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REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

mittees already hard at work indicate the possibilities of vital contri-
butions to the intellectual and spiritual consolidation of three dis-
tinctive institutions in one manifold university, to far-visioned plans
for making a better state, and to higher educational thought and
practice in the United States. I pray for the understanding to inter-
pret these studies in a way worthy of the men and women out of
whose lives they come.

INTER-INSTITUTIONAL AND STATE COMMITTEES

The work of these intra-institutional committees is to be followed
by the studies of both inter-institutional and state-wide committees,
which will make recommendations with regard to libraries, extension
work, the departments of education, the summer school, graduate
work, engineering, education, the textile school, agriculture, forestry,
general resources and industries, home economics, fine arts, public
health education, scientific and social research, and the larger educa-
tional, economic, social, aesthetic and spiritual building of our state
and way of life.

The best thought and most coöperative spirit of all these com-
mittees; the long-run and the state-wide view of governors, legisla-
tors, trustees, alumni, faculties, students, and citizens; and many
approaches, both experimental and arbitrary, will be required to work
out the wisest and most useful consolidation. We must look within
the institutions and within the state, out in the nation upon other
institutions, back into the past, and forward with the direction of the
times for the understanding that should guide the reconstruction of
our university and our civilization.

CONTEMPORARY EXPERIENCES IN OTHER STATES

In the several American states in which consolidation of the state
institutions of higher learning is now in process different procedures
are being followed. We can all learn from each other. In one state
the executive orders of a self-willed governor were decisive. In another
state, action on the part of the board of trustees was peremptory to
the point of informing whole faculties without notice previous to the
letters of notification that their contracts ended with the college year.
Though the contracts were renewed for the most part, the summary
action was a shock to the dignity of a great profession and the morale