Tiger Club System Is Responsible for "Intellectual Inertia," Declares Article

Styling the system as the "thorn in the side of the University, the source of the pleasantest college memories, and the basis of its undeserved country-club reputation," Evarts Ziegler analyzes the Princeton Club set-up in an article, "Prospect Not Always Pleasant", in the December issue of Town and Country.

Ziegler traces the evolution of the clubs which line Prospect Street from the time the Ivy was established in 1879 to the protest issued by Sophomores last spring when 59 per cent found the system in need of improvement and 29 per cent advocated fundamental changes.

Undergraduate dissatisfaction with the clubs centers around the undemocratic "bicker week" method of "formal interview" and election. Ziegler says. The 20 per cent who are left out of this "major part of the pleasant routine life of the Junior and Senior year" are too small a group to make their self-conscious situation bearable, in contrast to the "social security offered by the House plan at Yale and Harvard."

While President of Princeton, Woodrow Wilson had proposed a "Quad Plan" similar to the Harvard-Yale House system, to control the "sideshow that is attempting to run the main tent." But clubmen, some of the faculty and the alumni, defending what was dear to them, defeated the Wilson plan, and he continued to be "president of a country club."

Nassau Eyes House Plan

Ziegler explanis that Nassan Hall has its eye on its sisters in the Big Three when it complains of the "intellectual inertia of the Street," a social organization which has no share in its academic program. But, the author explains, there is no one there to stimulate "an intellectual atmosphere" since it lacks the cross section of life and the "friction of minds" at Harvard and Yale.

Recognizing the faults of the system. Princeton cannot overlook the fact that it is relieved of the problem and the expense of providing for the dining facilities of the undergraduate, Ziegler stated.