The South African soldier, statesman, and philosopher Jan Christian Smuts (1870-1950) was one of the founders of the Union of South Africa and an architect of the League of Nations and of the United Nations.

Jan Smuts the second son of Jacobus Abraham Smuts, a prosperous farmer and a member of the Cape Legislative Assembly, was born on May 24, 1870, on a farm in the Malmesbury district of the Cape Colony (Cape Province). He began his formal education at the age of 12, when he entered a boarding school at Riebeek West. Although he was shy and physically weak, Smuts possessed a great zeal for learning. Four years later he entered Victoria College at Stellenbosch and there compiled a brilliant academic record. While a student at Stellenbosch, Smuts met Sybella Margaretha Krige, whom he later married. In 1891 Smuts won the Ebden scholarship and went to Christ's College, Cambridge, to study...