John Grier Hibben
President of Princeton University | |
---|---|
In office 1912–1932 | |
Preceded by | John Aikman Stewart (acting) |
Succeeded by | Edward D. Duffield (acting) |
Personal details | |
Born | Peoria, Illinois, U.S. | April 19, 1861
Died | May 16, 1933 Union County, New Jersey, U.S. | (aged 72)
John Grier Hibben (April 19, 1861
Early life
Hibben was born in Peoria, Illinois, just before the start of the American Civil War, on the day when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the Southern ports. He was the only son of the Rev. Samuel and Elizabeth (Grier) Hibben.
The Hibbens were of
Elizabeth Grier was a native of Peoria, from a large family with partial
As an undergraduate he distinguished himself especially in mathematics and on graduation was awarded a mathematical
He was ordained as a minister of the
In 1912, Hibben was elected fourteenth president of Princeton. He retired in 1932 on the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation.
Presidency at Princeton
At the start of his presidency, Princeton was torn by the controversies started during Wilson's administration. Hibben agreed with Wilson's introduction of the preceptorial system in 1905. This system revitalized traditional methods of instruction such as
Hibben kept aloof from these acrimonious debates, but allied himself with the group opposed to the quad system, not because of sympathy with the clubs, but because he did not want to alienate a large number of alumni. Following Wilson's resignation in 1910 to become Governor of New Jersey, there were two years of agitation, before Hibben was elected president, though not unanimously, chiefly on the ground that Princeton's first need was peace and that Hibben was best fitted to promote it.
His election was a victory for the anti-Wilson group, but in his inaugural address he declared that he represented no faction but a united Princeton. He encouraged larger alumni and faculty participation in the governance of the university and was a resolute defender of academic freedom, protecting members of the faculty whose "radical" views brought irate protests to his office. The university endowment increased fivefold; the size of the faculty doubled; a four-course plan of study in the upper classes was initiated; the work of the scientific departments was extended; and the schools of architecture, engineering, and public affairs were founded. The great expansion in the field of science at Princeton during this period is attributable largely to Hibben's generous recognition of the leadership of Dean Henry Burchard Fine.
Hibben's educational philosophy is expounded in A Defense of Prejudice (1911). He defended the ideas that underlie the traditional "liberal education," pleaded for the humanities, and, while he recognized the role of "pure" science, his own interest was to conserve and revitalize the inheritance of the past.
His philosophical writings include: Inductive Logic (1896); The Problems of Philosophy (1898);
Hibben's interest in the life of the nation was keen. In the little volume The Higher Patriotism (1915—translated into Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish) may be discerned the deeper reasons for his ardent advocacy of the Allies in the
In December 1916 Hibben,
He had supported the Eighteenth Amendment but changed his attitude, recognizing that it was unenforceable and in his own observation had effects the very opposite of its purpose. His friendship with Col. Charles Lindbergh, with whom he was in daily contact after the tragic kidnaping at Hopewell, New Jersey, intensified his interest in the suppression of crime.
He never held public office though he was often mentioned for an ambassadorship. He declined feelers for a Senatorial campaign after his retirement in 1932. The honor which he most appreciated was the establishment by several thousand alumni of the Hibben Loan Fund for students in financial straits. A scholarship in Princeton founded by a Yale alumnus also bears his name, as does a street in Princeton and a new mineral discovered by his colleague Alexander H. Phillips. His monument on the campus is the chapel, the nave of which bears his name.
On the afternoon of May 16, 1933, while he was returning to Princeton with his wife from Elizabeth, New Jersey, his car collided with a truck on a wet pavement and he died on his way to the Rahway hospital; he was buried in the Princeton Cemetery. His wife died from her injuries a few weeks later. He left one daughter, Elizabeth Grier.
Works
- (1896). Inductive Logic (reprint 2007). ISBN 1-4086-2339-0.
- (1898). The Problems of Philosophy: An Introduction to the Study of Philosophy.
- (1903). Hegel's Logic: An Essay in Interpretation (reprint 2008). ISBN 1-4437-3079-3.
- (1904). Logic: Deductive and Inductive (reprint 2008). ISBN 1-4086-7112-3.
- (1910). The Philosophy of the Enlightenment.
- (1911). A Defence of Prejudice and other Essays (reprint 1970). ISBN 0-8369-1952-1.
- (1912). The Essentials of Liberal Education.
- (1913). The Type of the Graduate Student.
- (1915). The Higher Patriotism (reprint 1970). ISBN 0-8369-1514-3.
- (1921). The New Chapel for Princeton University.
References
- ^ "Hibben, John Grier, Class of 1882". Princetoniana Museum. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
- ^ Princeton University Presidents Archived 2007-06-22 at the Wayback Machine accessed June 8, 2007
- Time Magazine, January 19, 1931,[1]accessed May 28, 2008
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-11-21.
- ^ John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (2009) pp 70-102.
- ^ James Axtell, "The Bad Dream." Princeton University Library Chronicle (2008) 69#3 pp. 400-436.
- ^ "Americans buy Lafayette's Home," The Sacred Heart Review, Volume 57, Number 4, 6 January 1917, p. 3.
- ^ Albert Bushnell Hart, Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Volume 7, Harper, 1920; p. 110.
- ^ "Americans Aid War Refugees in Paris Mrs. William Astor Chanler Tells of Work Done Through Lafayette Fund;" The Philadelphia Inquirer; 8-04-1918; Vol. 179, Issue: 35; p. 11, Philadelphia, PA.
Further reading
- Axtell, James. The Making of Princeton University: from Woodrow Wilson to the Present (2006)
- Bragdon, Henry Wilkinson. Woodrow Wilson: the Academic Years (Harvard UP, 1967)