with simply as "writers." Her view,
enormously oversimplified: both.
"Hard" is probably the wrong word for how one
works here. It's time- and energy-demanding, working
with students, but it's fun, too. And the committee
work isn't 'hard' if that implies drudgery. You get to
know your colleagues, learn what's going on in your
own and other professions."
I quoted something Professor Robert L. Geddes,
longtime dean of the architecture school, had said to
me: "The most important students in a university are
the faculty. If they're not learning, and growing, no-
body is." She nodded emphatic agreement.
As a fellow of Stevenson Hall during the 1960s, she
had come to know many students-graduate and under-
graduate-but she had still been surprised by their
"creative diversity" when she joined the faculty.
No, she did not mean diversity among students, said
by Carl Schorske and others to be greater at larger
public universities, but diversity within individual stu-
dents. "The navy ROTC student taking ceramics and
making lovely pots; the physicist in creative writing; the
English major who plans to dance professionally when
she graduates. Even those locked into career studies-
medicine, law, engineering-seem less 'preprofessional'
here than at other places I know of, more disposed to
broaden themselves while they have the chance."
She thought that contributed significantly to the
atmosphere of youthfulness at Princeton.
"If athletes here learn to respect
one another regardless of race, so
22
do students who sweat out the
senior thesis together."
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
S
ome twenty years ago, Princeton and other all-
white or nearly all-white universities began not
only to admit but to recruit significant numbers
of black students. How each has been affected by its
black students is a subject for scholarly research.
My aim in talking with Conrad Snowden was more
modest: to get his insight into the kind of place
Princeton is for black students, in comparison with
other Ivy League and similar universities.
He seemed the person to ask, given his thirteen years
of personal and official contact with black Princeton
students, first as director of the Third World Center,
later as chairman of the university's Minority Affairs
Committee, and most recently as chairman of a sub-
committee on race relations that spent three months
digging into that subject in conversations with individ-
uals and groups on campus.
Understandably to anyone who has dealt with the
sensitive question of race relations in predominantly
white universities, Snowden drew back from my ques-
tion. He said that although he has been immersed in
Princeton affairs, he has not studied race relations on
other campuses and could not make an informed com-
A graduate of Howard University, where he taught and administered
after doing graduate work at the University of Chicago, Snowden taught
at Simmons College in Boston before coming to Princeton in 1970 as
assistant dean of the faculty and the Graduate School, and lecturer in
sociology and philosophy. He later became associate provost. He has
been a special consultant to the U.S. Office of Education.
119
120
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
parison; moreover, "black students, anywhere, are not a
monolithic body for whom any one person can speak";
and finally, he was reluctant to generalize "because if
there is one thing I've learned, it is that race relations
among college students today are complicated far
beyond most people's ability to imagine, and the last
thing I want to do is oversimplify them."
What about taking a few of the characteristics of
Princeton that are generally acknowledged to be dis-
tinctive, and assessing their meaning to black students?
Yes, he would attempt that, with the understanding
that "anything I say about black students in general may
well prove to be wrong for an individual black student."
In our several conversations, over the next few weeks,
he divided the Princeton characteristics into three
categories: academic, administrative, and "at-
mospheric." And he emphasized how black students'
perceptions of Princeton's "advantages" do not always
coincide with those of white students.
"Because of the academic arrangements that guaran-
tee Princeton undergraduates more direct individual
attention from faculty members than is available
elsewhere, undergraduates can't as easily 'get lost' at
Princeton as they can at larger, less intimate places. This
is seen as a major advantage by most students, and you
might expect it to be especially appreciated by blacks
coming into a strange, predominantly white world. But
the truth is, a student likes being thrust into a close
relationship with his professors only to the degree that
he or she is comfortable with them. For most white
students this is no problem, most professors being
white; nor is it for some blacks.
"But all blacks don't arrive at Princeton feeling
comfortable with whites, much less white professors.
Society has made many black students hesitant and even
suspicious. It has given them negative expectations as
often as positive, and the result is that some don't
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
121
necessarily want to be close to their professors-not at
first; and in some cases, never. To 'get lost,' in the sense
of being allowed to keep their distance, is exactly what
many black students want, or think they want, at least
to the extent of being inconspicuous.
"This was true of a number of women students, too,
when they first came to Princeton, and were not as
numerous as now. I'm told they, too, wanted to feel
inconspicuous, not because they felt inferior or were
afraid of embarrassing themselves, but because they had
not had, personally or as a group, the experience of
being in this kind of place. They were concerned, not
without historical reason, that they might be seen by
their male peers as not worthy to be here. If in-
conspicuous, they were less likely to invite judgment."
In his official and unofficial listening to black stu-
dents recently, Snowden had been "surprised at the
depth of concern of bright black kids that they are
considered less deserving of being here than they feel
themselves to be. They feel they belong, many having
come with good records from good schools. They don't
expect to be treated as better or worse than white
students, but as equally good. And many were unhappy
that white students seemed to underrate them simply
because of race.
"Generally speaking," he said, "all students, black and
white, come here feeling intimidated. Even those who
have been great successes in high school feel, 'Every-
body here is smarter than I am, and there's no hope for
me.' But white students don't usually come scared and
suspicious, thinking, This place is not only difficult, it
may even be against me.' And on some level of con-
sciousness, many blacks do have that suspicion. Society
instills it in them. I suspect they would feel the same
entering any other Ivy League college, but the feeling
can be very intense here, and more unremitting, partly
because it is harder here to 'get lost.'
122
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
"For black students who can come to terms with its
'closeness,' and increasing numbers seem to be doing so,
Princeton offers things they can't as easily get
elsewhere: for one, the greater chance of being taught
by, and getting personally acquainted with, leading
scholars. This varies from department to department,
but students do encounter a faculty unusually devoted
to undergraduate teaching. Because the students expect
individual attention from their professors, and because
they expect at least decent teaching, Princeton students
are more likely to complain if they encounter what they
consider poor teaching, and to have their complaints
heeded-just as professors, recognizing the strength of
this long-standing tradition, are less likely to be remiss
in fulfilling their teaching responsibilities."
Turning to administrative characteristics, Snowden
singled out two as distinguishing Princeton and having
special meaning for black students. "First, partly be-
cause of its size and partly because of tradition, this
university thinks of and deals with students as individ-
uals and not as groups or blocs. Larger universities tend
to deal with students in blocs, allowing a part of the
group to speak for the whole. We don't. The place is too
small and the concentration on undergraduates is too
intense; too many strands can be seen running through
every rope. You couldn't tune out individual voices here
even if you wanted to. One hears too much of what is
going on not to know pretty much which students are
dissatisfied, and why, and whose fault it is, or whose
fault they think it is.
"Second, the strongly established feeling among ad-
ministrators here is that serious problems, including
race relations, should be confronted and solved in a
collaborative way. There is a high degree of confidence
that if you bring people together and talk candidly
about your differences and complaints and problems,
the process will probably help even if the problems are
not actually resolved.
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
123
"This feeling exists among students, as well. And
students have been woven into the operational fabric of
this place to a degree very unusual in research univer-
sities. The Undergraduate Student Government (USG)
is unusually active, and students sit on a wide variety of
important university committees. So, the oppor-
tunities are exceptional here for student views to get a
hearing, periodically or when some issue is nearing
crisis and needs some talking and thinking out.
"For example, a Forum for Interracial Communica-
tion was set up several years ago by black and white
students, in collaboration with the USG. It held open
meetings, some attended by more than a hundred
students, others smaller. This went on for two years. It
took up such questions as what the eating clubs could
do to encourage more participation by black students,
and what the Third World Center could do to bring in
more whites. That structure was revived a couple of
years later.
"More recently, when the Daily Princetonian focused
attention on several problems in campus race relations,
President Bowen asked me, as chairman of the Minority
Affairs Committee, to form a special subcommittee to
provide a more comprehensive picture of race relations
on campus and to identify concrete ways specific prob-
lems might be ameliorated. That group was made up of
four administrators and five students.
"We held open meetings over a period of three
months with a dozen campus groups and many individ-
uals, and one result was the forming by the USG of a
permanent committee on race relations to continue the
dialogue on student-to-student relations, and social life.
"The positive aspects, for all students, of Princeton's
administrative characteristics are obvious. But for some
black students there are negative aspects, too.
"First, for black students who are ideologically and
politically oriented, Princeton's way of dealing with
individuals rather than groups can be unattractive
124
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
because these students may want to represent, and speak
with authority for, their group. The relatively easy
access of individual students to top administrators
tends to make it difficult for the would-be ideological
leaders to be very effective.
"Second, Princeton's reliance on the consultative
process means it sometimes takes this university longer
to solve a problem than some students think it should,
or than it seems to take elsewhere. In part, of course,
this is because Princeton sees microcosms of diversity.
The more eyes you have to do the looking, the more
diversity you're going to see; the more complexity. You
are less likely, then, to arrive at quick and simple
solutions. Those you do arrive at are more likely to be
practical and durable, and less likely to create unfairness
to other groups while solving the problems of one. But
students don't always have the patience to appreciate
these points. So Princeton has a reputation for being
rather slow to respond to social pressures. However, it
also has a reputation for moving ahead more vigorously
once it does respond, and with better planning-and
better results-than many places. Still, students feeling
grievances are sometimes troubled by Princeton's
deliberateness.
"Princeton very rarely makes too-quick decisions just
to 'get students off our backs.' As a result, some students
feel we're putting them off, that we don't value their
views. But I have seen the anguish this university goes
through to make sure it's doing the right thing; have
seen us hold up a decision until we've had the views of
students as well as faculty; and then, after more reflec-
tion, change our minds. Some students find it frustrat-
ing that we can't be pressured into making large
political gestures but have to be persuaded by reason.
Actually, students are effective here in ways some don't
recognize; but this doesn't prevent their fearing coopta-
tion or feeling unhappy with the Princeton admin-
istrative style."
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
125
Under "atmosphere," Snowden included the sense of
the past evoked by Princeton's campus; also its non-
urban location and its small size. "All of these tend to
affect blacks differently from whites.
"To many whites, just the look of the campus recalls
historical associations and achievements to be proud of.
I don't want to make too much of this, but insofar as
blacks have only fairly recently and tentatively been
accepted as full-fledged Americans, black students are
bound to feel some ambivalence toward American his-
tory. And it's harder to escape it here.
"To white students, Woodrow Wilson is a kind of
hero, and today's blacks can be grateful to him for some
educational innovations that now benefit them; as
political realists they can understand why he dis-
couraged black students from coming here, and took so
little interest in the plight of black Americans during
his U.S. presidency; but forgetting is much harder.
"I see nothing inherent in today's Princeton to dis-
courage black students from coming here, but it's diffi-
cult for some who come from places where prejudice
still exists, to a place where they can still feel a history
of prejudice. It requires a real exercise of will on the part
of some blacks to select Princeton with its historic
associations with the white aristocracy, and its past
reputation as a very hard place for black students to
enter.
"Most people, whites and blacks, find it hard to
believe that an institution as rooted in tradition as
Princeton is can have changed as much as Princeton has
over the last twenty years. But black students discover,
in time, that this is so; and we know, as we watch blacks
come back for reunions and participate in the Associa-
tion of Black Princeton Alumni, that many end up with
much the same 'family feeling' for the place that white
alumni have, though less easily come by.
"All in all, there are tremendous advantages to the
Princeton experience for blacks, but purchased at the
126
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
price of some discomfort. Precisely because of the
environment, there may be a special satisfaction for
blacks in 'making it' here."
Can it be made more comfortable for them? Is
Snowden optimistic or pessimistic about the future of
race relations at Princeton?
"I'm an optimist by nature. I believe any problem that
can be identified can be solved, given an institution as
determined to improve things as I believe Princeton is.
"As I told you-and my experience as chairman of the
race relations subcommittee made me feel this more
strongly-I am suspicious of easy solutions, and of
people who glibly advance them. Some naïveté and
overenthusiasm are excusable in people of good will, but
glibness is something else. Those who make less of a
serious problem by proposing simplistic solutions can
really cause trouble."
Can he suggest a real, if complicated, solution?
"I believe when people of one race can honestly say to
those of another, 'I want to understand you, or as much
about you as I can about any friend,' that will take us a
long way. And I was pleased to discover how many
students, black and white, seemed ready to do this. But I
was depressed to discover how many black students
have the idea that white students simply don't like them.
Out of these attitudes-on both sides-tensions come;
and more dialogue is the only way to reach the truth,
which surely is that most white students and black
students at a place like Princeton don't dislike each
other; they don't know each other. They're often simply
strangers!
"Hearing some blacks talk-in our race relations
meetings-about how painful relations between the
races have been for them, I was personally affected. I
found that if I shifted my attitude only a tiny bit, I
could become as suspicious of whites as some of the
students were. Walking on Nassau Street, when some-
CONRAD D. SNOWDEN
127
thing a little out of the ordinary happened to me, I
could think, 'Was that racism?' And that's a question I
hadn't asked for years. I began to look at my own good
white friends a little differently. It was a tremendous
emotional experience. I saw myself in a different way. I
was vulnerable, too, and what the students were saying I
found painfully believable."
But over all he was encouraged by what came out of
the subcommittee sessions. "At one meeting a white
student said, This is the first time I've been at a
meeting where black kids were every bit our equals.' I
ended up believing that when you give young people
enough time, in the right setting, to follow their
instincts, they move toward the light."
If an optimist, Snowden is not a romantic one. "If we
could solve the race problem at Princeton, there would
remain the social-class problem: how can you influence
lower-income black students to respect upper-income
blacks, and vice versa? Actually, even today, there are at
least as many economic and class tensions at Princeton
as racial ones; as many political as personal.
"The great equalizer," he concluded, "is the Princeton
academic program. Superficially, racial and other ten-
sions are probably increased by the fact that students
have to work so hard here; they don't have as much time
and energy to devote to bridging racial and other gaps
as they might have elsewhere. But on a deeper level, the
work brings them together. Old prejudices seem pretty
pointless to students who are locked together in an
enterprise as demanding and dignified as serious learn-
ing. If athletes here learn to respect one another re-
gardless of race, so do students who sweat out the senior
thesis together. What we all need, to erase racial
barriers, is something important in common: a love, a
fear. And making it at Princeton academically involves
both of those. I guess that's the real source of my
optimism."
"The most important thing for
educators to be thinking about,
23
from grade school to graduate
school, is how students can be
turned on by being encouraged to
make subjects their own."
DONALD E. STOKES
T
here is only one secret of education," said
Donald Stokes, "and considering there's only
one, it's remarkable how well kept it is." The
secret? "The best way to learn something is to teach it to
yourself-and that comes very close to stating the core
of Princeton's educational philosophy and what dis-
tinguishes it from most universities.
"It may be paradoxical that Princeton, while com-
mitted to encouraging students to teach themselves, has
a faculty so committed to teaching them. But teaching
students to teach themselves is far more difficult than
any other approach."
Would he draw on Princeton's Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs, of which he
is dean, for an illustration of how students are taught to
teach themselves?
Yes, he would like to do that, because he believes the
Wilson school, in its values and teaching methods, is
Donald E. Stokes-A.B. Princeton (1951), Ph.D. Yale-is dean of
Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
He has taught at Yale, Oxford, the Australian National University, the
University of the West Indies, and.the University of Michigan, where he
was chairman of the political science department and dean of the
graduate school. He is coauthor of The American Voter, Elections and the
Political Order, and Political Change in Britain.
128
DONALD E. STOKES
129
"Princeton in microcosm." And without hesitation he
cited "the undergraduate policy conference" as a teach-
ing device that illustrates both the school's and the
university's philosophy.
A policy conference, he said, is a group of fifteen or
so juniors-helped by three to five seniors and super-
vised by a faculty member-collaborating in the explo-
ration of a complex current public issue, domestic or
foreign, and arriving at a set of practical recommend-
ations as to how the responsible government or govern-
ment agency should deal with it. (Juniors are first-year
students in the school, admitted at the end of soph-
omore year in sufficient numbers to make up four
conferences each fall term. For both juniors and seniors
the conference counts as one course.)
"The conference idea was born in 1930 with the
school itself, whose founders believed the way to pre-
pare students to deal in later life with thorny public
issues was to have them do so as students, in a rigorous
academic way but under real-life conditions; on their
own for much of the time, but with expert help and
criticism at every stage. They thought this would help
bridge the gap between the abstractions of their social.
science studies and the concreteness of life."
He offered a step-by-step description of a process that
"has changed some over the years but remains faithful
to the original concept; that originated separately from
preceptorials but is extremely compatible with them."
Step 1. "The school, every fall, chooses four con-
ference topics; that is, four public issues worthy of a
term's hard work. The first year-Philippine Indepen-
dence,' The Polish Corridor,' Unemployment Insur-
ance,' and 'Muscle Shoals,' the precursor to TVA. In
1985-86 they were 'A Changing Society and the Na-
tion's Children,' The Future Uses of Space,' 'U.S. Policy
Toward Southern Africa,' and 'U.S.-Latin American
Relations."
130
DONALD E. STOKES
2. "A faculty member-or sometimes a distinguished
outside expert-is chosen to lead each conference, serv-
ing as 'counsellor and adviser.' Each junior is assigned to
one of these issue-centered groups, with some concern
for the student's own academic interests.
"The faculty or outside leaders are people who, like
the Princeton faculty generally, get their kicks not from
parading their wisdom but from watching students
grow; who want to pass the baton to them, not let them
be passive."
3. "Each group is briefed on the issue by the faculty
leader and visiting experts who have included a former
president of the U.S., cabinet members, U.S. senators,
heads of government agencies and even of foreign
governments. The issue is thoroughly discussed at this
point and may be researched by the group in a field
setting, with an entire conference going to Washington
or even abroad."
4. "The leader and the group divide the conference
topic into component aspects, and each junior is as-
signed to research intensively and write a paper on one
aspect. This is a solo effort, but is expected to contrib-
ute measurably to the group's final product. This paper
may go through several revisions as a result of rigorous
criticism from the leader and advice from the seniors,
who have been through this themselves and are called
'commissioners' because in the early days each con-
ference was set up along the lines of a federal inves-
tigative commission."
5. "Every junior-and senior-in a group studies the
final draft of every other junior's paper, and then, in a
meeting of that conference chaired by a senior and
observed by the leader, the juniors make oral presenta-
tions of what they have learned and decided about the
topic. That is, they not only have to get the facts, isolate
the relevant ones, and write about them concisely, they
DONALD E. STOKES
131
have to get up in a 'public meeting' and speak for their
findings, pointedly and persuasively, and defend them
in a question period that may go on far into the night.
And of course the juniors as a group serve as an
informed and critical audience for each member's
presentation."
6. "The seniors in each group, having studied the
juniors' papers and heard them presented and defended
orally, draft a set of recommendations for dealing with
the issue that will pool the juniors' insights and embody
their strongest points. This draft is studied and debated
by the students, under the leader's critical eye, until
there is general agreement as to what should go into the
final paper.
"Agreement is not always unanimous. Students may,
and occasionally do, submit dissents. We don't encour-
age that, because we want them to learn to negotiate
creatively, to make concessions-even compromises-
without sacrificing important principles; that is, to
produce real solutions, not just win votes; to be stub-
born in defense of their beliefs but not so stubborn they
deal themselves out of the process.
"These final papers are written as if they were going
to the government or agency dealing with the issue, and
often do go to them. Many agencies know about our
policy conference and welcome a look at our product,
particularly when one of their members has participated
in our early discussions."
7. "Finally, after the joint paper has been closed, an
outside expert who has read it comes in and critiques it
for the group, and lets them respond. This is a key part
of the conference. I often hear these visitors express awe
and wonder at how deeply the students have informed
themselves, how close they have come to the hard
realities, how far away they are from simply striking
ideological poses, from believing complex issues-es-
132
DONALD E. STOKES
pecially those involving science and technology-can be
disposed of by an exercise in ideology."
Summing up, Stokes said, "Some conferences are
better than others, some students benefit more than
others; but it's impossible to listen to alumni without
concluding the power of the conference is astonishing."
He said George Shultz '42 once told him that as a U.S.
marine in the Far East during World War II he, thanks
to a conference on American foreign policy, "was about
the only man in my outfit who had any idea what might
have caused the war."
He said most students come out of the conference
with more respect for the social sciences, having found
how history, politics, psychology, sociology can con-
tribute to the solving of a hard practical problem. "They
learn how it feels to become so deeply immersed in a
problem that you feel you 'own it.' They learn how large,
complex, often dirty problems can be divided into
manageable pieces, the pieces studied separately, and
the whole thing put together again. They develop a
capacity for looking across great gulfs and seeing there
is another side to most issues; that few things are as
simple as they look; that problems have their own
structures.
"This is teaching the hard way, but students learn
something about learning they're not likely to forget."
Do other public affairs schools have programs like the
conference? "No. Our peer schools at other universities
typically have nothing to do with undergraduates. We
now have a renowned graduate program, but we started
out as an undergraduate school and remain very much
concerned with undergraduates."
Could the principles back of the conference be
adopted by teachers in secondary schools?
"To some extent. It's depressing how much that's
wrong with American education at all levels is that it's
DONALD E. STOKES
133
essentially a passive experience. Many Princeton meth-
ods, including the conference, are too costly for less
well-endowed colleges and universities, let alone high
schools. But budget limits are too often used to justify
poor teaching. However tight their budgets, the most
important thing for educators to be thinking about,
from grade school to graduate school, is how students
can be turned on by being encouraged to make subjects
their own."
"At Princeton nearly all disciplines
are taught as if they were creative
24
arts."
THEODORE R. WEISS
W
oodrow Wilson would have been amazed-
and alarmed!-if he had been told at the
turn of the century that his educational
philosophy would one day make this university uncom-
monly hospitable to creative arts courses. But," said
poet Theodore Weiss, who for twenty years has taught
poetry in Princeton's creative writing program, "that is
exactly what has happened.
"Wilson believed that thinking, feeling human beings
cannot be mass-produced by a university, so he fostered
small-group teaching, attention to the individual stu-
dent, independent work, close ties between faculty and
students-all of which are essential to creative arts
instruction. The kind of teaching Wilson institu-
tionalized at Princeton is the kind you have to have in
the arts.
"At the same time, Princeton's curricular con-
servatism, also fostered by Wilson, meant that creative
arts courses had a harder time getting established here
than at most universities. But when they did come-
starting with creative writing in the 1930s, but not
expanding much, and not gathering much steam, till
Having taught at Yale, the Universities of North Carolina and Mary-
land, and Bard College, Weiss-A.B. Muhlenberg, M.A. Columbia-
came to Princeton in 1966 as poet-in-residence and joined the faculty
two years later. With his wife, Renée, he publishes The Quarterly Review
of Literature from an on-campus office. His poems have appeared in most
literary magazines, many anthologies, and eleven all-Weiss collections,
the most recent in 1985: A Living Room.
134
THEODORE R. WEISS
135
the 1960s-they could take their size and shape from
regular courses and their color from the institution,
because at Princeton nearly all disciplines are taught as
if they were creative arts."
How has this affected arts instruction at Princeton?
"Students here are accustomed to working together in
a hard-headed workshop atmosphere that encourages
intimacy and awareness among them, so when they
enter arts courses they're ready to participate actively,
draw each other out, achieve a kind of ensemble playing
in which they learn as much from each other as from the
teacher. And the teacher, if I'm an example, learns most
of all. I wouldn't have gone on teaching if it hadn't been
that way.
"Any kind of creative work involves self-revelation, so
in the informality of the workshop, students mobilize
their individual strengths, relate to each other, become
good friends-not superficially, as in, say, a club rela-
tionship, but in important, deep internal ways.
"It's hazardous to generalize, to compare Princeton
with other universities, but I believe the intimacy
among students here is uncommon, and certainly that
between faculty and students is. On the train coming
away from a visit to another Ivy League school I sat
behind two undergraduates and overheard one say, T'm
hiding out from that professor. He's not going to see or
hear from me all term.' That sort of thing would be hard
to pull off at Princeton."
Weiss paused and threw up his hands in mock
amazement at finding himself "applauding a Princeton I
have so often cried out against" for its academic con-
servatism which has led, in his opinion, to an under-
appreciation of the arts. "I can still get in an argument
with some fellow members of the English department
faculty"-he has taught Shakespeare to undergraduates
and modern poetry to graduate students- "over
whether writing courses are a slightly frivolous enter-
136
THEODORE R. WEISS
prise, entertaining, but for leisure time. It's interesting
that in education's early days the scholars were the
curators, the preservers. It took the scientists to give the
arts academic respectability, to establish that doing
something new was a legitimate aspect of education."
So convinced is Weiss of the importance of arts
courses to orthodox learning that he would require all
English majors to take at least one course in creative
writing.
"In the normal English course, students deal with
finished pieces of literary work. In a creative writing
course they study works in progress-their own, their
fellow students', sometimes the instructor's-at dif-
ferent stages. It's the difference between moving from
the outside in-from the finished work to some com-
prehension of how it was done-and moving from the
inside out, shaping something of your own so that
others can take it in and get from it what you mean
them to.
"There is more compatibility between the two ap-
proaches than is generally realized. Reading classics
helps a student develop taste, an ability to look critically
at a piece of work, including his own. Making some-
thing of his own gives him an intensity of focus he can
then bring to the study of literature-and of himself
and his own inner life. We tend to get the livelier
students in the arts courses, and help to sharpen their
perceptiveness for their other courses. There's some-
thing subduing about lectures, necessary as they are. In
creative workshops, as in preceptorials, you plunge in
and argue rather than sit back and be entertained."
Weiss said the student activism and generally yeasty
tone of the 1960s was good for Princeton in that it
"created pressures that led to making the curriculum
more supple, more open to the arts and to innovation
generally. The number of arts students, faculty, and
courses has rapidly increased. Creative writing, visual
THEODORE R. WEISS
137
arts, theater and dance are nearly, but not quite, ac-
cepted as 'majors' now; meanwhile a student can do a
creative thesis for an established department with a
member of the creative arts faculty as one of two thesis
advisers."
But, he said, Princeton's conservatism remains a
problem in a different way. "Princeton still has more
required courses for undergraduates than most com-
parable universities, and this means a student has to
fight harder to find the time and justification for arts
courses, even though credits are now given for them on
a pass/fail basis."
Is Princeton a bad place, then, for the would-be
artist?
"No, it's a good place. Serious artists need the best
possible education to prepare them to deal with their
own material. They have more to fear than most stu-
dents from narrowness, from a too early concentration
on their own specialty. But of course most students who
study creative arts here don't mean to make careers of
them. They take them precisely to broaden themselves,
to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience of being a prac-
ticing artist before going into medicine, law, business,
and so on."
Another attribute of Princeton relevant to its ability
to educate students in the arts is the campus, "a work of
art in itself, an illustration of what man and nature can
do, working together. The planning and planting have
to affect artists; poets, certainly, even though poets
don't write much about nature nowadays. To live here is
so rare an experience that smugness can be a problem."
But he does miss the bookshops and coffee shops of
larger university towns.
Is it easier to teach and write poetry in a place like
Princeton than in a city-based university?
"Yes, I'd say for most of us it invites the muse more
than a chaotic or ugly place would. T. S. Eliot had to
138
THEODORE R. WEISS
leave his bank teller's job in London and go to
Switzerland to concentrate on finishing The Waste-
land-suggesting that to write well even about chaos
you need a little peace and quiet!"
He said he greatly envies his students "their chance to
submerge themselves for four years, withdraw from the
turbulence of life to study parts of it. This place has the
characteristics and advantages of an artists' colony. It's a
luxury, but a useful, usable, even a necessary one; a
chance to collect oneself, to live among kindred spirits,
before plunging back into the turbulence.
"Princeton expects great things of its students and
graduates, or why is all this invested in them? Even the
senior thesis is a work of art! In a day when we are being
overrun by mass production, it gives each student a
chance to concentrate like an artist on one piece of
work, under the eye of a professor who treats each
student as an individual worth spending time on. Our
students don't know how lucky they are! Or maybe they
do."
"Human beings everywhere need
to discover, and recognize, and
25
act out of their similarities, their
connectedness as human beings,
their interrelatedness, if they
expect to survive."
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
H
is work as a scholar in recent years had
centered on German romanticism of the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
said Theodore Ziolkowski, "a movement which gave
many modern institutions their present shapes. In fact,
the book I'm now working on deals with four such
institutions: mines, museums, madhouses, and
universities."
To his surprise, "the more deeply I studied the
University of Berlin, which was founded by romantic
thinkers in 1810-the first university that can be called
'modern'-the more clearly I could perceive Princeton
and appreciate the characteristic that most dis-
tinguishes it from other universities.
"The German romantics saw all being and all reality
as a unity, and this concept of 'wholeness' was reflected
in their university. In line with romantic thinking, they
regarded all disciplines as parts of a great interrelated
whole, saw not the separateness of different philoso-
A much-published scholar in the field of German and comparative
literature, Ziolkowski is a graduate of Duke University, studied at the
University of Innsbruck in Austria, earned his Ph.D. at Yale, and taught
there and at Columbia before coming to Princeton in 1964. He became
chairman of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
and then was appointed dean of the Graduate School in 1979. Three of
his published books have been on Hermann Hesse. His Fictional
Transfigurations of Jesus won the James Russell Lowell Prize for criticism.
139
140
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
phies but their connectedness, saw languages as related
families rather than as discrete structures. They antici-
pated Darwinism, which emerged from their view of
biology as a connected whole. And so on through the
disciplines.
"All this at a time when the French universities as
reorganized by Napoleon were mainly professional
training schools; the English universities were really
undergraduate colleges preparing young gentlemen to
enter Parliament; and German universities tended to be
dueling societies. Radically for their time, the roman-
tics saw the proper business of a university as the pursuit
of knowledge, including the discovering of new knowl-
edge; and out of this attitude came the modern notion
of academic freedom: freedom to seek truth wherever
the search might lead.
"The more I studied that university, the more clearly I
saw Princeton as surely the world's closest approxima-
tion to it today, to its ideals of what a university ought
to be: not only because of Princeton's smallness-which
is not a virtue in and of itself and actually has some
disadvantages-but because it has kept alive the spirit of
wholeness better than any other university I know of in
the world.
"This is manifested in many ways, at many levels: in
the unity here between learner and teacher, working
together, giving to and taking from each other and
forming a smooth continuum from the lowliest fresh-
man to the most distinguished scholar; in the unity
between faculty and administration, a unity not possi-
ble in large, complex institutions where departments
compete as self-centered adversaries and regard the
administration as almost an outsider, an unloved um-
pire. It is in the unity among disciplines that flow
together partly because they are joined in an unusually
large number of interdisciplinary programs, but mainly
because of close professional and personal relationships
among professors representing them.
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
141
"As an example of the latter, some of my Princeton
colleagues from whom I, as a professor of comparative
literature, have learned the most are in fields such as
engineering, physics, biology-fields that would be the
most remote from me in a larger, less unified place. I
spoke last week at the University of Toronto on 'Exis-
tential Anxieties of Engineers,' drawing on literary
examples all the way from Faust-did you know, in
addition to being a magician and alchemist he was an
engineer, a builder of dikes and canals?-to figures in
contemporary novels. This subject fascinates me! The
engineer, in literature and in life, is a particularly apt
symbol of man in a technological society, torn between
what he is rationally and scientifically capable of doing
or building, and what irrationally he feels he ought, or
ought not, to do or build. The point is, I never would
have tackled this subject if I had not been thrown in
with engineers on a day-to-day basis at Princeton, and if
as a consequence engineers were not among my closest
friends.
"Princeton's wholeness is exemplified-and I regard
exemplification as extremely important-by its physical
appearance; not only by the relative compactness of its
campus but by the design of it. From a certain spot on
campus one can see the library, which might be called
the mind of the place; the chapel, which might be called
its soul; and, craning the neck a bit, Nassau Hall, with
its administrative offices and Faculty Room, which
might be called its heart. By moving a few steps one can
see buildings devoted to sciences, and to all of the
humanities.
"The dominating force here, as it was at the Univer-
sity of Berlin, is centripetal, drawing all toward the
center. This is true even of the professional schools-of
engineering, of architecture, of public and international
affairs. Elsewhere, faculty and students of such schools
are drawn to their own centers and away from the
universities. Their force is centrifugal."
142
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
He finds unity in the relationship between the
Graduate School and the undergraduate college. "It's in
the way our graduate and undergraduate students inter-
mix. Not only do both attend classes on the same
campus but often they attend the same classes. Last year
some 250 undergraduates, most but not all of them
seniors, took graduate-level courses, while some 430
graduate students took undergraduate-level courses. I
don't think any other research university has the same
degree of cross-fertilization. And of course both are
taught by the same faculty, which emphasizes the sim-
ilarities between the two types of students, whereas at
most universities it is their differentness that gets
emphasized by the use of different faculties for each."
He said the intermixing of graduate and undergradu-
ate students at Princeton "is more academic than social,
but they do meet outside the classroom and labora-
tory-on the tennis courts, at the gym, and in intra-
mural sports. The production of an opera every year
involves mainly undergraduates, but also some graduate
students.
"The main university library is used by both, and it's a
hub of activity to an extent not true at other places
where libraries are great but less accessible and where
there are separate ones for undergraduates.
"Princeton also is unusual if not unique in providing
housing for most graduate students: about two thirds
last year, single ones at the Graduate College, and the
married in university apartments, both very near the
main campus, which contributes to the sense of unity
here.
"And the Graduate School dean is closer to the
central university administration here than at most
similar places; more intimately involved in the whole
educational process. At many universities, the graduate
dean is little more than a glorified registrar who counts
students and takes care of the budget but is not involved
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
143
with the departments, which set their own standards
and 'let the dean know.' At one university with a first-
rate graduate school, the German department is almost
completely independent. My opposite number at an-
other place told me he hadn't been in his president's
office in two years. Here, I sit on the president's
cabinet, which meets once a week at lunch, and I run
into him in Nassau Hall where we both have offices."
A parting question: Granted Princeton "approxi-
mates the ideals" of the University of Berlin, is this
good?-to resemble an institution that flourished more
than a century ago?
"Yes. The principle of wholeness seems to me very
timely today."
Why?
"Reality thrusts itself on us today in bits and pieces;
fragmented. It used to be that social forces helped to
keep individuals whole: the family, the neighborhood,
the community, the church, all exerted a unifying
pressure. But for many people these institutions no
longer have that effect. The family is so often broken by
divorce or strained by generational and other misunder-
standings; people move in and out of neighborhoods
and communities without ever feeling a part of them;
for many, the church is not the influence it once was.
The result is that today we have to cultivate a wholeness
that was once thrust upon us; have to pull things
together for ourselves in patterns we can deal with.
"An American today sits in a Danish modern chair,
with a Picasso on the wall, listening to Mozart on the
stereo, reading Dostoevsky-which is fine if he has an
inner unity that can compose those disparate elements.
Lacking it, he can be fragmented by the things around
him. The world we see falling apart on the evening TV
news can pull us apart unless our conscious minds and
psyches can absorb the chaos around us and make it, and
life, into a usable whole.
144
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
"Being educated to see the connections between
things by an institution that exemplifies wholeness, can
be enormously helpful. There is much speculation as to
why Princeton alumni are so loyal. I think it's because
this is a place they can comprehend."
Does Princeton's wholeness get exported in any way
to the larger society?
"I think so. I've never thought of 'Princeton in the
nation's service' as meaning just that our graduates go
to Washington and into politics at other levels. They are
useful to society by putting at its service the principles
of wholeness they've learned and absorbed here-as
professional and business people, as citizens, parents,
simply as people dealing with people. They can convey
the message that human beings everywhere need to
discover, and recognize, and act out of their similarities,
their connectedness as human beings, their interrelated-
ness, if they expect to survive."
Afterword
THOMAS H. KEAN
E
ncountered at a local hospital benefit, New Jersey
Governor Kean volunteered that he had read Con-
versations on the Character of Princeton and liked it.
Given his reputation as an "education governor," his
background as a teacher, and his having recently accepted
the presidency of Drew University on completion of his
governorship, I wanted to ask why?
The opportunity came a few months later when a new
edition of Conversations was decided on, and he agreed to
sit for this conversational afterword.
We met at Drumthwacket, official residence of New
Jersey governors, on his last working day as governor. He
had been signing legislation and saying farewells all day;
the state house press corps was gathered in the next room
for a reception; but Kean, at 54, seemed fresh, relaxed,
good-humored, and glad to be talking about a book that
dealt with his first love-teaching.
He said that with this third printing, "Conversations
seems on its way to becoming a classic-and deservedly
so."
Why?
Thomas H. Kean-A.B. Princeton (1957), M.A. Columbia Teachers Col-
lege-taught history and government in secondary schools and at Rutgers
University before entering the state Assembly in 1967. He became speaker in
1974, won the governorship in 1981 by one of the smallest margins in New
Jersey history, and was reelected four years later by the largest. New Jersey
governors can serve only two consecutive terms. Under Kean, the state enacted
44 education reforms. Most important in Kean's opinion are: (1) the alternate
route through which a college graduate can now teach in public schools without
a teachers college degree, and become fully qualified in one year; (2) the
provision whereby the state can now take over and run seriously ailing public
school systems. Drew University is in Madison, New Jersey.
145
146
THOMAS H. KEAN
Well, he said, to his knowledge there had never been a
book quite like it, "in which dedicated teachers at the top
of their professions talk informally about teaching, and
about an institution dedicated to teaching.
"It suggests how the character of a university-and by
implication any school-affects the performance of its
teachers, and how their performance determines the char-
acter of the institution."
He pointed out that the book "has already survived
some of those who appear in it." One of his Princeton
roommates was an English major who "smuggled me into
some of Carlos Baker's lectures and preceptorials; Doug
Brown, as dean of the faculty, was someone most students
knew; and, I was lucky enough to have classes with
Alpheus Mason, that great writer on Supreme Court
justices. Those three are no longer living, but what they
say here about teaching is timeless, and gives the book his-
torical as well as philosophical depth.
"The book increases respect for teaching and adds to
the dignity of the profession. It should improve the morale
of any teacher reading it, from kindergarten on up. This
is important because in a democracy, teachers are the
front-line troops. If you don't have democracy, schools
are not so important, and good universities not really
necessary because the people are told what to do and
think. If you have democracy, and want to keep it, you
need universities where people learn to think for them-
selves and where the idea of serving the nation is instilled,
as it certainly is at Princeton.
"Princeton also, by example, taught me that education
is not a matter of passing on knowledge, teachers to
students, but of participation by students in a back-and-
forth process." Echoing William G. Bowen's remark in
chapter 2 that "the test of whether one has learned
something is whether one can explain it," Kean said
students at Princeton and other good schools "learn to
teach themselves, and each other. It takes the best of
THOMAS H. KEAN
147
teachers to teach that."
He said he wished every teacher in America could be
exposed, through Conversations, to the principles and
personalities appearing in it, and that the book could be
circulated in the new democracies of the world. "It's a
profile of a university and the people in it. It takes you to
the heart of Princeton, which in many ways could be a
model for all teaching institutions from schools to univer-
sities."
Finally, he said, "love permeates the book: love of
teachers for teaching, for students, and for the material
being taught. And love, after all, is what keeps schools and
colleges and universities alive and thriving."
We shook hands, and he went out to shake the hands of
a hundred or so other reporters.
-W. McC.
About Conversations
This wonderful publication finds the heart and soul of a major
institution of higher learning and, in the process, reveals with elo-
quence what it means to be an educated person. [It is] a significant
book that will surely be of interest to all those concerned about
American higher education [and] will be an inspiration to teachers at
all levels.
-Ernest L. Boyer
President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching;
former U.S. Commissioner of Education; former chancellor, State University
of New York; author, High School: A Report on Secondary Education
in America and College: The Undergraduate Experience in America
Anyone reading [these conversations] will gain useful insight into
Princeton-and into education generally; and will get acquainted with
some educators well worth knowing.
-Harold T. Shapiro
President, Princeton University;
former president, University of Michigan
(see Foreword)
Conversations seems on its way to becoming a classic.
The book
increases respect for teaching and adds to the dignity of the profession.
It should improve the morale of any teacher reading it, from kindergar-
ten on up
important because in a democracy, teachers are the front-
line troops.
-Thomas H. Kean
President, Drew University;
former governor of New Jersey
(see Afterword)
Conversations on the Character of Princeton won a gold medal from the
Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
DEI
NVMINE
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY