Wildman to DePauw

Alumni of big Methodist DePauw University complain that in spite of its 1,300 students, its leafy campus in Greencastle, Ind. and its comfortable presidential house, DePauw's presidents consistently resign to become Methodist bishops. Of the six head men DePauw has elected since 1903, four hastily left it in the lurch as soon as Methodism's General Conference beckoned. Last of these was liberal, orotund G. (for Garfield) Bromley Oxnam, newly installed Methodist Bishop of the Iowa and Nebraska area (TIME, May 25).

When Methodism's Senior Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes, himself a Deauw deserter: Publisher Kenneth DePauw Craven ("Casey") Hogate of the Wall Street Journal and onetime (1928-29) Secretary of the Interior Roy Owen West met early this month in Manhattan to name Dr. Oxnam's successor, many a DePauw alumnus hoped they would see fit to break precedent, choose a layman. Instead they retired in silence. Last week the committee reassembled in Indianapolis, announced the selection of another Methodist minister. He was Dr. Clyde Everett Wildman, Professor of Old Testament history and religion at Boston University's School of Theology.

Stocky, round-faced President-elect Wildman, 47, is a loyal DePauw alumnus (Class of 1913), is married to a DePauw alumna, has a twelve-year-old daughter who is a prime DePauw prospect. Fortified by these considerations and by the fact that abandoned Methodist preaching for Wildman long teaching, since De-Pauwites hoped that, even though he is eligible for a bishopric, he will turn it down should one be offered.

Said Trustee West: "The committee . . discussed every angle of DePauw . . . with the most satisfactory response. I am confident..."

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