Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/125

 IV— PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Wilson, Woodrow, the present President 01 the United States, was born at Staunton, Virginia, December 28, 1855, son of Rev. Joseph R. Wilson and Jessie (Woodrow) Wilson, his wife, the former a distinguished clergyman of the Presbyterian church of the South. His father was a native of Ohio, and his mother of Scotland, and his ancestry, on both sides, is Scotch-Irish. At the call of the church, the father of President Wil- son moved South, and during the war be- tween the states resided at Augusta, Georgia. President Wilson's boyhood days were spent at the latter place and at Columbia, South Carolina, and Wilmington, Xorth Carolina, V. here he prepared for college with private tutors and at the schools of those places. His real educator, however, was his father, who. besides being an orator of considerable power, was also a scholar, and for some years professor in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina, and closed his career as professor in the Southwestern Theological Seminary at Clarksville, Ten- nessee.

President ^\'ilson was not born with a sil- ver spoon in his mouth, and many were the privations he and his people were called upon to endure during the civil war, part of V hich raged around their home.

In 1874 he entered the freshman class at Davidson College, North Carolina, remained one year, and in the fall of 1875 he entered the freshman class at Princeton College, graduating in 1879. In college he was a hard- working student, and an omnivorous reader,

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and especially distinguished for his com- mand of language and literary ability. His outdoor life was that of the average college boy. Athletics interested him and he was fend of baseball and football.

Upon his graduation from Princeton Uni- versity, in 1879, he entered the University of \irginia, Charlottesville, N'irginia, as a l?w student, and graduated in 1881. For the two years that followed he practiced liw at Atlanta, Georgia, and in that time fciund that \\-hile the [principles of the law and its study interested him. the practical business side of it did not.

Briefly his career as an educator by years is as follows: From 1883 to 1885 he did graduate work at Johns Hopkins Univer- sity, Baltimore, Maryland, in political econ- omy and history; from 1885 to 1888 he was piofessor of history and political economy at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, a famous school for the higher education of young ladies ; from 1888 to 1890 he was pro- fessor in the same branches of science at '\\esleyan University; in June, 1890, he was elected professor of jurisprudence and politi- cal economy, and entered upon his duties in the September following; in 1895 the de- partment was divided and he was assigned to the chair of jurisprudence ; in 1897, as the result of a large gift by Mr. Cyrus H. Mc- Cormick, of Chicago, of the class of 1879, he was promoted to the McCormick pro- fessorship of jurisprudence and politics; in 1902 he was elected president of the univer- sity, and continued as such till 1910, during