Franklin Ridgeway Aydelotte (October 16, 1880 – December 17, 1956) was a

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

educator. He became the first non-

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

president of

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

and between 1921 and 1940 redefined the institution. He was active in the

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

program, helped evacuate intellectuals persecuted by the Nazis during the 1930s and served as director of the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Early and family life

Aydelotte was born in a small town in

Sullivan County, Indiana Sullivan County is a county in the U.S. state of Indiana, and determined by the US Census Bureau to include the mean center of U.S. population in 1940. As of 2010, the population was 21,475. The county seat (and the county's only incorporated c ...

, the son of William Ephraim Aydelotte and Matilda Brunger Aydelotte, and had at least one sister. He attended

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

where he was an English major, a member of the

Sigma Nu Sigma Nu () is an undergraduate Fraternities and sororities in North America, college fraternity founded at the Virginia Military Institute on January 1, 1869. The fraternity was founded by James Frank Hopkins, Greenfield Quarles and James McIlva ...

fraternity, earned a varsity letter in football and graduated

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

in 1911. In 1907 he married Marie Jeanette Osgood. Their only child was William Osgood Aydelotte.

Career

After graduation, he became an English professor first at a teaching college in

California, Pennsylvania California is a borough on the Monongahela River in Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States, and part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area since 1950. The population was 5,479 as of the 2020 census and was estimated at 5,453 in 2021. Cali ...

now called

California University of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Western University, California (commonly known as PennWest California) is a public university campus in California, Pennsylvania and one of three campuses of Pennsylvania Western University, part of the Pennsylvania State System o ...

, then at

Vincennes University Vincennes University (VU) is a public college with its main campus in Vincennes, Indiana. Founded in 1801 as Jefferson Academy, VU is the oldest public institution of higher learning in Indiana. VU was chartered in 1806 as the Indiana Territo ...

and

Louisville Male High School Louisville Male Traditional High School is a public co-ed secondary school serving students in grades 9 through 12 in the southside of Louisville, Kentucky, USA. It is part of the Jefferson County Public School District. History Ninth and Ches ...

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. He became one of the first

Rhodes Scholars The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

and studied at

Brasenose College Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the m ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. Aydelotte was the American Secretary to

the Rhodes Trust Rhodes House is a building part of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on South Parks Road in central Oxford, and was built in memory of Cecil Rhodes, an alumnus of the university and a major benefactor. It is listed Grade II* ...

from 1918-1952, overseeing the American program of the

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

President of Swarthmore College

By 1921, Aydelotte was president of

where he successfully blended the educational processes he learned at Oxford with the traditional

Hicksite Elias Hicks (March 19, 1748 – February 27, 1830) was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island, New York (state), New York. In his ministry he promoted unorthodox doctrines that led to controversy, which caused the second major schism (relig ...

values the college was founded on. He expanded the college to an economically viable size and developed a broad-based liberal arts educational curriculum that stressed academic excellence. He introduced the Honors program at Swarthmore, based on his experiences at Oxford. Based on the premise that the only true education is self-education, the system created seminar courses for selected students that were more challenging than the regular curriculum. These students would not receive grades or examinations, but took oral examinations at the end of the senior year given by external examiners. This replaced the lecture method of teaching for the advanced students, and introduced the notion of the students reaching the faculty. This method of teaching has become the signature of a Swarthmore College education.

Institute for Advanced Study

Upon retiring from Swarthmore in 1940, Aydelotte directed the Institute of Advanced Study in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

during and immediately after World War II (1940-1947). He had served on the Board of Directors since 1930. During Aydelotte's time as the Institute's director, notable faculty included:

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

Kurt Gödel Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( , ; April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an imme ...

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

and

James Waddell Alexander II James Waddell Alexander II (September 19, 1888 September 23, 1971) was a mathematician and topologist of the pre-World War II era and part of an influential Princeton topology elite, which included Oswald Veblen, Solomon Lefschetz, and others. ...

. Aydelotte was a member of the

Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was a joint British and American committee assembled in Washington, D.C. on 4 January 1946. The committee was tasked to examine political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine and the well- ...

that recommended Britain allow significantly more Jews to emigrate to

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

after World War II. In his diary, he wrote: “I left Washington pretty strongly anti-

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

... But when you see at first hand what these Jews have done in Palestine... the greatest creative effort in the modern world. The

Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...

are not equal to anything like it and would destroy all that the Jews have done... This we must not let them do.”

Publications

*Frank Aydelotte, ''Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds'', Clarendon Press (1913) *Frank Aydelotte, ''The Religion of Punch'', The Nation, Volume 100, Issue # 2601, (May 6, 1915) *Frank Aydelotte, ''The Oxford Stamp and Other Essays and Articles'', Oxford University Press (1917) *Frank Aydelotte, ''What the Americans Rhodes Scholar gets from Oxford'', s.n (1920) *Lawrence A. Crosby and Frank Aydelotte,
Oxford of today: A manual for prospective Rhodes scholars
', Oxford University Press (1922) *Frank Aydelotte, ''Honors Courses in American Colleges and Universities'', National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (1924) *Frank Aydelotte, ''Honors Courses at Swarthmore'', Columbia (1931) *Frank Aydelotte, ''The Educational Program of Swarthmore College'', The College (1933) *Frank Aydelotte, ''Elizabethan Seamen in Mexico and Ports of the Spanish Main'', The American Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 1. (Oct., 1942), pp. 1–19.
URL: JSTOR Stable
*Frank Aydelotte, ''Breaking the Adademic Lock Step, The Development of Honors Work in American Colleges and Universities'', Harper & Brothers (1944) *Frank Aydelotte,
The American Rhodes Scholarships: A Review of the First Forty Years
', Princeton University Press (1946) *Frank Aydelotte, ''The Vision of Cecil Rhodes, A Review of the First Forty Years of the American Scholarships'', Geoffrey Cumberlege (1946)

Death and legacy

Aydelotte died in Princeton, New Jersey on December 17, 1956 after several years of failing health. His papers are held by a library. His niece (who attended Swarthmore during his tenure), Mary A. R. Marshall became a leader opposing

Massive Resistance Massive resistance was a strategy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia and his brother-in-law James M. Thomson, who represented Alexandria in the Virginia General Assembly, to get the state's white politicians to pass laws and p ...

and an influential delegate in the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 161 ...

References

*''An adventure in education; Swarthmore College under Frank Aydelotte'', Macmillan, (New York, 1941) *Frances Blanshard, ''Frank Aydelotte of Swarthmore'', Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Ct. (1970) * *Dan West, Nancy Harrison
Frank Aydelotte: Architect of Distinction - Swarthmore College Bulletin Frank Aydelotte

External links

*
Frank Aydelotte Papers, 1905–1956, Swarthmore College
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aydelotte, Frank Presidents of Swarthmore College Directors of the Institute for Advanced Study American Rhodes Scholars Indiana University Bloomington alumni California University of Pennsylvania faculty Vincennes University faculty Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire 1880 births 1956 deaths 20th-century American academics