FRANCIS L. PATTON

In 1888 the Reverend Francis L. Patton was elected president of Princeton. At that time the college was beginning to feel keenly the tug of new winds of liberal doctrine, and in the words of one who was a Freshman at the time. "It seemed a backward step to take a man with a white lawn tie, a black frock coat, side whiskers and the pallor of a medieval monk, to preside over a college devoted chiefly to the liberal arts." Patton had been a Presbyterian pastor, and a professor in the Princeton Theological School; he had a claustral and philosophic austerity that raised fears for the new administration among both students and graduates. Quite to the contrary of these forebodings, the new president made himself personally likeable in undergraduate circles and was able to develop Princeton from a college afflicted with minor growing pains, into a fullfledged university. Under him, study was started in law and engineering, and the enrollment doubled; new buildings were erected in great number and many endowments were secured. In 1902 he ended his peaceful term of authority to head the Theological Seminary, and then in 1913 he retired to live in Bermuda. It was there that he was born in 1843, and from there that the news of his death came last Saturday.

To theology, Dr. Patton's contribution is scarcely likely to have any lasting value. He will be remembered on other grounds. He will be remembered on other grounds: first, as a president who, while he did not help along Princeton's intellectual growth to any marked degree, yet gave it a solid physical basis for future construction; secondly, as a very personable man, liked by almost everyone who knew him, whether as a friend or as a teacher.