Princeton 1921 and 1931

To what extent the college undergraduate changes with changing times we have no definite way of knowing. He is now commonly reported to be far less "collegiate" than he was even ten years ago, less excited over athletics and other college activities, more interested in week ends in neighboring cities. He is described as sophisticated, conservative and, in college slang, a "smoothie." Pondering such characterizations, it occurred to us to compare what the graduating senior today thinks of life and literature, as so inadequately revealed in one of the annual questionnaires, with the opinions of his predecessor of ten years ago.

Today's senior at Princeton votes women his favorite amusement, followed by the movies and drinking. Ten years ago he voted for bridge, bickering and eating. Wodehouse, Hardy and Hemingway are the oddly assorted authors he declares his favorite fiction writers, while in 1921 Jeffrey Farnol, O. Henry and Booth Tarkington best held his attention. He drinks and smokes as he used to, enjoys football to watch and tennis to play, but whereas ten years ago he valued a college letter more than a Phi Beta Kappa key, that choice is now reversed by a vote of 266 to 98. Furthermore, all but a small minority of the class has visited a night club in New York, a point which ten years ago apparently did not occur to the questionnaire makers.

If these answers seem to hear out the contention that the modern undergraduate is a pretty sophisticated young man and at the same time perhaps a bit more serious in his studies--if we may accept the yearning for a Phi Bta Kappa key as genuine--other votes would indicate that he has changed little. We refer to his attitude, of all things, toward poetry. In 1921 his favorite poets were Kipling, Tennyson and Browning; in 1931 they are Browning, Kipling and Tennyson. Ten years ago he voted "If" his favorite poem, followed by Gray's "Elegy"; today he does the same. This may have been all right in 1921, but it is pretty bad for a sophisticated night-clubber whose favorite amusement is women.

As evidence of changing opinions on Prohibition in these ten years, it is interesting to note that in 1921 the question arose of "existing Prohibition" and "enforced Prohibition." A slight majority in that year voted approval of "enforced Prohibition." Today without distinction a vote of eight to one condemned the noble experiment. This change we do not ascribe to sophistication, but to the results of the ten year's experiment. New York Evening Post.