You will recall the comment of a Princeton graduate contemplating the changes wrought by the preceptorial system, “If Wilson carries out his preceptorial system he’ll convert Princeton into a damned educational institution!” And he did.

But the time has come for Princeton men everywhere to forget these things and to honor Woodrow Wilson for what he actually did, not alone for Princeton, but for all education in general. The reforms which he instituted, the abuses which he corrected, the intensity to which he quickened intellectual life, here and wherever thinking men were congregated, belong to history and form a topic too vast even to be touched on here.

However, when we study the lives of these two men and analyze them, which in a brief sketch it would be impossible to do fully, we are struck with their similarity. They both represented in the highest sense the scholar in politics. It is their knowledge, their learning, and their profound insight into the principles of government, which impress us, and which are clearly shown in their writings and speeches as well as in their deeds.

On reading these volumes it appears strange at first that a writer and orator with such a gift of clear expression, backed by so honest a character and such direct and frank behavior, should have been misunderstood; but it is not surprising that he should have been hated. He was hated, rather than disliked, for men hate what they fear. It was not natural for him to speak soft words.

Mr. Wilson’s proposals with respect to teaching methods and residence arrangements came from a common observation and a common motive. He often said that he found the American undergraduate a schoolboy; he was determined that he should be, and should be treated like, a man.

History will count President Wilson among those supreme idealists who had the power of doing great practical things.

President Wilson’s place in history as an author, despite all limitations and defects to which reference has been made, it must be maintained that President Wilson’s historical and political writings have in them the essential elements of permanence, proving themselves capable of standing the test of time and, indeed, of becoming more and more appreciated as the years pass on.