TEACHERS IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Grover Cleveland taught for a year at the New York Institution for the Blind in New York City. His father died when Grover was 16 years old, and he joined his older brother who was already teaching there. He left teaching to study law and become a lawyer.
William McKinley also taught for a short time. He was forced to leave college during his junior year due to illness. He returned home, and taught in a local country school for a term. He left when the Civil War broke out, being the first man in his hometown to volunteer.
William Howard Taft had a long career in government, including positions as a federal judge, governor of the Philippines, and Secretary of War. After he left the White House, he became a professor of constitutional law at Yale University Law School. He held this position when President Harding named him Chief Justice of the United States.
Woodrow Wilson is probably the only true professional educator ever elected President. Wilson established a law practice in Atlanta, Georgia, and practiced law for a year before deciding he was not suited to a legal career. He earned his doctoral degree in political science from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Wilson is the only President to earn a Ph.D. degree. For three years, he was an associate professor of history at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. He then became a professor of history and political economy at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. (He also coached football, leading one of the school’s greatest teams.) In 1890, he became a professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Princeton University. In 1902, the trustees of Princeton University unanimously elected Wilson president of the university. This was the position Wilson held when he was elected governor of New Jersey; two years later he was elected President of the United States.
Dwight Eisenhower served as president of Columbia University from 1948 until 1950. He never devoted his full attention and energies to his work at the university because he was frequently called to testify before Congress on defense policies, and served as an advisor to the government on merging the War and Navy Departments into the Department of Defense. He left Columbia University to return to active duty and become Supreme Commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe.
Lyndon Johnson graduated from the Southwest Texas State Teachers College, which is now Southwest Texas State
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