President Woodrow Wilson ’79 in Chicago

Seventy-five alumni and their guests gave President Wilson ’79 an enthusiastic reception at the annual dinner of the Princeton Club of Chicago, at the University Club of that city, November 28th. John C. Mathis ’86 was toastmaster and besides the address of President Wilson, speeches were made by Mr. James L. Hougteling for Yale; Mr. H. A. DeWindt for Harvard, and W. B. McIlvaine ’85, whose toast was The Middle West.

In his address President Wilson said that the university needs $12,500,000; that this need is immediate, and is based upon a careful and detailed calculation; half of it, he said, is wanted in order to enable Princeton to do in a workmanlike fashion what is already set down in the catalogue – that is, to do as it ought to be done the present work of the undergraduate departments. And the other half is needed, he said, to develop the departments of advanced study. The details of his plan of the development of the university will be outlined by him in his address at the New York dinner next Tuesday night.

While in Chicago the President was the guest of his classmate Cyrus H. McCormick ’79. Mr. McCormick and David B. Jones ’76 gave him a luncheon at the Chicago Club on November 29, at which the following prominent citizens of Chicago were invited guests: Mr. Marshall Field, Mr. James H. Eckels, Mr. A. C. Bartlett, Mr. Albert A. Sprague, Mr. Robert T. Lincoln, Mr. John A. Spoor, Mr. John V. Farwell Jr., Mr. Rollin A. Keyes, Mr. Charles F. Kimball, Mr. Martin A. Ryerson, Mr. Edward E. Ayer, Mr. Marvin Hughitt, Mr. John P. Wilson, Mr. George E. Adams and Mr. Victor Lawson.

The same evening President Wilson was the guest of honor at the monthly dinner of the Commercial Club of Chicago, at the Auditorium Hotel. This club is said to be the most representative business body in the United States. At the speaker’s table were: David B. Jones ’76, president of the club; Rev. Dr. W. R. Notman, Mr. Marvin Hughitt, Dr. Edwin J. James, President of Northwestern University; Mr. Murry Nelson, Mr. F. B. Peabody, Mr. Robert T. Lincoln, Cyrus H. McCormick ’79, President Eaton of Beloit College; Mr. George E. Adams, President R. D. Harlan ’81 of Lake Forest University and Mr. W. T. Baker.

About sixty members of the club listened to President Wilson’s address on the Relation of the University to Commerce. He spoke for over an hour. The merest outline of his address follows:

            The university he said, is not a place for business education, in the sense of a training in bookkeeping an business methods; it is a place, rather, where the student gets a certain remove from business for a general survey of the map of life. Commerce in its larger aspects is not a thing of method, but a thing of catholic outlook. Commerce is great or small according to its horizon. The university’s work is to train men for the broader sphere.

Commerce, he declared, is the most statesmanlike of callings. Its basis is economic and social study – the various life, needs, tastes of men, even their whims and prejudices. A travelled mind is the best commercial mind.

In comparing the commercial and the political mind, he said that the commercial interests of the country were more influential than any other in the adoption of the Constitution of the United States; the commercial class saw the need of union better than any other class.

In referring to the tariff, President Wilson said that industries have been fostered until they are too big for the national markets; a balance must now be struck between internal fostering and the need of an outlet to the rest of the world.

How is the university to promote commercial capacity? There may be technical schools of commerce, but the university may do better –

By making travelled minds, - we have not enough cultivated the intellectual observation by making free reading men; we have had too much mechanical, task work.

By economic and social (not sociological) study.

By the study of economic geography, material and mental; for the average mind the university is essential to show the great truths of the world at the outset.

By the study of the history and instrumentalities of commerce.

By the general release of the faculties upon the field of life.

By inculcating the spirit of service and right principles of action.

The real task of each man, he said, is the dovetail together the different parts of his life in one whole, to get integrity of purpose and life. In the university men are, so to speak, licked into shape. The university is the pacemaker. It teaches the value of comradeship, of the common country, of mutual service. It teaches men that the hands of their fellows are not against them. It saves them from unscrupulous methods of attack. It makes them better citizens, and better business men.

President Wilson returned East in time to address the Presbyterian Unioin of New York, at the Savoy Hotel, on the evening of December 1st. About five hundred men and women listened to him speak on the Relation of the University and the Church. At this meeting Dr. Patton also made an address, on behalf of the Princeton Theological Seminary.

This was originally published in the December 6, 1902 issue of PAW.