President of Princeton
Smith studied under president Witherspoon, married Witherspoon's daughter, returned to Princeton as a professor in 1779, and succeeded Witherspoon as president in 1795. The situation during the winter semester of 1806-07 under Smith's presidency was characterized by little or no faculty-student rapport or communication, crowded conditions, and strict school rules - a combination that led to a student riot on 31 March-1 April 1807. College authorities denounced it as a sign of moral decay. Smith was active in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church and served as moderator of the General Assembly in 1799. Smith was an urbane and cultivated man who sought, in the tradition of Witherspoon, to maintain orthodoxy while opposing tendencies toward rigidity and obscurantism. His efforts were unsuccessful, and he was forced to resign from his office in 1812 as a result of criticism from within the church. In his efforts to reconcile reason and revelation Smith left himself vulnerable to charges of rationalism and Arminianism.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Stanhope Smith
Famous quotes containing the words president of, president and/or princeton:
“In externals we advance with lightening express speed, in modes of thought and sympathy we lumber on in stage-coach fashion.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)
“A President must call on many persons—some to man the ramparts and to watch the far away, distant posts; others to lead us in science, medicine, education and social progress here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Princeton is no longer a thing for Princeton men to please themselves with. Princeton is a thing with which Princeton men must satisfy the country.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)