Evening star., 1912-11-05

| time commencement came around he was
confidently looked to as the chap who
ought to rise highest among them all.
| This feeling was deepened by the fact
| that before he had been graduated an
| important magazine had accepted an ar
ticle written by him. This was discus
sion of the relative merits of the con-
gressional system under which our gov
| ernment is conducted and the other par
liamentary system in general vogue
elsewhere, under which the cabinet is re-
sponsible to the legislature and must
stand or fall according as its pro"ram is
accepted or rejected in public debate on
the floor of the national assembly.
Analysis of Congress.
In this article the young Princeton stu
dent made the first accurate analysis and
description of the way in which Congress
has come actually to conduct its business
namely, through committees which prac-
tically work in secret. The point of the
article is the assertion that the nations
business ought to be done in public, ought
to be threshed out in public discussion
It was thirty three years ago. but here
was a student crying out that secrecy
was the atmosphere in which all corrup-
ton and evil fourished; that Congress
ought to legislate at every stage as II in
the presence of the whole country. Pub
licity, publicity at every point-there was
the only safeguard for the peoples rights
and the country's best interests.
That article was published in the Inter
national Review, August, 1879.
At University of Virginia.
After graduation at Princeton, Wood
row Wilson went to the University of
Virginia, that great institution of liberal
learning organized by Thomas Jefferson.
Here he spent year studying in the
law department under the singularly able
guidance of DIR. John B. Minor. At
Charlottesville also Wilson was an ac-
knowledged leader among his classmates.
He joined the glee club; he was active in
sports; he organized a debating society:
he walked off with the Writer'S prize
and the Orators prize. His personal
popularity. however, was due not so
much to his gifts as to his companion
ability. his unselfshness and his love of
fun. He was a great joker, a composer
of limericks and nonsense verses. But
always he studied the science of govern
| ment.
The natural path into public life in the
United States has generally been through
the profession of law. Accordingly, Will
son prepared to practice law.
Failed as Atlanta Lawyer.
He selected Atlanta, Ca, as a promis-
| ing city; went there, although he knew
not soul in the place. found another
young man in case precisely like his
own, formed a partnership for the pur-
pose Of purchasing a sign lettered "Ren-
ick & Wilson" and sat down in a room on
the second floor of Is Marietta street to
wait for clients who never came At
lanta was already well supplied with
lawyers whom the citizens knew and to
whom they were related.
So. in the autumn Of 1888, a new stu
dent matriculated at Johns Hopkins
University, and entered on work in
history and political economy under the
direction of the late Herbert E. Adams
and Dr. Richard T. Ely. He undertook
thorough-going study into the prob
lens OF government. James Bryce
who, as foreigner, was studying our
politics and writing his famous book
THE American Commonwealth" found
valuable aid in the work of the young
men at Johns Hopkins, particularly in
that OF Woodrow Wilson, to whose
original researches he acknowledged
his particular obligation.
1t was the popularity of the Johns
Hopkins workers that they were after
facts; they were willing to spend in
finite pains to get facts; they We're far
less concerned about the theory of a
thing than they were anxious to find
out how it actually worked in practice
Wilson's chief job was to get at the
, real facts as to how the legislative de-
partment of the United States govern
ment actually worked-not what the
theory Of IL was was supposed to. be-
but how, as matter of fact, it did
work.
Completed Study of Government.
! Early in 1885 Wilson completed that
| job. He had made a book, and now it
was published: Congressional Govern
| ment: A Study Of Government by Com
mittee" 1t was the first account ever
given of the way Americans actually
| do govern themselves.
| The book met with instant success.
1t was Immediately recognized as
final, standard piece of work. Today.
| twenty-seven years later, it remains
| unsuperseded.
| That summer Woodrow Wilson mar
ried at Savannah. Miss Ellen Louise
| Arson, daughter of Il line OF Georgia
clergymen. In the autumn the couple
began housekeeping i'll one or the pfet-
tiest of the towns along what Is called
the main line" out of Philadelphia; Dr.
| Wilson had been called to a chair IN the
new school for women, Bryn MaWr COL
llege.
For three years Wilson taught his
tory and political economy at Bryn
Mawr. The next two years he then
| spent as professor of the same SUD-
jects at Wesleyan University-a nom
at Middletown, Conn. During these
years, too, he acted as a lecturer on
the Johns Hopkins faculty. His fame
! as d speaker spread, and he came to