The peril of the walking death

Abstract

Although I am not sure to what extent the tribute was deserved, I think the highest compliment I have ever heard paid to any university was paid to Oxford by a Cambridge man when he said that Oxford all her deficiencies has throughout the ages preserved one supreme merit, beside which all failures in detail are as dust in the balance: for century after century, throughout the long course of her existence, she has produced bands of scholars who treated learning imaginatively. In other words, if the Cambridge man was right, Oxford had managed to survive for more than seven centuries without succumbing to the walking death that destroys most human institutions within less than one century. Today, October 19, 1963, in the fifty-fourth year of its life, West Texas State has its fourth official title, West Texas State University. Like the earlier title changes, this one reflects a modification in the organizational structure of the institution already efJAMES P. CORNETTE West Texas State University, Canyon