WILSON 



WILSON 



Lyndsay and The Foresters. In 1820 he was 

 appointed professor of moral philosophy in the 

 University of Edinburgh, not because he was 

 at all learned in that subject, but principally 

 because he was an ardent Tory. It has been 

 truthfully said that some of his pupils knew 

 more about the subject than he, but he was a 

 wonderful talker and inspired many a young 

 man in his classes. He died at Edinburgh in 

 1854. 



WILSON, JOHN (1804-1875), a British mis- 

 sionary who was influential in spreading the 

 Christian faith in India. He was born at 

 Lander, in Berwick, Scotland, and was edu- 

 cated at the University of Edinburgh. In 1828 

 he went to Bombay as a missionary for the 

 Scottish Missionary Society, but later was in 

 the sen-ice of the Free Church of Scotland. 

 His long career in India, during which he mas- 

 tered the languages of the people with whom 

 he worked, was epoch-making in missionary 

 history. Wilson served as vice chancellor of 

 the Bombay University, and was twice presi- 

 dent of the Bombay Branch of the Royal 

 Asiatic Society. He was the author of several 

 works on missionary subjects, and of The Parsi 

 Religion, The Lands of the Bible, India Three 



Thousand Years Ago and other books on the 

 Orient. 



WILSON, WILLIAM LYNE (1843-1900), an 

 American legislator and educator, born in Jef- 

 ferson County, Virginia. At the age of seven- 

 teen he was graduated from Columbian Col- 

 lege at Washington, D. C., and he then at- 

 tended the University of Virginia for a year. 

 Later he served in the Confederate army. 

 From 1865 to 1871 Wilson was a professor of 

 Latin at Columbian College; he practiced law 

 from the latter date until 1882, and the next 

 year became president of the University of 

 West Virginia. From 1883 to 1895, while 

 Democratic Representative in Congress from 

 West Virginia, he served efficiently for two 

 years as chairman of the Ways and Means 

 Committee, introducing the Wilson Tariff Bill 

 (see TARIFF), which became a law, and figuring 

 prominently in the repeal of the Sherman Sil- 

 ver Purchase Law. In 1892 he was chairman of 

 the Democratic National Convention, and three 

 years later, under President Cleveland, served 

 as Postmaster-General. On the expiration of 

 his term he became president of Washington 

 and Lee University, founded in 1749 at Lex- 

 ington, Virginia. 



ADMINISTRATION OF WOODROW WILSON 



riLSON, [THOMAS] WOODROW (1856- 

 ), an American educator, historian and 

 statesman, who has been president of Prince- 

 ton University, governor of New Jersey, and 

 was elected the twenty-eighth President of the 

 United States. No President since the days 

 of Lincoln has been confronted by more stu- 

 pendous problems than Woodrow Wilson has 

 faced. His influence has gone far in the re- 

 adjustment of financial and economic matters, 

 but most important, he has had to bear the 

 very heavy burden of war. Personally a man 

 of peace, and at first criticized because he tried 



to keep the United States out of war, he had 

 to lead the nation in the most terrible conflict 

 in the history of mankind. It is one of the in- 

 teresting facts of his life that for more than a 

 quarter of a century the science of government 

 was his hobby; he studied about it, talked, 

 wrote and taught about it. Then, while still 

 in the prime of life, he was called on to put 

 his theories into practice, first as governor and 

 then as President. Wilson is the world's most 

 conspicuous "schoolmaster in politics"; he has 

 set at rest the unfavorable comment as to col- 

 lege professors in public life. 



