WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE 



6294 



WILLIAMS 



soon broke away from the union, the seven 

 provinces of the North formed a league in 1579, 

 the beginning of the Dutch Republic. Five 

 times William's life was attempted, and in 1584 

 he was assassinated by a fanatic. See NETHER- 

 LANDS, THE, subtitle History. 



Consult Harrison's William the Silent; Motley's 

 Rise of the Dutch Republic. 



WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE, a school 

 for men, situated at Williamsburg, Va. Next 

 to Harvard it is the oldest institution of higher 

 learning in the United States, having been 

 chartered by King William and Queen Mary 



MAIN HALL 

 Designed by Sir Christopher Wren. 



of England, in 1693. While never a large 

 school, it has had a notable history. Among its 

 graduates are three United States Presidents- 

 Jefferson, Monroe and Tyler; Chief Justice 

 John Marehall, of the United States Supreme 

 Court, and a host of other prominent men, in- 

 cluding army officers, Senators, foreign minis- 

 ters, governors, college presidents and other 

 educators. 



During the Revolutionary War and the War 

 of Secession the college buildings were used as 

 barracks. After the Revolution George Wash- 

 ington was chancellor from 1788 to 1799. 

 Nearly the entire student body enlisted for 

 service in the Confederate army during the 

 War of Secession, and at that time the school 

 was closed. After a long struggle it reopened 

 and slowly regained its old prestige. In spite 

 of the hard fortunes of war, several fires and 

 age, the walls of Main Hall, designed by the 

 famous British architect, Sir Christopher Wren, 

 are still standing. 



The Phi Beta Kappa Society (see page 4619) 

 was organized at William and Mary in 1776, 

 and there also originated the elective system of 

 studies, a result of the influence of Jefferson, 

 and the honor system. Since 1865 the work of- 

 fered has been strictly academic, with special 



emphasis upon courses in education which pre- 

 pare men to be teachers. The college is sup- 

 ported by the state of Virginia and by income 

 from endowments. The student enrolment is 

 240, and the faculty numbers about twenty. 

 There are 30,000 volumes in the library. 



WIL'LIAMS, JOHN SHARP (1854- ), a 

 leader in Democratic politics and United States 

 Senator from Mississippi for the term 1911- 

 1917, to which office he was elected as a reward 

 for eighteen years' service in the House of 

 Representatives. He was born at Memphis, 

 Tenn., but passed his boyhood in Yazoo 

 County, Miss. His education was obtained at 

 various schools in the South, among them the 

 Kentucky Military Institute, the University of 

 the South and the University of Virginia. He 

 was also a student at the University of Heidel- 

 berg, Germany. Williams was admitted to the 

 bar in Tennessee, and established a practice in 

 Yazoo City, Miss., where part of his energies 

 were devoted to the management of his plan- 

 tation. He early became a prominent figure in 

 national politics. 



WILLIAMS, ROGER (1604-1683), an Ameri- 

 can colonist and the founder of Rhode Island, 

 was born in Wales, and educated in Charter 

 House School, London, and Pembroke College, 

 Cambridge University. While still a college 

 student he became bitterly opposed to the 

 ceremonies of the Episcopal Church, and as a 

 protest joined the Puritans. He emigrated to 

 Massachusetts in 1631 and was immediately 

 offered the position of pastor in the Boston 

 church, but declined on the ground that this 

 congregation had not publicly announced its 

 separation from the Church of England. He 

 then accepted pastoral work in the church at 

 Salem, Mass., which had made such a public 

 announcement as he demanded, but the en- 

 raged Bostonians soon caused his removal. 



Plymouth next invited him to serve as pas- 

 tor, and for two years he preached with givat 

 zeal, meanwhile earning his -living by work as 

 carpenter and farmer. In August, 1633, he 

 again began to preach in Salem, but in 1635 

 was convicted of heresy by the colony's general 

 court. Among the charges were his declarations 

 that the Indians, even though heathen, should 

 have been paid for their lands, that a wicked 

 person should not be compelled to worship 

 God, and that men should have full liberty of 

 conscience. 



In January, 1636, he fled to the site of the 

 present city of Providence, R. I., where he 

 founded a settlement that became a refuge for 



