The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1912-07-19
SCHOLARS AS PRESIDENTS.
Men of Accomplishments Have Often
Occupied the White House.

Boston Transcript.
This is the season of omens. The
politicians, tired by the strenuous ex-
periences of the Convention weeks,
have fallen back on the study OF
omens, which is not too exciting exer-
else for warm weather. Most of the
omen collectors appear to be operat-
ing for Wilson. They have found out
that candidates whose surnames end
with the syllable ''on" have generally
been successful, and this discovery
gives them much comfort Inevitably,
as Governor Wilson has been president
of a well-known university We are
treated to as many essays On the
SCHOLARS in politics" as if the title
and subject had not become a little
timeworn.
| In the matter of scholarship our
public men have always stood we'll In
comparison with the statesmen Of
other nations. Governor Wilson does
not tower in isolated grandeur be-
cause of his learning, nor because OF
the high educational positions he has
filled. Many of our Presidents have
received liberal educatioIs, and sew
eral of them have been scholars IN
the wide sense of the word. These
have not been pedants, but they have
| had at their command varied learn
| ing. Jefferson was man of many ac-
complishments; Madison was a
learned Hebraist; John Quincy Adams
seemed to take all knowledge for
his field of relaxation, To the last OF
his life he delighted in the classics;
Monroe possessed requirements; Gar
field was a student. No less than
seventeen of our Presidents received
the benefit of what we call college
education. The two Presidents, how
ever, whom all the world agrees were
supremely great, Washington and
Lincoln, never saw the interior of a
college as students. They were ed
ucated in the great university of the
world. Their early book learning came
from reading and rereading the best
English writer's, not so much of their
time as of their fathers times. Wash
ington and Lincoln each formed
splendid English style, end Lincoln,
in the Gettysburg address, rose to
classic purity of diction.
AS for college presidents and col
lege professors, John Quincy Adams
was professor of rhetoric and bellies
lettres in Harvard, and the lectures
he delivered in that capacity had
great vogue in their time. That
was long before he was President,
ard he was appointed to the chair
while he was still this side of forty.
Among Garfield's honors may be
placed the presidency of an institution
which since his time has grown to
collegiate dimensions. When Gar
field took it's presidency Hiram COL
lege was Hiram Institute. He brought
to his labors so much enthusiasm, so
much scholarship, that he gave 70 Hi
ram a power of attractions that older
institutions in Ohio soon sensed.
Hiram was sometimes called in those
days college" and sometimes "insti-
tute," but it is now, and has been for
more than forty years, a fullfledged
college among the institutions that
are not great in attendance, but are
respectable in standing. President
Garfield, as he was then called, had
so much influence with the young men
of Hiram in 1861 that a considerable
contingent of the 42d Ohio regiment
was made up of Hiram students, who
followed him into the army. His
career was typified by the expression
sscuyord and oown for he was alike
soldier and instructor, and he taught
in the spirit expressed in his famous
tribute to Mark Hopkins to the effect
that, given a log cabin with student
on one end of the bench and Marx
Hopkins On the other, and there you
had university. The college presi-
dent" and "the college professor" pre-
cedents are not exclusively Wilson
campaign assets.