Unlearned privileges

So as I was saying — before the vacation and exams interrupted me — I have been thinking for some time about Princeton's, among other universities, money and responsibilities, and I haven't been getting very far. Here's why.

On one side, it's always made me proud that Princeton emphasizes what our motto has called, at different times, "the nation's service" and "the service of all nations." Before graduation, SVC gives students who want to break out of the bubble the chance to put in countless hours for good causes. The support of our alumni community affords graduates multiple opportunities for service, from Princeton in Asia, Princeton in Africa and Princeton in Latin America to the manifold opportunities offered by Project '55. ROTC, the Peace Corps and Teach For America recruit those who have a sharper sense of what they want to do and are willing to commit two years or more. The university as a whole honors alumni who have done distinguished service, as it should, in varied ways: with articles in the Alumni Weekly and guest appearances back on campus, and through the award of medals and honorary degrees. And new possibilities keep taking shape — like the Scholars in the Nation's Service initiative in the Wilson School. In many ways, the prospect is pleasant.

But — on the other side — is this enough? And here's where I return to the thoughts with which I left this column in December. I was complaining, at that point, that Princeton and its fellow very rich schools are actually too rich. The gap between Princeton and its sister schools and America's other universities is already immense, and it's widening by the day. True, we spend a lot, and much of it we spend well. We offer a great education to anyone who comes to campus wanting one. We make it possible for lots of students whose parents couldn't afford to pay for four years at Princeton to come here nonetheless. Next year we'll even make it possible for any student who wants to join a selective club to afford the fees. That will be a big step, the biggest one that Princeton has taken since the clubs admitted women, towards creating a social system that keeps something of Princeton's traditional character and still makes sense in the 21st century.

But none of this is distinctive. In honesty, we know that most of our rivals do most of the same things we do. They give out scholarship money as lavishly as they can. Those that can afford to match or beat our offers — basically Harvard and Yale — have been shamed into doing so (in Harvard's case, of course, they snatched most of the credit after we forced their hand.) The others want to compete, and they're doing their best to raise the necessary funds. I suspect they'll find their alumni — like ours — very willing to give money for this excellent cause. One of the main reasons I admire Harold Shapiro and President Tilghman so much is their straightforward devotion to making the best education available to qualified candidates, whatever their background. But lots of private colleges and universities have seen this light.

So what could we do to enjoy the mounds of gold that the generosity of our alumni and the skill of our investors have placed at our disposal — while having peace of mind? Well, some of my views here are too heretical to win support—I'm not expecting many recruits for my "STOP THE HORROR: NO MORE NEW BUILDINGS IN PRINCETON UNTIL WE FIND A COMPETENT ARCHITECT" campaign. Some of them have to do with professors and our lives and work, and I'll come back to those in a future column.

But the big question has to do with our students. And when I think of them, the question of service haunts me. I can't help feeling that Princeton should be trying to convince its students — not just a minority, and not just those who need a year or two after graduation to find their feet, valuable though that period of reflection is — to embrace lives that involve more, much more, than successful careers. It's here that my thinking begins to break down. The world has changed, in ways that may make the ideal of service seem as outdated as its traditional wording. Look at the class obituaries in the PAW, at the lives of the alumni who have died recently, and you see lives shaped not only by practical aspirations, but also by the opportunities and dangers that World War II gave them and by careers that often unrolled in their home towns, familiar, beloved places that had a claim on their energies. Look at the notes from recent classes, and you track rapid advancement in a national or international pool of highly trained specialists. Will this new world of global fast-tracking demand or reward selflessness and service?

What I'd like to see, I guess, is a Princeton that sets itself against the purely selfish side of this larger culture. In my next column I'll try to suggest a few ways to do that: ways that are practical rather than rhetorical. Anthony Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History. He can be reached at grafton@princeton.edu.