Coming here older and wiser

Back in the last geologic age we were conversing on this page about Princeton's "intellectual climate" and possible ways to consolidate what is good about it and improve what might be less good. All that was swept away by the end of term, a round of holiday parties, the holidays themselves and, for many professors in the humanities, more or less distant scholarly meetings more or less oppressive in nature. Yet even in the midst of the cold and the colds and the pending exams I want to return to the theme, prompted by the unlikely concatenation of a sociological observation and a cocktail-party conversation.

When in recent years I have looked out with dimming eyes on my larger lectures I see at their periphery a penumbra of gray and blue. I refer to no invasion of Civil War re-enactors but to the hairstyles, natural or tinted, of the growing number of local "seniors" who vie for permission, regulated by strict quotas, to sit in on Princeton courses. Nationwide, "continuing education" in many forms—Adult Schools, alumni colleges, Elderhostels, lectures and programs sponsored by local civic groups—is probably the fastest growing sector of the educational "market". It will only expand as the proportion of the college-educated increases, as people live longer and healthier lives, and as they retire earlier from the formal workforce. I probably give a dozen lectures or seminars a year to such people, whose number I hope soon to join. One group I recently lectured to had a catchy name: "Older and Wiser."

Though it is impossible to generalize, I frequently encounter two inhibiting characteristics of "older students," especially those who lack much formal advanced education or for whom college years have become something of a distant racial memory. They are in the first place very diffident and reticent, acutely conscious of what they call the "rustiness" of their classroom skills and postures. The second is that they tend to discount or seriously underestimate their most telling asset as "late learners"—the richness of their own life experience. They have no idea how thrilling it is for me to encounter students who have not merely heard of the Second World War but maybe have some personal experience of ration cards, scrap drives, and Victory Bonds. For decades I have been teaching great books to great Princeton students with, I hope, great results. But, really, does one expect an eighteen-year-old to grasp the despair of Lear? I was sixty years old before I could comprehend the pity as well as the scorn that delineates the avarice and lust of old man Karamazov. How are you possibly going to understand either the choice Isabel Archer makes or why she sticks with it—until your own pitiably unfounded self-confidence has led you into at least one great misstep of enduring consequence? We cannot address the inequity that youth is too good a thing to squander on the young, but we could make a slight adjustment with regard to education.

At a holiday party I encountered a table full of seriously tempting sweetmeats and a brilliant idea espoused by my friend and colleague Carol Rigolot. Fortunately, we have longstanding policies regarding both temptation and other people's ideas. When faced with temptation, succumb. When faced with a great idea, steal it if at all practicable.

Dr. Rigolot, who as the Executive Director of the Council of the Humanities for many years has helped develop, administer, and teach several of the most interesting Princeton courses with which I myself have been associated, has a great idea, and I am now stealing it.

The gist of the idea, which she tells me "emerged during a conversation with Lily Johnston, '05, as we brainstormed together about ways to make Princeton even better", is as follows. Fortunately I do not know Ms. Johnston myself, since I find stealing from strangers somewhat less awkward than stealing exclusively from good friends; and neither she nor Carol Rigolot bears the slightest responsibility for my deformation of their silk purse into a sow's ear. But I must say that it is no small comfort to know students and faculty of their caliber spend time brainstorming about ways to make Princeton even better.

The specific way is this: Why not strongly encourage, perhaps even require, admitted students to postpone for one academic year actually coming into residence? The applicant learns of acceptance in April and is guaranteed admission. The admitee shows up for Outdoor Action not five months later but seventeen months later—in a condition that might be described as, well, older and wiser. To wait until all our freshmen are blue or gray with age does seem excessive; but to expect of them all at least one year of "real life" experience is a modest hope that might effect considerable intellectual rewards.

What would they do during the extra year of maturation? There are many possibilities. The experience of actually earning one's own living for a time is never harmful, but I would hope a tradition would emerge that they would spend the year front-loading some of that Princetonian obligation "in the nation's service" of which we frequently speak. Since part of the aim would be to clear away the high-school cobwebs and decompress from the dreadful tensions now endemic among college applicants I would hope it would not be another year of de facto formal education in disguise, though in your brief respite from the salt mines you might find out at least who Isabel Archer is. One of the difficulties I have faced in approaching the subject of Princeton admissions is avoiding the suggestion that we are simply getting too many of the wrong students. Here's a suggestion as to how we could get the same students, but at what I think might well be a better time. More than forty years ago as a Rhodes Scholar, I had the unique experience of beginning a second undergraduate career at the age of twenty-two. At that time many of my (male) British colleagues were only a little younger, having completed a period of obligatory military service. Perhaps one of the reasons I remember that experience as being more intellectually mature than what I often see on our own campus today is that we were all a little more intellectually mature.

There are certain institutions—such as Berea College and Deep Springs— which, while not household names, command deep respect among the cognoscenti for the special qualities they foster in their students. The admissions plan suggested here would distinguish us among those few institutions that everybody knows about already. We might call the Princeton plan "Just a Little Older and a Little Wiser." It would immediately attract a special cachet, though it probably would not remain unique very long, since academic institutions are even better than academics at stealing other people's good ideas. John V. Fleming is the Louis W. Fairchild '24 professor of English. He can be reached at jfleming@princeton.edu.