Article 4: Reverend John Witherspoon’S Pedagogy of Leadership

In 1768, the small and relatively unknown College of New Jersey, only twenty years old, strapped for funding, and administratively unstable, hired a Scottish, Presbyterian minister named John Witherspoon as its seventh president. Witherspoon served this post for over a quarter of a century, until his death in 1794. During that time, Witherspoon became an ardent supporter of the American Revolution, served as a delegate in the Second Continental Congress, and signed the Declaration of Independence just nine years after arriving in the American colonies. As president of the College, Witherspoon enjoyed almost unparalleled success in producing students who would go on to become notable leaders in the founding era of the United States. Although during his presidency Witherspoon perpetually struggled to maintain the college’s financial viability, he dramatically raised its national academic reputation as a school devoted to higher ideals of public service and leadership. The foundation that Witherspoon laid at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, helped in its emergence as one of the most prestigious institutions in the country.