Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler) [PAGE 83]

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On the Banks of the Boneyard

litical reward, rather than folks who are unselfishly willing to serve without any idea except to further the best interests of the politics feel university trustees must be selected from outside the realm of practical politics. A man with an ax to grind; a man whose son or relative has been dismissed from college for some reason; a man who has made a big campaign contribution and wants his reward—all of these are poor material for trustees. No matter how meritorious the individual may be, the taint of politics is upon him. Investigating committees find that institutions upon which politics had laid its hand have trouble keeping their outstanding scholars, and that the great names among scholars do not care to join faculties in such institutions. When a president is chosen for such a university, the political method of selection is naturally used, whereas in a university kept free of politics, a faculty committee, an alumni committee, and a trustee committee work lone and faith full v to eet the one man in country learning many process of elimination until a name comes to th< ceptable to the entire committee. Then everybody man estigating that many a good man is handicapped by his family. It is impossible to satisfy all the elements within the constituency of a great university, and there are many places where mere man should tread with fear and trepidation. The chief argument advanced by the Catholic church for the celibacy of the priesthood is that woman, God bless her, introduces the danger of spreading certain items of talk which really should be kept closely at home. Whether this matter enters into the discussion of the selection of a college president, I am not prepared to say, but it serves to illustrate the fact that the wife of a president must be a very discreet lady. She must win and keep the friendship and the respect of the faculty wives e townspeople and the numerous visitors from over the broad land. who has the charm that wins people is a treniversity president, and if he has children who be too worldly, he had better send them to college Madaga