After the end of the Civil War, Wilson began attending a nearby school, where classmates included future Supreme Court Justice Joseph Rucker Lamar and future ambassador Pleasant A. Stovall. Though Wilson's parents placed a high value on education, he struggled with reading and writing until the age of thirteen, possibly because of developmental dyslexia. During his time as a professor at Princeton, he also delivered a series of lectures at Johns Hopkins, New York Law School, and Colorado College.