"Academic Poverty"

One day some eight years ago, University of Colorado's grand old man and president, George Norlin, argued long and earnestly with a friend in Denver, a 38-year-old corporation lawyer named Robert Lawrence Stearns. Dr. Norlin was trying to persuade his friend to come to his university as dean of its law school. Conservative Mr. Stearns, who had already made his mark in 17th Street, Denver's financial centre, was hard to persuade. At length Dr. Norlin exclaimed: "Better men than you have taken the vow of academic poverty!" Like many a better man before him, Mr. Stearns took the vow and went to Colorado.

A gaunt, shy Swede, the son of a frontier family, George Norlin put himself through college and became a great Greek scholar. He also became one of the strong men of U. S. education. In 40 years at Colorado, 20 as its president, he made it the best university between the Middle West and the Pacific Coast. In the process he faced down the Ku Klux Klan and many another foe of academic freedom. Few years ago he frightened his friends by defying Adolf Hitler in his own backyard. As a visiting lecturer in Berlin, he persisted in championing democracy despite brownshirts' warnings. When police stopped him one day at the gates of University of Berlin, he barked: "I'm going in, and what are you going to do about it?" They were too astonished to do anything.

Last week Colorado's regents met in Boulder to pick a man for rugged Dr. Norlin's job. Now ill and 68, Dr. Norlin had insisted on retiring. After considering 67 candidates, finding some too rugged, some scornful of the $8,000 salary, the regents elected Dr. Norlin's protege, Robert Stearns.

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