PRINCETON LETTER.

PRINCETON, N. J., Dec. 11, 1895.

Debating in Princeton has always aroused a great amount of interest. The Lynde debate at commencemet and the '76 Prize Debate on Washington's Birthday are well attended and vigorously contested. However, the interest has never before reached the height that it did in the last three weeks. The men who represented the college in the debate with Yale on last Friday were among the very best thinkers and speakers in the college, and the undergraduates and all, notwithstanding the admitted fact that Princeton had the worst side of the question, had the greatest confidence in the ability of our men to win from Yale. The debate was successful throughout and of the highest order of argument and oratory, and to Princeton men everything was eminently satisfactory except the outcome of the contest as given by the judges in their decision. However, the Yale men, having at the beginning a better case, presented their arguments in a masterly and convincing way and by emphasis and reiteration of their main points won the debate.

The Harvard debate is now beginning to attract attention. The date, March 13, is very suitable and the best men are being talked of by the college in much the same way as prominent athletes are discussed before any of the intercollegiate games. In fact, Princeton, along with other colleges, is taking a more lively interest in these intellectual contests and the critics who speak of the predominence of athletic interests in our colleges should remember next spring and fall, the attention which has been drawn to the debating contests.

A graduate club has been formed in the college with quite a large membership. This has in a large manner been patterned after the one in existence at Harvard at the present and its aims will be to provide for original research in different departments by its members, and to draw together more closely the graduate students separated as they are by difference of aims.

The musical clubs have given a number of concerts in the towns near by and but one concert, the one in the New Casino here this week, remains before the clubs start on their southern trip next week. The clubs have shown great improvement in these preliminary concerts, and the Banjo Club is probably the best club of this kind the college has ever had. A large number of men will be taken on the trip. Three private cars have been given by friends of the college. A feature of the trip will be the joint concert with the Yale musical clubs at Memphis on the day after Christmas.