How to Be First Class

When they turned their thoughts to the state's educational system, the authors of the constitution of Texas seemed to have some Texas-size hopes; they wanted the legislature to set up nothing less than "a university of the first'class." Last week, as it began a yearlong celebration of its' 75th anniversary, the University of Texas was closer to realizing that hope than it has ever been. But the fact remains that of all U.S. campuses, not many have had a more inglorious past.

The very location of the main campus$#151;only a few blocks away from the state capitol in Austin--was unfortunate, for the politicians have never been able to keep their hands off the faculty. As recently as 1925, faculty freedom was so shaky that Historian Eugene C. Barker solemnly warned: "It is not secret to my academic colleagues here or elsewhere that a call to the University of Texas arouses no elation, and that, for a long time, we have been losing more good scholars than we are replacing."

Away with the President. In 1942 Barker could have made his speech all over again. That year three economists were dismissed from the faculty for having criticized a business crusade against the 40-hour week during the war as a cover for the antilabor views of Texas capital. In 1944 President Homer Rainey bluntly charged that one regent had demanded the heads of three facultymen because they had passed a scholastic rule that made his two sons ineligible for football. Another regent wanted to subject all teachers "to a patriotism test in the form of a questionnaire prepared by himself." As a result of such recalcitrance, the regents fired Rainey and put mild-mannered Zoologist T. S. Painter in his place. The American Association of University Professors censured the administration, and when famed Folklorist J. Frank Dobie went on protesting the Rainey firing, the regents found a way to get rid of him, too. By the time the present president, Logan Wilson, took over in 1953, the university was still suffering from the dispute.

Up with the Salaries. A professional college administrator from Huntsville, Texas, Wilson has done his best for his big (17,000 students) main campus and its various branches scattered throughout the state. He flatly opposed admitting "students who have no chance of doing the quality of work which the university must demand"; last fall he made his university the first state-supported school in Texas to require entrance examinations.

In order to attract better teachers, Wilson upped salaries so that he can now pay top professors as much as $15,000 instead of only $11,500. He put through a rule that all students with a below-C average would be put on probation, even though that meant one-fourth of the student body. He started a lecture series that brings to Texas such celebrities as W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot. The university now has a thriving press, and next month it will have a scholarly quarterly of its own.

Away with Illusions. Wilson's reign has had its dark spots. The student paper is still automatically censored because it came out against the Harris natural-gas bill, and the case of Coed Barbara Louise Smith--the soprano who was removed from the leading role in Dido and Aeneas because some legislators objected to the fact that she is a Negro (TIME, May 20) --still rankles. But in general, Logan Wilson has, fortunately, no illusions about how far his university must go. "I think," says he, "we need frankly to face up to the fact that our competitive academic standing is still not what it ought to be for us to achieve the constitutional mandate of being 'a university of the first class." Texas is no longer a poor state. We are now able to do something about quality in higher education. The question is, are we willing and ready?"

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