Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1913-04-02


never bright particular star in ex-
aminations. Princeton graduated as
''honor men" such students as had
maintained throughout their four
years course an average of 80 per
cent. Not less than forty-two out of
the 122 graduates of - were honor
men," Wilson barely got In among
them. He ranked forty first.
The fact is that this son Of clergy
men and editors hadn't come to school
to pass through standardized cur
riculum and Eli his head with the
knowledge prescribed in a college cata-
logue. He had come to prepare him
self for particular career, and before
he had been at Princeton three months
he had finally determined on what that
career should be.
The class historian, Harold (Pete)
Goodwin, celebrating the advent in
Princeton of the members of the class
that graduated in 70, declares that on
arrival Tommy Wilson rushed to the:
library and took out Rants 'Critique.
of Pure Reason"
To the library Tommy Wilson IN
questionably did rush. but not to read
of pure reason. If ever there was a
student who demanded facts, concrete
subjects. applied reason. 1t was this
same Wilson. even in his college days.
The truth is that, prowling in the al
coves of the Chancellor Green library,
new then. one day early in the term
the boy stopped at the head Of the
south stairs. where the bound maya
zines were kept. and his hand fell
upon file of the Gentleman's Maya
zine, that ancient and respectable re-
pository of English literature which
DR.. Samuel Johnson had helped to
start away back in the middle of the
eighteenth century. with his reports of
parliamentary debates. When johnson
lay Oh his deathbed he declared that
bis only conjunction was those parIia-
mentary reports, for, of course. they
were "fakes.''
Now, it happened that in the seventies
the editor of the day. feeling round for
an attractive feature. hit upon the idea
Of resuming the parliamentary reports
Accordingly there began in the num-
Der for January, 1874. series of ar
ticles entitled Men and Manner In
Parliament" by 1.-THE Member For the
Chiltern Hundreds"
Thomas Woodrow Wilson happened
to pick up this volume Of the Gentle
mans Magazine and to turn to the
pages occupied by Men and Manner
In Parliament''-and from that moment
his life plan was fixed.
It was an era Of brilliant parliamen-
tary history. There were giants in
those days-John Bright. Disraeli,
Gladstone, Earl Granville, Vernon
Harcourt. The personnel Of the house
Of commons had never been more pic
turesque, the atmosphere more cleo
trical. -:
Nothing could have better served to
awaken In a young reader sense of
the picturesuueness and dramatic in;
terest of politics. and MIR. Wilson has
said to the writer of this biography
that no one circumstance did more to
make public life the purpose Of his ex-
stence nor more to determine the
9rst cast Of his politi al ideas. The
young man turned back to the first
7olume of the Gentleman's Magazine
Then, going to other sources, he took
up in earnest the study Of English polit
ical history. He became saturated
with the spirit of the life and practices
Of the British parliament: the excite
ments Of political life enchanted him.
The characteristic thing about Will
sons undergraduate days at Princeton
was that his work was done In practi
cal independence of the ordinary col
lege routine of instruction, at which
even In those days he was sometimes
heard to rail. His mind had now set
tied definitely upon a public career
His purpose In Princeton was hence
forth the clear and single one of pre-
pairing himself for public life. Away.