Who's Whence

Farsighted young men about to enter college and with an eye to getting along in the world might have scanned with interest last week some statistics in the current School & Society on the distribution of university alumni in Who's Who, 1928-29. To begin with they would have found that more than 50% of the 28,805 biographies included in Who's Who state that the individuals received bachelor degrees from some U. S. college. Harvard would have looked attractive to young men on the make, for it leads the list numerically with 1,374 graduates; Yale and Princeton follow in order with 937 and 480. These colleges graduated 17% of all college men listed in the book.

If the young men are unable or do not choose to attend one of these colleges, theoretically they should at least attend a New England institution, for the seats of learning in this area have produced 32% of all Who's.* But the hypothetical best bet is Hampden-Sydney which, although it ranks only seventy-first (52 graduates) in the number of alumni present in Who's Who, rates No. 1 in proportion of alumni-listed--7.45%. Amherst has 296 of its sons, or 7.40% in Who's Who; Harvard, with 6.60%, comes third.

Of co-educational schools, Michigan has the greatest number (470), Brown the largest percentage (3.74%). Of exclusively muliebral institutions, Vassar ranks first in numbers (66) and in percentage (.87%).

New President

During its 164 years Rutgers University, on the south bank of the Raritan River at New Brunswick, N. J., has had ten presidents, one acting president. Last week Philip Milledoler Brett, class of 1892, Manhattan attorney, was made Rutgers' second executive pro tempore, succeeding John Martin Thomas, president since 1925, who resigned to become vice president of National Life Insurance Co. of Montpelier, Vt.

The choice of Acting President Brett was a traditional one. His great-great-grandfather was the third president of Rutgers (1825-40), his grandfather was in the class of 1834, his father was graduated from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1865, his son will come under his official supervision as a member of the class of 1932.

One result of Acting President Brett's election was to settle the origin of "I'd die for dear old Rutgers." He was captain of the football team which played Princeton in 1892, the game in which the speech--long attributed to Captain Brett and various other members of the team --originated. Last week the Rutgers Alumni Association announced that credit for the brave words should be given to the late Frank Kingsley Grant, Class of 1895, who broke his leg while leading a flying wedge on the first kickoff. Prostrate upon the field, Footballer Grant philosophically remarked that his training days were over, reached for a cigaret, told his teammates: "I'd die to win this game." Four years ago Acting President Brett wrote to the Alumni Monthly: "I did not break my leg, but finished the game at quarterback; did not smoke at that time and never spoke the immortal words."

On assuming office, said Acting President Brett: "I don't suppose I shall at tempt to initiate any new situations under the circumstances. My main purpose will be to attempt to preserve the integrity of the college as far as State issues are concerned."*

Princeton Hits Bottom

A slight, gentle little man with a small mustache and an Airedale terrier walked down one of Princeton's quiet, leafstrewn streets one afternoon last week and turned in at University Field. As soon as the burly young men who were punting, passing, scrimmaging over the scarred grass saw the visitor they immediately dropped their practice and gathered about him.

For although California's energetic Sproul or Chicago's youthful Hutchins or Columbia's voluble Butler might go out to have a word with the football team, it is almost unknown for Princeton's quiet, academic Dr. John Grier Hibben to do so. What he told the varsity squad was simple. He said that the unprecedented series of defeats which Princeton has suffered this fall (from Brown, Cornell, Navy) indicated that Princeton had hit bottom. Logically he prophesied that in the remaining games (with Chicago, Lehigh, Yale) the team was bound to do better. When he had finished the team went back to practice. President Hibben walked off the field, followed by his Airedale.

If President Hibben's interest in the university's athletic fortunes pleased robust Princeton alumni, the subsequent events of the evening must have been even more heartening for, excited by a football rally, the undergraduates put on a display of Real Old Princeton Enthusiasm. About 1,500 of the student body started bonfires after the meeting, tossed some of their room fixtures on the blaze, then scoured the town for combustibles. The general disorder culminated in minor riot, with freshmen battling sophomores for the privilege of entering Renwick's, an icecream parlor forbidden them. Traffic was blocked on Nassau Street (Lincoln Highway), New York-Philadelphia busses were halted, rocked. And, as usual, the pious statue of the Christian Student was toppled over.

Dean Christian Gauss took names, chided, meted moderate discipline. In Chicago the Princeton team played a footling, scoreless tie.

U. of Utopia

Assembled at Chapel Hill last week was the third annual Southern Conference on Education, guests of the University of North Carolina. Most of the pedagogs at the gathering were Southerners, but young President Robert Maynard Hutchins of the University of Chicago made the pithiest point, in his discussion of "Utopia University." There, he said, "Hours and residence requirements as criteria for winning college degrees and such time-honored titles as graduate school and junior and senior college" would be supplanted by an institution of higher learning divided into the professional schools and four divisions in art: humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, biological sciences.

Spank

Conscientious parents may be divided into two sects--Spankers and Non-Spank-ers. Last week the Spankers had a new and highly creditable ally--Garry Cleveland Myers, head of the Division of Parental Education, Cleveland College, Western Reserve University. In a book which is calculated to show parents how to behave toward their offspring,* Spanker Myers devotes a chapter to the proper method of child castigation. Excerpts: "

Perhaps 90% of all punishment by parents is injudicious. . . . I believe in punishment, not as a last resort, but as a part of a very deliberate program with the child, punishment which is planned ahead for days and weeks before it is to be applied. . . . Is it not better that a little child should have a good burning spank than that his body should be burned up by a conflagration or that he should be ruined for a lifetime by pulling down upon his head a pot of boiling liquid?"

Recommended to potential Spankers are these precepts: Don't scold or pray over the child, or nag with small, ineffectual, repeated chastisements. Don't ridicule, frighten, punish after school years; never in the presence of others after the age of three. Punish immediately and impressively after an offense.

*lt has never been settled to the satisfaction of all just how much support Rutgers should expect from the State since it became the State University of New Jersey in 1917.

*The 139 colleges here considered contribute at least 20 alumni each and furnish 85% of all the U. S. graduates listed.

*THE MODERN PARENT--Greenberg ($3.50)-

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.