Born at New York City, Oct. 31, 1801: died at New Haven, Conn., July 1, 1889. An American educator and eminent political and legal writer. He graduated at Yale in 1820, studied law, and, later, theology; was tutor in Yale 1823–25; was licensed to preach in 1825; studied in Europe 1827–30; was professor of Greek at Yale 1831–46; and was President of Yale 1846–71. He edited the “New Englander” for a few years after 1843; and was chairman of the American company of New Testament revisers 1871–81. His works include editions of the “Alcestis” (1834), “Antigone” (1835), “Electra” (1837), “Prometheus” (1837), and “Gorgias” (1843); an “Introduction to the Study of National Law” (1860: 5th ed. 1879); “Divorce and Divorce Legislation” (1869); “Religion of the Past and of the Future” (1871); “Political Science, etc.” (2 vols. 1871); “Communism and Socialism” (1880). He also edited Lieber’s “Civil Liberty and Self-Government” (1871), and a “Manual of Political Ethics” (1871).

Personal

  I consider Woolsey by far the most prominent of presidents of American colleges. He is a faithful scholar and pure man, and modest withal.

  It is not too much to say, that of the academic spirit, in the best conception of it, Dr. Woolsey has been a living illustration…. Dr. Woolsey has afforded a signal example of the dignity, as well as the usefulness, of a purely academic career. His calling has been that of a teacher of youth. Without turning aside from that function or growing cold in his esteem for it, he has acted in other spheres, not obtrusively or of his own motion, but when his services were required or the public need imperatively invoked his aid. His opinion has been sought and given to the National Government on important points in controversy with foreign powers; but he has declined flattering offers of public office. It must be a gratification to this venerable man—a man who has never stepped out of his path to conciliate any person’s favor—to receive, from his former colleagues and their associates, ten years after he has withdrawn from official labor in college, the spontaneous tribute of honor and affection of which the gold medal was the token.

  His person, indeed, though slight, was shapely, and his whole bearing and air expressive of courtesy and refinement; but not until the casual observer noticed his finely-formed head and clear-cut features, and looked into his full-orbed, soulful eyes, did he come to a recognition of the fact that he was in the presence of no common man. Who that has ever felt it can forget that direct, thoughtful, kindly look of his? The Franklin glasses which he wore lent his gaze a semi-mysterious power, as though he scanned alike the distant and the near in you, your lineaments and the recesses of your inner being. For an acquaintance, the look was the precursor of a quiet smile, full of sympathy and good-will; not the smile of good breeding merely, but the expression of the hidden man of the heart. By the men of New Haven of the last decade or so, he is remembered as a slight figure, passing with short, quick steps to and from the postoffice; more often as one who, with head bowed low and thoughtful mien, his right hand perhaps passed behind his back and locked in the bend of the left elbow, brought to mind the college witticism that “President Woolsey and”—another highly esteemed university dignitary “are the stoopedest men in New Haven.”

General

  Mr. Woolsey’s labors will be highly appreciated by all who are engaged in classical instruction, and by those who continue their acquaintance with the great authors of Greece after leaving the walls of a college. The Prefaces, Notes, and metrical Tables, which accompany these Tragedies, form a body of critical learning, tasteful exposition and metrical science, which would do honor to a much older professor than Mr. Woolsey…. It is an uncommon thing in any country, for a mind of nice poetical sensibilities, to be engaged in critical labors, or to have the necessary patience in the acquisition of exact knowledge, to qualify it for such a task; but so fortunate a conjunction between profound and accurate learning, and delicate taste, when it does take place, brings out something which men will not willingly let die. With such a beginning as Mr. Woolsey has made in classical scholarship, what may we not expect from the rich studies and ripened experience of future years?

  Dr. Woolsey has long been conspicuous among American scholars for the extent and thoroughness of his learning, his power of thought, and his clear and admirable style. The moral elevation of his character gives great and almost authoritative weight to his opinions, especially upon questions of public law.

  The unpretending form in which this work [“Introductions to the Study of International Law”] was put forth did not prevent the legal profession, as well as historical students, from at once discerning the solid learning at the basis of it, as well as the soundness and sagacity of the comments which were interspersed in the course of the exposition. This work spread his reputation as a publicist. The successive editions which have been called for since its first publication, testify to the esteem in which it is held by competent judges in this country. Its use at Oxford is one proof of the appreciation of it abroad. In this book the author does not content himself with a bare recital of the actual state of public law, or a description of international jurisprudence as a fact; he points out the relation of agreement or antagonism in which the law of nations, as recognized and acted upon, stands to the immutable principles of justice, and suggests modifications which ought to be made in existing usages.

  His scholarship combined, to a degree quite exceptional, breadth and thoroughness. His early professional training, first in law, then in theology, then in philological and general studies abroad, fostered a largeness of outlook and variety of interest which he retained to the last, and which his conscientiousness kept from superficiality. In classical philology and epigraphy this pupil of Hermann and Boeckh and Bopp did for American students the work of a pioneer; while in practical ethics and political science, the thoroughness, good sense, and, above all, the noble tone of his discussions have given them a salutary power over young men unequalled, unless perhaps by those of his friend Professor Lieber, whose fertilizing works Dr. Woolsey’s editorial labors have recently helped to perpetuate. The revival of learning and comparative religion were among the special topics which he handled with evident mastery; while poetry and botany, as avocations, were subjects in which he took delight. He owned the best books, and he knew how to use them. Patient research, caution, sobriety of judgment, characterized all his work.

  To President Woolsey belongs the rare honor of taking the lead in two great intellectual movements. He laid the foundations of American scholarship; he taught men to apply that scholarship to the social and political problems of the day. In each of these departments of his life work he was preëminent; in the combination of the two he stood alone and unrivalled…. His modesty alone prevented the world from knowing the vastness of his range of information. At a time when breadth of education was far rarer than it now is, he had read both law and theology, and had pursued a course of classical and philological study in Europe lasting several years. Nor did he allow the duties of his college office to narrow his range of subsequent work. Let one instance suffice. In the year 1864 the New Englander published a series of articles on the revival of learning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Knowledge of the Italian Renaissance was not at that time so easy to acquire as it has been since the appearance of Mr. Symonds’ work. Such articles as these could only be the result of hard individual study at first hand. Yet the author was none other than President Woolsey himself, who, in the midst of his classics and his politics, his interest in the duties of his office, and his equally absorbing interest in public affairs, had found time to carry out, almost as a diversion, what would have exhausted another man as a specialty by itself.