JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. XIII 



the Middle States, 1 in early manhood a teacher in the South, and for nearly half a 

 century a resident of the national capital, he was an American of the nohlest type, 

 free from sectional bias, personifying the best traits and tendencies of the nation, 

 loyal to the traditions and aspirations of its founders. 



He was graduated in 1844 from the College of New Jersey, studied law, and was 

 admitted to the bar, but soon afterwards entered upou the profession of journal- 

 ism. He always retained, however, a strong inclination for the study of constitu- 

 tional and international law, and of politics, and his interest in public affairs was 

 greatly stimulated by his connection for fifteen years with the most important of 

 Washington journals, at that time national in its influence. He became the literary 

 editor of the National Intelligencer in 1850, and Avas its managing editor throughout 

 the entire period of the civil war. In this capacity he had the privilege of personal 

 acquaintance Avith all our public men, and confidential access to many of them, 

 including Lincoln, Seward, and Stanton. 



In later life his attention was given chiefly to educational Avork. For a time 

 president of St. John's College, Maryland, and later professor of belles-lettres at 

 Princeton, he was, in 1870, recalled to Washington to become president of the 

 Columbian University, an institution founded fifty years before, in the hope that it 

 might fulfill the desire of Washington, Barlow, and Adams, that a seat of liberal 

 learning should exist at the capital. Dr. Welling Avas led to accept this position by 

 the urgency of the philanthropist Corcoran and the advice of Henry, both of Avhom 

 were influenced by the hope of having with them one of the founders of a national 

 university, and who believed that a man of Dr. Welling's character would find in 

 such a position a wide field of influence. 



His aspirations for the university were never fully realized, owing to the impos- 

 sibility of securing endowments from private sources for a public institution located 

 so near to the seat of government. He nevertheless secured a considerable addition 

 to its endowment, added new professional schools, greatly increased the number of 

 its faculty and students, removed the institution from the suburbs to a new build- 

 ing in the heart of the city, and accomplished many other things Avhich seemed 

 really wonderful in view of the smallness of the resources at his command. The 

 dream of his life was to establish a school of comparative jurisprudence — the only 

 one of its kind in the world — as a branch of the university. In 1892 he A'isited 

 Europe, secured approval of his plans from Sir Frederick Pollock and other eminent 

 jurists, and their promise to come to America to lecture as members of the faculty. 

 Failing health interfered with the realization of his plan, which I can but believe 

 he would have otherwise forced into success. 



After his resignation of the presidency in 1893, he still retained the chair of inter- 

 national law and the position of dean of the uniA r ersity law school, and, full of 

 hopefulness, it Avas his purpose to labor on for his beloA'ed project. He confidently 

 expected to live to be 80, and to devote the remaining ten years of his life to the 

 compilation of a political history of the civil war, a work for which no one was so 

 well qualified by experience, knowledge, and critical skill as himself. He was a 

 representative man in Washington, identified with all interests which tend toward 

 good citizenship, and held many positions of public trust and honor. He was 

 president of the board of trustees of the Corcoran Art Gallery and of the American 

 Copyright League, and was appointed by President Harrison commissioner to the 

 Columbian Historical Exposition at Madrid in 1892. His bearing was that of a 

 courteous gentleman of the old school. His scholarship was accurate, broad, and 

 genial, as was shoAvn by the critical revieAvs which he contributed during his later 

 years to some of the principal American journals. His favorite study in hours of 

 relaxation was that of the sacred poetry of the early Christian Church, some 

 of which he had translated, though not for publication. 



In 1884 he was chosen a Regent of this Institution to succeed the Reverend Dr. 

 Parker. For ten years he gave conscientious attention to its interests, and upheld 



1 He was born in Trenton, July 14, 1825. 



