Edward W. Bok Commemorates Woodrow Wilson ’79

Endows Chair of Literature

Bearing Name of Wartime President

Edward W. Bok, author, editor, and publisher, has offered Princeton a sum of $150,000 to serve as the endowment for a chair called the Woodrow Wilson Professorship of Literature, created “to commemorate Mr. Wilson’s mastery of spoken and written English.” President Hibben has made known the University’s acceptance of Mr. Bok’s generous offer. The donor specified  that “the purpose of the Professorship is to provide training in the best spoken and written English expression and to further appreciation of the best English literature.”

In advising Mr. Bok of the acceptance of the offer Dr. Hibben made this statement: “We feel it is most appropriate that there should be a chair at Princeton bearing the name of Woodrow Wilson, and particularly designed to commemorate Mr. Wilson’s eminent command of English style. During his years of teaching at Princeton the whole undergraduate body felt the constant influence of the high standards which he set for himself and for his students in the appreciation of the best in our English literature. It is very gratifying to us that this tradition, established by Woodrow Wilson and so intimately associated with his name both in Princeton and in his later career, should be continued here in the University.”

Woodrow Wilson ’79, twenty-eighth president of the United States and President of the University, was professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Princeton from 1890 to 1910, and during the last eight years of this period was the institution’s chief executive. He resigned the presidency to become Governor of New Jersey in 1910, and resigned the governorship to take up his first term as the nation’s President in 1913.

Edward Bo was editor-in-chief of The Ladies’ Home Journal from 1889 to 1919, and has been vice-president of the Curtis Publishing Company since 1891. In 1923, he created the American Peace Award.

This was originally published in the May 26, 1926 issue of PAW.