February 6, 1917

Real friends of the University will hesitate before endorsing the bill of Representative Taylor to abolish the Board of Regents and place this institution along with other educational institutions of the state under the jurisdiction of a common board.

Plausible as some of the arguments for centralization of control may be the strongest argument against the proposal is the argument of experience. For nearly fifty years the University has been on a whole admirably managed by constitutional officers elected by the people of the state at large. It has had an uninterrupted growth and development and has been remarkably free from revolutions and internal disturbances such as have distracted the institutions of learning in other states. The best argument then for the continuation of the control of the Regents over the University is that such control does work well. The strongest argument against the change is that confusion dissatisfaction and injury to the institutions concerned have almost invariably resulted from innovation of the common board.

It is an open and notorious fact that the common board in Iowa has not prevented overlapping of work in the several institutions. It is equally true that the common board has not reduced expense and finally no one claims that the prestige and usefulness of the institutions have been increased.

The three paid members of the state board of education in Kansas have not been conspicuously successful in winning the confidence of the educational world. It is an open secret that professors in both Iowa and Kansas look with envy towards the more stable conditions in Nebraska. With the small salaries paid in the University, no little part of the attractiveness of a position here is due to the stability of the institution which the proposed bill would jeopardize.

The bill, of course, recognizes that the Regents are constitutional officers and provides for their abolition by the submission of a constitutional amendment but if a new constitution is to be submitted why should a matter of such importance be considered during the confusion of a legislative session? The constutuional convention will doubtless contain some of the best talent in the state. If the idea of the common board has merits, the constitutional convention is the place in which to bring them out. Pending such a careful consideration the friends of education in the state will be well consent to leave well enough alone in the matter of the control of the state's highest educational institution.