Coming to Terms With Dr. Woodrow Wilson’s ’79 Resignation as President of Princeton

At a recent meeting of the University Faculty the following minute on the resignation of Dr. Woodrow Wilson from the Presidency was adopted and ordered published in The Alumni Weekly:

“In view of the resignation of Dr. Woodrow Wilson from the Presidency of Princeton University, the Faculty wish hereby to put on record their sense of the great loss the University has suffered. As a student, as our colleague in the Faculty and as President, Dr. Wilson has been for many years an esteemed and distinguished member of this academic body. Coming to the Presidency at a critical period in the history of Princeton and of higher education in this country, he found himself confronted with some of the most vital questions of university policy. The demand which had arisen for a revision of the course of study was met during the first year of his administration by the institution of the Departmental System in the election of studies which led not only to a more effective organization of the curriculum as a whole, but also supplied a happy solution to the question of the relation of requirement and free election in the choice of studies. The demand for more efficient methods of instruction which was due in great measure to increased numbers of students here as well as in other colleges and universities, was met by the introduction of the Preceptorial System which resulted in a substantial enlargement of the Faculty by the addition of a body of carefully selected men and made it possible to give individual instruction by dividing classes into smaller groups, thereby bringing the student into closer and less formal relations with his instructors.

“The social conditions prevailing in the undergraduate life of the University was another subject to which Dr. Wilson devoted much anxious thought and attention. He was convinced that forces were at work which were inconsistent with that spirit of equality on which Princeton has always laid so much stress, and though the only measure that was proposed as a remedy gave rise to violent controversy, it will be readily acknowledged that Dr. Wilson has by his powerful appeals aroused the attention of the academic world to the existence of certain tendencies in the social life of our colleges and universities which demand the most serious consideration.

“The administration of Dr. Wilson has been signalized by the enlargement and strengthening of all the great departments of study, through the addition of professors who had won eminence in their special fields; by the great development of the scientific departments of the University in the building and equipment of great laboratories for study and research; by the splendid material growth of the University made possible by the unstinted generosity of its friends; by the notable increase of endowments and of other sources of income in which the liberality of Princeton’s alumni has been one of the largest factors. In material prosperity Dr. Wilson’s administration stands as one of the most notable in the history of Princeton or of any other university; while this record of material progress has been paralleled by one of intellectual growth no less marked, in the development of the courses of study, in practically doubling the size of the Faculty, and in the reforms which have been effected in methods of instruction. To this must be added a corresponding increase of graduate courses of study, the development of the Graduate School and the liberal endowment, through the generosity of several donors, of the Graduate College.

“Continuing the noble tradition followed by his predecessors, Dr. Wilson has not failed to magnify the public side of his great office. Throughout his administration it has been his practice to devote his extraordinary powers of speech and debate to the public discussion of leading questions of educational and national interest. It is not too much to say that in the exercise of this function he has won a national reputation and has brought fame to Princeton and secured for her a position of leadership in the educational movements of the country.

“In connection with the internal life of the University we wish to recognize as no unimportant part of his service the constant efforts he has put forth to raise the intellectual standards of the student body by holding them true to the highest ideals of scholarship and in pursuance of this ai, his abiding sense of the importance of keeping Princeton in close touch and sympathy with the broader life of the nation and with the broader life of the nation and with the federation of universities of which Princeton is a part.

“With a deep sense of our loss in Dr. Wilson’s resignation, it is yet with feelings of pride that we spare him to the wider service of the state to which he has been called. Princeton has ever been the mother of statesmen and of men who have responded to the call to public service and she takes pride in this opportunity of affording a notable proof that the spirit of older Princeton still lives in her sons. We wish to assure Dr. Wilson that he bears with him in his great work for the state, our pride as well as our affectionate remembrance. The laurels that he wins will be ours also, and we shall claim a share in the great service which he renders to the state and nation.”

This was originally published in the November 30, 1910 issue of PAW.