The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1912-11-07

college nine Tor time but his recOrC
perhaps would not excite the envy OF
| Ty Cobb. There is a tradition. which
has it that on one occasion, the captain
OF the team, becoming vexed over Will
sons listless manner of play during a
hosly contested game, said:
Wilson, you would make a dandy
PLAYER if you were not so damned lazy.
Wilson was at Davidson but one year
The following years he remained at
home, the elder Wilson in the meantime
having moved to Wilmington. This
year he spent in preparation for en-
trance in Northern university and
entertaining his younger brother.
In September, 1877, Woodrow Wilson
entered the freshman class at Princeton.
There was 1873 young men in the class.
Before the war Princeton had been the
most favored northern college by the
young men of the South but after the
war their numbers began to fall off and
at the time sWoodrow Wilson enrolled
but very few of the students hailed from
South of the Mason and Dixon line.
The next president is a man who in
stinctively balks at doing things simply
because they have done before. From
his earliest youth he has insisted upon
his own personality and individuality.
At the time he entered Princeton that
institution was just one of the educa-
tional mills. Young Wilson refused to
sit snugly in the groove and be ground
out
He had not been at Princeton long be-
fore he found out Just what he wanted
to do. And that thing was TO be a pub
lie man, to devote his life to the service
of his country
This determination came with thrill
upon reading in an English magazine a
series of articles on the English parlia-
ment, presenting in graphic language
the dramatic scenes enacted in the
British legislature. He never forgot
the picture. He hunted up everything
in the library he could find bearing upon
this subject and devoured it, and from
that day to this he has never wavered in
his determination to play an active part
in the stirring scenes of his country S
political stage.
Mr.. Wilson began his preparation at
once. He suborinated his regular
college work to the task or fitting him
self for public life.
He devoted all his energy and every
faculty he possessed to the furnishing
and training of his mind to the end that
he might be an authority on government
and the history of government and be a
leader IN the affairs of his country.
No man ever subjected himself to
sterner discipline or worked more stead
fastlv toward a fixed goal. He first
taught himself to write shorthand in
order that he might make rapid digests
of what he read and heard. He also
practiced composition assiduously and
eXtemporaneous speaking that he might
be skilled and found always ready in off
hand debate
In those days he was not remarkably
ready in eXtemporaneous speaking. To-
day ne is without a peer in the
art. There have been very few in pub
lie life who have dared to trust them
selves to deliver important speeches
without carefully writing them out but
get to MIR. Wilson to write a speech in
advanced is hard matter.
During the first year Princeton
Wilson joined "Whig Hall, " the literary
debating society founded by James N.
Addison, who also wrote its constitu-
ton. It's rival society at Princeton was
cello Hall and the annual Lynde de-
bate, an eXtemporaneoUs discussion, the
subject to be given TO the debaters z
few minutes before the debate was to
begin, was the biggest thing in liter
airy way at the college. Young Wilson
soon established himself as the leading
spirit of the Wing Hail. society, and
was easily its best debater. To win this
annual debate, IN which three represen-
tatives from each of the two Halls par
ticipated, was the thing that Wilson
coveted most. Each Hall selected it's
debaters by . preliminary contest with
in its own society-also an extemporan-
eous affair.
On the evening of the preliminary con-
test the subject was protection VS..
Free Trade" The debaters took sides
by lot. Wilson drew Protection" side
from the hat, tore up the slip and re-
turned to his seat. He said nothing
under heaven could induce him to ad-
vance arguments for a thing in which
he did not believe, LYnde prize there
fore went to someone else.
Wilson did not shine with any great
etfulgence in his regular college course.
He stood forty-frst in a class of 122.
This was the famous class of '79, one
of its members being Mahlor C. Pitney
of the Supreme Court bench.
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