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Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

"President Wilson's Addresses"

And the
only other process is the process of common counsel.
Some of the happiest experiences of my life have been like this. We had
once when I was president of a university to revise the whole course of
study.[G] Courses of study are chronically in need of revision. A
committee of, I believe, fourteen men was directed by the faculty of the
university to report a revised curriculum. Naturally, the men who had
the most ideas on the subject were picked out and, naturally, each man
came with a very definite notion of the kind of revision he wanted, and
one of the first discoveries we made was that no two of us wanted
exactly the same revision. I went in there with all my war paint on to
get the revision I wanted, and I dare say, though it was perhaps more
skillfully concealed, the other men had their war paint on, too. We
discussed the matter for six months. The result was a report which no
one of us had conceived or foreseen, but with which we were all
absolutely satisfied. There was not a man who had not learned in that
committee more than he had ever known before about the subject, and who
had not willingly revised his prepossessions; who was not proud to be a
participant in a genuine piece of common counsel.


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