On June 9, 1902, Woodrow Wilson was unani-
mously elected president of Princeton University. In this position, Wilson exhibited both the idealistic integrity and the occasional lack of political acumen that marked his tenure as 28th president of the United States.
While attending a recent Lincoln celebration I asked myself if Lincoln would have been as serviceable to the people of this country had he been a college man, and I was obliged to say to myself that he would not. The process to which the college man is subjected does not render him serviceable to the country as a whole. It is for this reason that I have dedicated every power in me to a democratic regeneration.The American college must become saturated in the same sympathies as the common people. The colleges of this country must be reconstructed from the top to the bottom. The American people will tolerate nothing that savors of exclusiveness.
Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University;
"Address to Alumni," April 16, 1910After graduating from Princeton in 1879, Wilson studied law at the University of Virginia for one year. After completing and publishing his dissertation, Congressional Government, in 1886, he received his Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University. Wilson remains the only American president to have earned a doctoral degree.
Wilson served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University before joining the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy in 1890. A popular teacher and respected scholar, Wilson delivered an oration at Princeton's sesquicentennial celebration (1896) entitled "Princeton in the Nation's Service." In this famous speech, he outlined his vision of the university in a democratic nation, calling on institutions of higher learning "to illuminate duty by every lesson that can be drawn out of the past." In his inaugural address as Princeton's president, Wilson developed these themes, attempting to strike a balance that would please both populists and aristocrats in the audience.
As president, Wilson began a fund-raising campaign to bolster the university corporation. The curriculum guidelines he developed during his tenure as president of Princeton proved among the most important innovations in the field of higher education. He instituted the now common system of core requirements followed by two years of concentration in a selected area. When he attempted to curtail the influence of the elitist "social clubs," however, Wilson met with resistance from trustees and potential donors. He believed the system was smothering the intellectual and moral life of the undergraduates. Opposition from wealthy and powerful alumni further convinced Wilson of the undesirability of exclusiveness and moved him towards a more populist position in his politics.
Through his published commentary on contemporary political matters, Wilson developed a national reputation and, with increasing seriousness, considered a public service career. In 1910, he received an unsolicited nomination for the governorship of New Jersey, which he eagerly accepted. As governor, he developed a platform of progressive liberalism in matters of domestic political economy. In 1912, the Democratic Party nominated him as their presidential candidate.
During Wilson's presidency (1913-1921), first the civil war in Mexico and then World War I, drew his attention away from domestic issues. His health suffered during his campaign to promote the Fourteen Points--an outline for peace that proposed an international League of Nations.
While this international organization of nations never matched Wilson's vision, his leadership permanently changed the face of international diplomacy. In December 1920, he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace. His years of public service are honored through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. is a living memorial to this scholarly president.
Learn more about the twenty-eighth president and his university:
- Read the December 28 Today in History page for additional information about Woodrow Wilson's life and administration.
- Find additional images and documents related to Wilson. Use the pathfinder on Woodrow Wilson in Presidents in American Memory, a feature of the Learning Page.
- Revisit Princeton's past through photographs. Search on Princeton University in:
- Learn the "Princeton University March and Two Step." Search the collection Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 on Princeton.
