Education: No Squeak, No Whirr

What should a college president be like? Last week in the Nation, Stanford University’s scholarly Albert Guérard, professor emeritus of general literature, proposed a model of his own: the late Ray Lyman Wilbur, who died in June at 74. Wilbur, onetime Secretary of the Interior (under Hoover) and for 23 years Stanford’s president, was a gaunt and gangling man who “belonged physically to the race of Lincoln . . . Like Lincoln he had humor: his own brand, unexpected, spare, with a sharp flinty tang.” But it was a good deal more than humor that made Guérard admire him. Wrote Guérard:

“Voltaire, blessing newborn America . . . said ‘God and Liberty.’ We have amended that 18th Century creed into ‘Efficiency and Liberty.’ On both counts Ray Lyman Wilbur was Homo Americanus par excellence … He was the perfect executive: he saw, diagnosed, decided in a flash … his powerful and intricate thinking machine was constantly in perfect order. Not a squeak, not a whirr. A stupendous normalcy . . .

“He did not go out of his way to challenge tradition; but he would quietly ignore tradition if it became an obstacle . . . Swift to decide, swift to assume responsibility, swift to act when not opposed, he never desired to ignore or stifle opposition … He gave his best to his two ideals, efficiency and liberty: but if a conflict should arise between the two, his choice was unhesitating. Even though democracy . . . should lead to ‘sloppiness’ #151; his own word—he would submit to the sloppiness he abominated, if the alternative was dictatorial efficiency.” Meanwhile, recalled Guérard, “the business of the university proceeded without fuss or bluster; its smoothness was so perfect as to seem automatic . . . [Once] in the pandemonium of registration day, a freshman burst into Wilbur’s office and requested him to help her fill her formidable registration booklet. He did so …

Then he asked her: ‘Why did you pick on me?’ ‘Why, you were the only person round who seemed to have nothing to do.’ ‘This,’ Wilbur added, ‘was the highest praise I ever received as a president.’ “