[50] Wilson aspired, as he told alumni, "to transform thoughtless boys performing tasks into thinking men."He tried to raise admission standards and to replace the "gentleman's C" with serious study. To emphasize the development of expertise, Wilson instituted academic departments and a system of core requirements. Students were to meet in groups of six under the guidance of teaching assistants known as preceptors.[51][page needed] To fund these new programs, Wilson undertook an ambitious and successful fundraising campaign, convincing alumni such as Moses Taylor Pyne and philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie to donate to the school.[52] Wilson appointed the first Jew and the first Roman Catholic to the faculty, and helped liberate the board from domination by conservative Presbyterians.[53] He also worked to keep African Americans out of the school, even as other Ivy League schools were accepting small numbers of black people.[54][a]
Wilson's efforts to reform Princeton earned him national notoriety, but they also took a toll on his health.[56] In 1906, Wilson awoke to find himself blind in the left eye, the result of a blood clot and hypertension. 