He was born on March 26, 1867, in
Windsor, Ontario, to James Woodbridge and Melissa Ella Bingham. In 1869 his family moved to
Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 1885 he enrolled at
Amherst College where he studied philosophy and religion under Charles Edward Garman. He graduated from Amherst with an
A.B. in 1889 and then he enrolled at the
Union Theological Seminary. In 1892 he left Union on a fellowship and went to Germany to study philosophy at the
Humboldt University of Berlin, where he received the
Ph.D. He returned to the
United States in 1894. He took a teaching position at the
University of Minnesota. He married Helena Belle Adams of
Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 25, 1895, in
Chicago, Illinois. They had 4 children,
Frederick James Woodbridge, John Woodbridge, Donald Woodbridge, and Helena Woodbridge. In 1902 Woodbridge left the
University of Minnesota for
New York City and a position at
Columbia University. In 1904 he co-founded with
James McKeen Cattell,
The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. Woodbridge taught philosophy at Columbia from 1902 until 1912 when he became the university's Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science. In 1929 he retired as Dean but continued to teach. He retired from teaching in 1937, but he continued to edit The Journal of Philosophy until his death in 1940. == Legacy ==