When Wilson returned to A. & M. in the fall of 1908 he was about to embark on the most meaningful voyage of his life, a whole-hearted, full-time commitment to education, family, music, and Christian service. The 27-year-old Wilson rejoined a faculty and staff of 32, and these officers, teachers, and administrators provided for the intellectual and physical needs of a student body of 120 males and 147 females on a campus of only 182 acres. On “the hill,” a plot of land just over a quarter square mile in area, the students not only attended academic classes but raised poultry, cattle, and a variety of row crops, and they were also instructed in the household and mechanical crafts of homemaking, printing, carpentry, blacksmithing, shoemaking, stone and brick masonry, and similar practical skills by which they might earn a respectable living.

Of the total 267 students registered in 1908, 136 were engaged in teacher preparation and certification in the Normal Department, and 80 of this group were those younger students of the preparatory program. In comparison with today's giant state universities, Alabama A. & M. in 1908 was intimate indeed, hardly more than an extended family dedicated to delivering personal attention to the needs of students easily intimidated, for they often traveled to Normal from repressive circumstances and truly humble backgrounds. There were exceptions of course, such as Ida Councill, the daughter of the university president, who graduated from the college in 1901, studied at a German conservatory of music, followed that with additional study at Oberlin College for another two years, and then was appointed a notary public by Governor Jelks of Alabama in 1907, an uncommon and much- prized certification for an African American that enabled her to “discharge the duties of that office before Judge Lawler.” During that same school year, 1907-1908, Ida Councill held an academic appointment at the college teaching piano and vocal music to the A. & M. students. Her enriched educational upbringing was exceptional. In contrast, the majority of Normal students came to A. & M. with much hope, promise, and determination, but they also arrived on campus having left impoverished family circumstances, and just as often they came equipped with substandard preparatory educations as well.