SOURCE: "Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Man," in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 58, No. 1, Winter, 1982, pp. 38-53.

In the following essay, Cooper reassesses Wilson's tenure as an academic, viewing this time not so much as the mere nascency of his political career—as most commentators have—and more as an independently successful and influential vocation.

No academic career in American history, possibly in all history, has attracted as much attention as Woodrow Wilson's. Two reasons account for such extensive interest. First, during 25 years as a professor, writer about politics and history, and president of Princeton University, Wilson became the leading academic political scientist of his time and left his mark on the development of American higher education. Second and more important, Wilson's academic career served as preparation for his entrance into politics in 1910, which led swiftly to the governorship of New Jersey and the presidency of the United States...