Education: Rainey to Texas

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Most great U. S. universities were launched upon their greatness by great teachers, made famous by winning football teams and eventually made impressive by grand buildings. University of Texas reversed this procedure.

In 1923 the U. of T. was a collection of wooden shacks in Austin. Then it struck oil on part of its 2,000,000 west Texas acres (its State endowment). In the next ten years the university built a $10,000,000 campus. Two years ago it hired, at $15,000 a year, one of the nation's top-notch football coaches, Dana Xenophon Bible. Last week, having a swank campus and the beginnings of a football team, University of Texas set out to make itself an important educational institution. It hired as president (salary: $17,500) a top-notch educator, Homer Price Rainey, 42, director of the American Council on Education's Youth Commission.

Husky Dr. Rainey is renowned as a crack investigator and organizer, a liberal educator with a leaning toward the arts, an able administrator. After graduation from Austin College (Texas), he played professional baseball in the Texas League. At 31 he was president of Franklin College (Indiana), four years later became president of Bucknell University. After four years there, he began in 1935 to investigate problems of U. S. youth as head of the American Youth Commission.

University of Texas' new president is Texas-born, married to one of the university's alumnae. To Dr. Rainey, who is just as concerned about boys and girls who do not go to college as about those who do, his new job is attractive for another reason. Last year the university established general culture courses for "average citizens," youngsters who do not want to study for a degree. At University of Texas, "average citizens" may take any courses they like, quit after two years.