Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/245

WOODROW WILSON 205 in the realization of these ideals, he was fired with a holy zeal to champion the cause of social justice. In June, 1902, Woodrow Wilson was elected president of Princeton University. His thorough equipment, his proven capacity for leadership, his splendid scholarship, his eloquence and popularity as a speaker, his already widespread fame, his judgment and executive ability marked him as the man of the hour. His mettle had been tested in the faculty meetings when he had quickly made himself felt in his readiness in debate over the prob lems affecting the welfare of the campus and the college. His discernment, his preparedness for emergency, his loyalty, had been amply proven. He was the logical man for the place this first lay man in a list of presidents reaching back for one hundred and sixty years. By his election a man who had no peer for genuine democracy was placed in supreme power in probably the most aristocratic educational insti tution in the United States. And this leaven of democracy mixed in with the fine flour of college aristocracy began soon to "work." After a year of quiet but earnest study of conditions from the new point of view of the presidency, Doctor Wil son initiated and carried through to rapid success certain reforms. After seeing to it that the actual scholarship and discipline corresponded properly to what they were scheduled in the catalogue to be,