One of the best assets in any seat of learning is the constructive criticism of the alumni.  Broad minded faculties invite intelligent criticism from the graduate body, and they usually get it.

But after all, the real power of enthusiasm behind college traditions abides in the student body itself.  How is this college patriotism aroused?  What are its manifestations?  What is it that awakens the desire for victory with honor, which is the real background of the great football demonstration that tens of thousands of Americans witness each year?

As I think back in this connection upon my own college experiences, the athletic mass meeting stands out in my memory and records the moment when all that was best and strongest in my fighting spirit and manhood came out to meet the demand of the athletic leaders.  It was at that time that the thrill and power of college spirit took mighty possession of me.  It might have been the inspiring words of an old college leader addressing us, or perhaps it was the story of some incident that brought out the deep significance of the coming game.  Indeed I have often thought that the spirit of loyalty and sacrifice aroused in the breast of the young man in a college mass meeting springs from the same noble source as the highest patriotism.

MASS MEETING ENTHUSIASM

How well do I recall the mass meeting held by the undergraduates in Alexander Hall Thursday night before the Yale game in 1898!  The team and substitutes sat in the front row of seats.  There was singing and cheering that aroused every man in the room to the highest pitch of enthusiasm.  All eyes were focused on the cheer leader as he rehearsed the cheers and songs for the game, and as the speakers entered behind him on the platform, they received a royal welcome.  There was Johnny Poe, Alex Moffat, some of the professors, including Jack Hibben, since president of Princeton, in addition to the coaches.

I can almost hear again their words, as they addressed the gathering.

“Fellows, we are here to-night to get ready to defeat Yale on Saturday.  You men all know how hard the coaches have worked this year to get the team ready for the last big game.  Captain Hillebrand and his men know that the college is with the team to a man.  We are not here to-night to make college spirit, but we are here to demonstrate it.

“Those of you who saw last year’s team go down to defeat at New Haven, realize that the Princeton team this year has got to square that defeat.  Garry Cochran and the other men who graduated are not here to play.  The burden rests on the shoulders of the men in front of me, this year’s team, and we know what they’re going to do.

“It is going to take the hardest kind of work to beat Yale on our own grounds.  We must play them off their feet the first five minutes.  I wonder if you men who are in Princeton to-day truly realize the great tradition of this dear college.  Thousands and thousands of young men have walked across the same campus you travel.  The Princeton of years gone by, is your Princeton to-day, so let us ever hold a high regard for those whose places we now occupy.