WITHERSPOON, JOHN divine and educator, was born at Gifford, Yester Parish, Scotland, probably on Feb. 5, 1722 or 1723. He was educated at the Had dington grammar school and the University of Edinburgh (M.A., 1739), where he completed his theological studies in 1743. He was called to the parish of Beith in 1745 and in 1757 became pas tor at Paisley. His militant tendencies, which made him a promi nent figure during the American Revolution, manifested them selves at the invasion of the Young Pretender and in his ecclesi astical controversies. These he waged by sermon, debate, pam phlet and essay, revealing himself as a keen dialectician, an effec tive satirist and a convincing and entertaining speaker. Among his chief publications of this period are Ecclesiastical Characteristics (1753), Essay on Justification (1756) and a three-volume collec tion of his essays and doctrinal sermons Witherspoon's popularity as a preacher is shown by his refusal of calls to Dundee, Dublin and Rotterdam; but his acceptance of a second call to the presidency of Princeton in 1768 marked a turhing-point in his career. Thereafter, although he was received warmly by the American Presbyterian Church and although he took a prominent part in the meetings of the synod and was first moderator of the general assembly which he had advocated, he was more distinguished as an educator and as a statesman than as a clergyman. He seems to have brought to the struggling little college centred in Nassau Hall a vision of its potentialities as a cultural agency as well as a training-school for ministers. He
opened a grammar school, announced graduate courses, encour aged the undergraduate societies, added Hebrew and French to the curriculum, provided scientific equipment and set out immediately on a quest for more money and more students. From arrival he was an enthusiast about America. He encouraged Scottish immi gration, and in the dispute with the mother country ranged him self uncompromisingly on the side of the colonists. He presided over the Somerset county committee of correspondence in 76; was a member of two provincial Congresses and of the New Jersey constitutional convention in the spring of 1776; and in 1776-79 and 1780-82 he was a member of the Continental Con gress. He was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of In dependence ; and in general he played a creditable part in the congressional body both in debate and on committees. He was especially distinguished for the soundness of his financial views, some of which were published later in his Essay on Money (1786). He died on his farm, Tusculum, near Princeton, Nov. 15, The first edition of Dr. Witherspoon's Works was published in four volumes in Philadelphia in 1800 with a biographical account by Dr. John Rodgers. A nine volume edition was published in Edinburgh in 18o4—o5. See his Lectures on Moral Philosophy (1918), edited by V. L. Collins, and the biography by the latter (2 vols., 1925).