Frank Aydelotte

Frank Aydelotte graduated from Indiana University in 1900 and took the A.M. at Harvard in 1903. Two years later he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and took up his studies at Brasenose College, Oxford. He often said that Oxford had been the most profound influence in his whole life. He took the B.Litt. degree in English literature in 1908, and came back to the United States to teach.

In 1921 he was appointed President of Swarthmore, and under his regime that college extended enormously in its capacity and influence and reputation, and came to take a distinguished place in the field of higher education in America. Aydelotte’s real preoccupation, however, was being secretary of the Rhodes Scholarships, and he filled that post for 35 years.

He reorganized the method of selecting Rhodes scholars. The famous will of Cecil Rhodes had assigned the same number of scholarships to each of the 48 states. In a small state like Delaware there might be two candidates, and in a big one next door, like Pennsylvania, 20 or 30; the tenth man in Pennsylvania, who was of course rejected, might be better qualified than the first in Delaware.

The only way to change the system was to change Rhodes’s will itself by an Act of Parliament, but Parliament would hardly do that without American approval. Aydelotte saw and seized the opportunity. He formulated a plan by which the country was divided into eight electoral districts, and the best men from each were to be selected. He then toured the country from coast to coast presenting his plan to Rhodes committees. It is no small tribute to his power of persuasion that, in spite of the jealous tradition of states’ rights, he won in the end almost unanimous support for his plan, which was shortly afterward sanctioned by Parliament.

Aydelotte also made another important contribution to American education. He broke what he used to call “the academic lock-step” in America. The prime difference between higher education in Britain and in America is that Britain is trying to educate a select few (about 85,000 at a time) in her universities, while America is trying to educate en masse (about 3,500,000 at a time). Quantitatively the American performance is magnificent; qualitatively it is less impressive. The abler students have too often been lost in the crowd. Here again Aydelotte saw the need and opportunity. When he was made President of Swarthmore, he determined to make the college a testing ground for a new curriculum, in which the abler students were singled out after their first two years and permitted to go as fast and as far as they could. His programme was a modification of the Oxford honor school and tutorial systems specially adapted to American needs. The result was that Swarthmore took first place among American colleges in the proportion of graduate scholarships won by its students. But there was a more significant result. Aydelotte had found a formula for combining quality and quantity in education, and soon colleges throughout the country were adopting various versions of his honors programme.

In 1939 he resigned the presidency of Swarthmore to become Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He remarked that his life had “been one of stirring adventure”; and it surely had been. He enjoyed it to the full. He had important ideas of his own, and he was able to put them into operation and have them accepted by those who mattered to him. And that is about the most fun there is.

George W. Martin
1957 Century Association Yearbook