Kansas University Weekly.
173
From "The Builders."
[An Ode for the 150th anniversary of Princeton College, by Rev. Henry van Dyke.]
O Thou whose boundless love bestows
The joy of life, the hope of Heaven;
Thou whose unchartered mercy flows
O'er all the blessings Thou hast given;
Thou by whose light alone we see;
Thou by whose truth our souls set free
Are made imperishably strong:
Hear thou the solemn music of our song.
Grant us the knowledge that we need
To solve the questions of the mind;
Light thou our candle while we read,
And keep our hearts from going blind;
Enlarge our vision to behold
The wonders Thou hast wrought of old;
Reveal thyself in every law,
And gild the towers of truth with holy awe.
Be thou our strength when war's wild gust
Rages around us, loud and fierce;
Confirm our souls and let our trust
Be like a wall that none can pierce;
Give us the courage that prevails,
The steady faith that never fails.
And help us stand in every fight
Firm as a fortress to defend the right.
O God, make of us what Thou wilt;
Guide Thou the labor of our hand;
Let all our work be surely built
As Thou, the architect, hast planned;
But whatsoe'er Thy power shall make
Of these frail lives, do not forsake
Thy dwelling. Let thy presence rest
Forever in the temple of our breast.
The Princeton Sesquicentennial.
On the twenty-second day of October in the year 1746 a charter was granted to the College of New Jersey. After the war of the Revolution, this charter was renewed by the Legislature of New Jersey. Though the college was styled a state college, and the governor of the state was ex-officio its head, all the power to legislate and hold property for the college was placed in the hands of a self-perpetuating board of trustees upon whom devolved the chief if not the entire responsibility for seeing that the institution was provided with funds. From its foundation the institution depended upon endowment and not upon state aid. It was founded as "a seminary of true religion and good literature," to train men for the ministry and for citizenship, but there was not in its charter a word about creed or denomination; nor is there today, though the institution still stands as a "seminary" of unsectarian religious thought.
The college was formally opened in May, 1747, at Elizabethtown, was transferred to Newark within a year, and soon after to Princeton. In Princeton it began to build a permanent home for itself in 1754; because it was at Princeton it witnessed some of the most stirring events of the Revolution, and because it was a historic town it has itself become historic as Princeton College rather than under its legal title, the College of New Jersey.
After a long struggle the college achieved some measure of financial independence, but notwithstanding its reputation it remained straitened and hampered for lack of money and buildings, and its students were few, estimated by present standards. But it had created for itself that which was mightier for its good than money or estate, a body of alumni, loyal and loving, and strong enough to defend it from any danger from without while providing it with an adequate equipment within. With the coming of President McCosh in 1868 began the work of upbuilding; and since that time scarcely a year has passed in which the college has not added a building or two, until there are now upon and about its campus almost fifty—so many that it has become necessary to begin the demolition of the old in order to make room for the new; while since the beginning of President Patton's administration in 1888, they have been springing up, not one at a time, but in groups. This the devotion of alumni has accomplished toward the material prosperity of the college.
But new buildings have meant new departments and new schools, until the sphere of instruction has long been far broader than that ordinarily included under the term collegiate. Yet the college has clung to its old name, partly from conservatism, and partly because a university title has in great part lost its significance through the too free use of it by institutions of inferior equipment and narrow scope. It preferred to honor the humbler title rather than to assume the new one before its application became a matter of course; and so Princeton is almost the last prominent American institution