Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. [Vol. 1.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)

BOOK REVIEWS - John C. Chalberg: August Heckscher: Woodrow Wilson. Macmillan, 1991. 734 pp

distribute calling cards labeled "Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Senator from Virgina," being a "politician" was not distinct from being a "scholar." His immediate goal was to satisfy both ambitions by producing his magnum opus. Instead, he was soon to embark on a more overtly political career which would leave him no time for leisurely travel, little time for reflective thought, and not enough time to write anything of substance. By the spring of 1902 dissatisfaction with the six-year presidency of Francis L. Patton had reached "crisis proportions." With faculty morale low and academic standards in decline, the board of trustees (one of whose members was a former President of the United States by the name of Grover Cleveland) asked for Patton's resignation and replaced him with a "beloved figure within the whole Princeton community", Professor Woodrow Wilson. Thus ended his years as a Princeton faculty member when Woodrow Wilson had been "as close to being a happy man as would ever be the case." By all accounts (Heckscher's included) Wilson loved the academic life. And with good reason: as a teacher and scholar Woodrow Wilson was a resounding success. That rarest of professorial birds, he was both a captivating lecturer and a highly regarded published historian. Moreover, when he was not crafting either the spoken or written word Woodrow Wilson was the compleat family man, with a wife (Ellen Axson Wilson) whom he deeply loved and three daughters of whom he was thoroughly and equally proud. It would seem that nothing could have enhanced —or disturbed

— this placid and productive scene. And yet Wilson thought he could improve upon perfection by crowning his academic career, not with a literaray masterpiece, but with the presidency of his treasured Princeton. For most of the next eight years the Wilson biography is not a story of the Peter Principle in action. In fact, Heckscher judges the first half of his tenure to have been a "time of accomplishment." With the goal of placing a liberal arts education "squarely at the center of Princeton's task," Wilson moved rapidly to introduce a freshman core curriculum and to tighten all undergraduate discipline. The centerpiece for all of his plans was the muchheralded "preceptorial system," which placed a significant measure of 154