Judging by the Times

President Hibben of Princeton has suggested that the spirit of the universities, far from being one of depression, should be rather that of "elation" that the opportunity has come to show an understanding sense of an obligation which one would wish not to escape. The word itself, of ancient use, has persisted through the centuries to define the triumph of the soul of man over his environment. Thomas Chalmers, the great Scottish divine, in his treatise on the adaptation of external nature to the moral and intellectual constitution of man, speaks of an "elate independence of the soul." That independence is more difficult to declare and maintain in extremes either of want or luxury. The distresses of today or the anxieties for the morrow on the one hand, and the surfeits of the senses or the responsibilities of riches on the other, dispute the soul's sovereignty.

To youth, with their strength and comparative freedom, the situation is a challenge to their understanding, their sacrifice and their elate effort to equip themselves for a higher intellectual level of existence, whatever the economic conditions. Dean Gauss in The Princeton Alumni Weekly, speaking of the great majority of college students, says that they are "cheerful and happy," and that, "unlike their elders, they do not everlastingly talk about the depression." They hope that "things will go back"; but whatever happens, they are not going back to the senseless way in which many of them lived in prosperous days. It cannot be doubted that this is to be a wholesome period for the colleges and universities, when the higher purposes of education will have an opportunity to become dominant in the lives of the students. The lavish, rockless spender has disappeared from the college campus.

This elation has its firm basis, as President Hibben intimated, in an understanding sense of the situation. it is not related etymologically to the more ancient word meaning elasticity, which gave Linnacus the name for a family or genus of beetles "possessing the power of springing upward from a supine position for the purpose of falling upon their feet." Elation is a state of exultant, unceasing struggle for the highest things of the human mind and soul. The colleges and universities may become centres of such "elation" amid the world's depression. New York Times.