1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wilson, Woodrow

WILSON, WOODROW (1856—), American educationist, was born in Staunton, Virginia, on the 28th of December 1856. He graduated at Princeton in 1879, studied law at the University of Virginia in 1879—1880, practised law in Atlanta in 1882-1883, and received the degree of Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in 1886, his thesis being on Congressional Government (1885; and often reprinted). He was associate professor of history and political economy at Bryn Mawr in 1885—1888 and at Wesleyan University in 1888—1890; professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Princeton in 1890—1895, of jurisprudence in 1895—1897, and subsequently of jurisprudence and politics; and in 1902 he became president of Princeton University, being the first layman to hold that office. He retired in 1910, and was elected Democratic governor of New Jersey. His administration of the University was marked by the introduction of the “preceptorial” system, by the provision of dormitories and college eating-halls for members of the lower classes, and by the development of the graduate school.

He wrote: The State: Elements of Historical and Practical Politics, Sketch of Institutional History and Administration (1889); The State and Federal Government of the United States (1891); Division and Reunion, 1829—1889 (1893) in the “Epochs of American History” series; An Old Master and Other Political Essays (1893); Mere Literature and Other Essays (1893); George Washington (1896), an excellent biography; the popular History of the American People (1902); Constitutional Government in the United States (1908), being Columbia University Lectures; and in the seventh volume of the Cambridge Modern History the chapter on “State Rights, 1850—1860.”