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The minute book of the Rector's Aid Society is 6.5 inches by 8 inches and about one hundred pages; only seventeen are used. It contains a list of the twenty members plus minutes of the monthly meetings, from 15 October 1867 to December 1868, taken by the student secretary. The minutes record reports of committees and the Rector, as well as the topic of the evening's discussion.
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Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Rector's Aid Society Minutes, Box and Folder Number; University Archives, Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
In October 1867, the rector of Princeton's Trinity Episcopal Church called an informal meeting of students of the College of New Jersey who were members of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He suggested the formation of an organization "to promote the interests of the Church among us." The gathered students approved his proposed constitution, elected him president ex officio, and created a standing committee and a missionary committee.
Over the next several months the new Society raised money for facilities for the Episcopal chapel in Princeton Basin, organized Sunday Schools for Princeton Basin and Rocky Hill, and arranged for Episcopal worship services on campus. At its monthly meetings the Society also discussed topics--both historical and theological--as proposed by the Rector. Although it was a student organization, the Rector was very much in charge of the Society.
The Society's minutes stop in December 1868; the eventual fate of the Society is not known. Its most likely successor, the Saint Paul's Society, was founded in 1876; the Proctor Foundation continues its work.
The College of New Jersey was initially chartered in 1746. The first classes were held in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the parsonage of the president, the Reverend Jonathan Dickinson. Upon his death, the College moved to Newark, New Jersey, and was headed by the Reverend Aaron Burr, Sr. Since 1756, the College has been located in Princeton, New Jersey. For the first fifty years, nearly all College operations took place within Nassau Hall. Fires, fundraising difficulties, low student enrollment, and the Civil War challenged the vitality of the College in the early and middle nineteenth century, but the College grew vigorously under the leadership of President James McCosh, and it was renamed Princeton University in 1896. The Graduate School was established in 1900, although a limited graduate program had existed since the 1870s. Princeton enthusiastically supported the country (living up to its informal motto, "Princeton in the Nation's Service") during the First and Second World Wars, offering the expertise of faculty and campus space for training, as well as facilitating the early graduation of students so they could enlist. The post-World War II years brought dramatic changes to Princeton. The size and strength of the University's facilities and academic programs—especially for the applied sciences and public policy—were increased dramatically. Under President Robert Goheen, Princeton began to admit minority students in greater numbers in the 1960s and admitted women undergraduates in 1969. Today, Princeton is widely regarded as one of the top universities in the world.