The alternative of Woodrow Wilson Lodge, termed by President Robert F. Goheen an "important and promising" development, has been in existence little more than two years. In that time it has grown--with its sudden spurt this winter--to equal most of the clubs, and promises to become still larger. There are more than fifty sophomores in the Lodge now--a number greater than sophomore "sections" of all but one club; most of these fifty joined before Bicker started, not, according to Dean Lippincott, out of fear of Bicker, but purely by choice and from a feeling that the alternative of the Lodge is what they wanted."

The establishment of Wilson Lodge in 1956 was a response to the increasingly disturbing tension inherent in the Bicker system. Bicker was, and is, torn between two mutually exclusive first principles--selectivity ("A guy's got the right to choose the fellows he wants to eat with") and 100% ("Every sophomore participating in Bicker must get a bid to a club"). The creation of a "meaningful alternative" to club membership, in the words of President Goheen, makes the move to Prospect Street a matter of "voluntary choice, not herd compulsion."

What effect Wilson Lodge has had on the club system and on Bicker is hard to gauge. Its new popularity is surely an important development, both eliminating compulsion toward club membership and providing a relatively attractive recourse for Bicker's rejects. Part (but only part) of Wilson's growth may be traced to the announcement last spring of plans for a new Dormitory Quadrangle to replace Wilson Lodge. It will be a modern, Houselike set of structures, with dormitory space for 200 and eating and social facilities for 250.

The significant fact about the new quad is that the University is committed to find space in the "alternative" for everyone who is interested. Wilson has already outgrown the part of Commons originally allotted to it, and another hall is now being converted for its use. Dean Lippincott says that if demand exceeds the space in the new Quad, more buildings will be built or existing space converted to meet the needs. It is conceivable that in the future--say in ten years--a majority of Princeton will be living in such Quad arrangements, though no-one is willing to hazard such a prediction.

The new Quad will not be a copy of a Harvard House or a Yale College, Goheen and Lippincott insist. Princeton plans to have no Master or faculty supervisor running the installation, and has no intention of decentralizing its academic or disciplinary administration down to a Quad level. Faculty members will live in the Quad and eat in the dining room, but they will not have any formal responsibilities. But Goheen and Lippincott hope that this informal student-faculty contact will make for a "closer interpenetration of academic and non-academic life."

Goheen shares to an extent Professor Smith's concern with anti-intellectualism in the clubs. The clubs, he says, "have not done anything to advance the intellectual life of the University." He "would welcome a larger intellectual concern" on their part, but does not feel that they have been a "drag on intellectual life."

The popularity of Wilson Lodge and the enthusiasm which greeted the plans for the new Quad represent a challenge to the club system. Opinions vary on how the clubs will meet it. One theory says that they will try to broaden themselves intellectually in order to compete with the alternative on its own terms; another says they will retreat into their social shell and let those with intellectual predilections go elsewhere--in this version, they will become much like the the Harvard clubs, small and selective.

Goheen and most other observers consider the first possibility more likely. They point out, quite correctly, that the standards of Princeton clubs are very much unlike those of their Harvard counterparts. Ivy, Cottage and other top eating clubs do not, they say "have the same membership as Porcellian or AD." This is quite true; the social standards for membership in a "Big Five" club at Princeton depend not on the sins of the fathers, but on the sins of the sons. Thus, the son of a railroad worker--if he has the social virtues, the "Cocktail Soul"--can be eagerly sought by Ivy, Colonial and Cap and Grown.

Goheen feels that, far from letting some clubs fold and allowing much of the student body to desert the club system, Prospect Street will accomodate the more academically-orientated atmosphere of the New Princeton. He sees "hopeful signs of the clubs' trying to offer some of the quasi-academic virtues of the Quad system." The next few years, as Wilson Lodge and the Quad grow, will determine the accuracy of Goheen's prediction.

Meanwhile, sixteen of the clubs look reasonably healthy for the coming year. Only Prospect, the co-operative club that figured so prominently in last year's controversy, seems destined to collapse. It again held an open Bicker, allowing anyone who was interested to sign up, and attracted only four sophomores; it is extremely doubtful that it can survive with so small a sophomore "section." Prospect's difficulty is that its philosophy of non-selectivity is incompatible6LODGE MEMBERS chat during dinner hour. While most sophomores ate hurriedly and thought of nothing but Bicker last week, men in Wilson seemed calm and relaxed. The Lodge has a color television set in the dining room, and a game room upstairs. An all-night poker game goes on almost every night.