PRINCETON'S PROBLEM

Two months ago civil strife broke out in the social ranks at Princeton. An influential group of sophomores announced that they would not accept invitations to the senior societies and declared war on the entire club system as extravagant, demoralizing and undemocratic. Since then more than seventy of their classmates have taken the same stand. On last Wednesday the struggle entered a new phase, when seven prominent seniors resigned from their clubs and joined the insurgent sophomores, as an open and vigorous protest against the system which they could not reform from the inside.

There seems to be no question that the sophomores are attacking a real evil. The club system, says the Daily Princetonian, has "limited fellowship in a way which is not only exceedingly harmful to the individual, but which also exercises a pernicious effect upon the university's endeavor to turn out undergraduates who shall be best fitted for positions of honor and responsibility in the nation." According to the resigning seniors the system has "discouraged individuality of thought," "created a set of artificial standards," and "diverted the finances, energy and attention of both graduates and undergraduates from the curriculum and other primary purposes of the university." Backed by a successful and highly respected body of undergraduates, by not a few graduates who were club men in their day, and by President Hibben himself, these charges carry great weight.

As yet no final scheme for a constructive solution has been advanced. One policy alone seems fairly definite in the minds of the reformers, that the clubs as self-electing close corporations shall be abolished, and a thoroughly democratic system substituted in their place. In this way they hope to establish a wider basis for fellowship, where all men will meet on an equal basis, regardless of their social position and personal characteristics and build up a more wholesome social structure.

To the outsider it seems unfortunate that such a radical course should be necessary. The experience of American universities has been that clubs are inevitable, that the natural tendency of individuals is to consolidate into small, close-knit groups. When the nature of these groups destroys the possibility of fellowship, they should be modified, but to end their existence entirely opposes the dictates of normal human instincts If possible, it seems far healthier that the small club groups should continue to exist side by side with the broader opportunities for common fellowship.