A Tradition of Princeton University

　　The Tiger emerged as a symbol of Princeton, ironically, not very long after Woodrow Wilson's class, at its graduation in 1879, gave the College a pair of lions to guard the main entrance to Nassau Hall. The growing use of the tiger —rather than the lion —as Princeton's totem has been ascribed by Princetonians of that period to two things: the College cheer, which, like other cheers of that time, contained a ''tiger'' as a rallying word; and the growing use of orange and black as the college colors.
　　In 1882 the senior class issued a humor magazine called The Princeton Tiger, depicting on its title page a lively tiger cub being born beneath the legend Volume I, Number 1. This tiger's influence was short-lived, however, since after only nine issues no other issue appeared until 1890 when another generation brought forth a second Volume I, Number 1. Meanwhile, football players of the early 1880s were wearing broad orange and black stripes on their stockings and on their jerseys, and sometimes on stocking caps. Watching their movements in the waning light of late autumn afternoons, sportswriters began to call them tigers.
　　The tiger soon began to appear in Princeton songs, beginning with ''The Orange and the Black,'' written in the late 1880s by Clarence Mitchell 1889:
　　"Although Yale has always favored
　　The violet's dark hue,
　　And the many sons of Harvard
　　To the crimson rose are true,
　　We will own the lilies slender,
　　Nor honor shall they lack,
　　While the tiger stands defender
　　Of the Orange and the Black."