Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Sunday marks the anniversary of the inauguration of John Witherspoon as president of the College of New Jersey, which is known today as Princeton University.

He was among the most important and perhaps the most underrated of

all of the American founding fathers. Born in Scotland, in 1723, he received his master's of

arts degree at age 16 from the University of Edinburgh, where he would continue to study

divinity. In 1745, he became an evangelical minister in the Church of Scotland. A year later,

Witherspoon was briefly imprisoned for opposing the Royalist Jacobite uprising. Though that experience

would damage his health for the rest of his life, it did not slow him down. Upon his release,

he returned to pastoral ministry and became a popular preacher, sought-after speaker, and author.

In 1764, the University of St. Andrews awarded Witherspoon an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree.

Four years later, he accepted the presidency of the College of New Jersey.

Though the school's primary mission at the time was to train Presbyterian ministers,

Witherspoon found a mess. The students at the College of New Jersey received poor teaching and had

an inadequate library. Through fundraising, reorganization, higher standards, and new resources,

including hundreds of books he donated from his own personal library, Wetherspoon transformed the

college into a top-tier school. In addition to his leadership at such a crucial time in the

university's history, Wetherspoon taught courses in rhetoric, history, divinity, and moral philosophy. His

ideas were anchored in reform theology and the natural law tradition. He was also heavily influenced by

Scottish philosopher Thomas Reed and his common sense realism. These ideas became deeply rooted

not only across Princeton, but across American society, and Witherspoon's teaching laid

essential groundwork for both the American Revolution and the government that followed.

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