WILSON 



6301 



WILSON 



It is a generation perhaps many generations 

 too early for an estimate of Woodrow Wilson 

 as a statesman; yet certain facts are already 

 clear. That he is one of the greatest of Ameri- 

 can Presidents is evident. When great readj ust- 

 ments take place in the affairs of a nation, the 

 nation is almost always dependent for stability 

 upon some statesman in whom intellectual 

 keenness and great strength of character are 

 combined. Such men in Europe were Pitt, 

 Cavour and Bismarck and such a man in 

 America is Woodrow Wilson. He has shaped 

 the course of a great nation along the lines 

 which it had never pursued, and it may not be 

 too much to say that when the last history of 

 his administration is to be written, it will be 

 seen that Woodrow Wilson inaugurated a new 

 era. 



Youth and Education. Woodrow Wilson is 

 of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His grandfather, 

 James Wilson, was an Ulsterman who left 

 County Down in 1807 and settled in Philadel- 

 phia, where he obtained work as a printer. He 

 prospered and eventually owned and edited two 

 newspapers, the Western Herald published at 

 Steubenville, Ohio, and the Pennsylvania Ad- 

 vocate, published at Pittsburgh. The youngest 

 of James Wilson's seven sons was Joseph Rug- 

 gles Wilson (1822-1903). Joseph became a 

 teacher and a Presbyterian minister, and was a 

 distinguished member of the Presbyterian 

 Church, South. He was for more than thirty 

 years (1865-1899) stated clerk of the Church's 

 General Assembly, and in 1879 served as mod- 

 erator. His life wad an active one, as can be 

 seen from a list of his pastorates and profes- 

 sorships: from 1851 to 1855 professor of chem- 

 istry and natural science at Hampden-Sydney 

 College; 1855-1858, pastor at Staunton, Vir- 

 ginia; 1858-1870, pastor at Augusta, Georgia; 

 1870-1874, professor of theology in Columbia 

 (8. C.) Theological Seminary; pastor at Wil- 

 mington, N. C., 1874-1885; professor of The- 

 ology, Southwestern Presbyterian University, 

 1885-1893. 



It was at Staunton, where Joseph Wilson was 

 tip n pastor, that his third child and first son 

 waa bora, on December 28, 1856. The child 

 was named Thomas Woodrow, in honor of his 

 maternal grandfather, a Scotch Presbyterian 

 minister who had been a missionary in Canada 

 and later a pastor at Chillicothe, Ohio. Janet 

 Woodrow, his daughter, married Joseph Rug- 

 gles Wilson in 1849. Young Thomas (in later 

 lit'.- he dropped this name and elected to be 

 called Woodrow) had no formal schooling until 



his ninth year, at the end of the War of Seces- 

 sion. In spite of his late start he was ready 

 for college at seventeen, and in 1873 entered 

 Davidson College. There he stayed less than a 

 year, for his health failed as the result of over- 

 rapid physical development. After an interval 

 of a little more than a year, he entered at 

 Princeton (September, 1875). 



In college Woodrow Wilson was distinguished 

 for his insatiable desire for reading. He seems 

 to have been popular; in his senior year he 

 was one of the directors and secretary of the 

 board of the football association, and also stood 

 above the average in scholarship (thirty-eighth 

 at graduation in a class of 106). But he won 

 real distinction for his literary activities. He 

 was for two years a member of the editorial 

 board of The Princetonian, and during his 

 senior year was its managing editor. He also 

 contributed to another undergraduate publica- 

 tion, the Nassau Literary Magazine, a prize 

 essay on William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. 



After receiving his bachelor's degree from 

 Princeton in 1879, young Wilson entered the 

 law school of the University of Virginia. 

 There again over-concentration on his studies 

 affected his health, and he had to withdraw 

 after a year. In 1882, however, he went to 

 Atlanta, Georgia, to begin the practice of law. 

 But clients were few, and he was still deeply 

 interested in jurisprudence and political sci- 

 ence, and he finally decided to desert the law 

 and make himself a specialist in the latter 

 field. In 1883 he therefore began post-graduate 

 study at Johns Hopkins University, where his 

 career was brilliant. 



Wilson, the Educator. His two years at 

 Johns Hopkins University ended the student 

 days of the future President. He waa now 

 nearly thirty, but he soon proved that the de- 

 lays which had held him back had also givm 

 him time to build a broad, solid foundation. 

 In 1885, immediately after taking his degree at 

 Johns Hopkins University, he was appointed 

 associate professor of history and political 

 science at Bryn Mawr College. From 1888 to 

 1890 he was professor of the same subjects at 

 Wesleyan University, and then was called to 

 the chair of jurisprudence at Princeton Uni- 

 versity. In 1902 he succeeded Dr. Patten as 

 president of that institution, being the first 

 layman ever chosen to that office. He re- 

 mained as president until 1910. 



This is the bare outline of his activities for a 

 quarter of a century. During this period he 

 gradually won a place, first as a publicist, and 



