But recently, in a book by a leading Boston educator (and former Texan), I have read of a like custom which might be adapted to higher education and which I think could hardly be argued to have any other than the many good effects I shall enumerate. I propose changing the name of the celebration to National Beautification Day and its institution on the campus of every state institution of higher learning in the nation, with certain stringent limitations (the private institutions should no doubt be urged to follow suit). My proposal would legalize the beautification every year of one administrator on every campus and allow the substitution of a regent or trustee for an administrator triennially. A member of the administrative staff could be substituted every five years only and a faculty member every seven years, in order to prevent a too frequent resort to the staff and faculty for this purpose by institutions desiring to avoid overall accountability. There should be no absolute requirement to beautify on a yearly basis, in order to allow for those years during which acceptable candidates might not be available, but commissions would be established to visit institutions which neglected this necessary aspect of institutional effectiveness for more than say three years in succession.

A simple procedure could be instituted to select the major beneficiaries. I propose institution of campus beautification committees, to contain broad representation from amongst the many campus constituencies, with special care taken to ensure broad student participation. I think the normal constitution of such a committee might be one quarter student, one quarter staff, one quarter administration, and one quarter faculty, so that no bloc could gain preeminence. Yearly beneficiaries could then be selected by a simple majority. Initial beautification committees should be appointed by the governors of the various states, but after that they should be self sustaining and evolve their own recruitment practices and standards. Beautification committees should meet throughout the year on a regular basis, once or twice a month depending upon the size of the institution, in order to review credentials of those proposed for inclusion in the pool, but their meetings should be closed for obvious reasons, and they should publish no reports. Those selected for inclusion in the beautification pool should simply disappear, and the only sign of the recurring holiday celebration should be the absence afterwards, the lack of publicity and hoopla serving to reinforce the solemnity of the annual event.

I mustn't take up too much bandwidth with this proposal, in spite of its undoubted excellence, and therefore I will hurry on to enumerate its good effects. The beautification of one administrator or regent a year would have an undoubted salutary effect upon those remaining unbeautified. They would immediately seek the good will of students, faculty, and other constituencies rather than using their connection with outside regulatory and governmental bodies to enhance their power. National Beautification Day would perform a necessary weeding function, allowing beautification of unwanted or undesirable individuals without discomfort to the larger community, who would be spared the necessity of beautification wars amongst themselves, painful and protracted lawsuits, and the inevitable expense and bad publicity attendant upon such affairs. Administrative salaries could now be justified on the basis of comparative risk rather than by comparative advantage. Moreover, salutary beautification would end the pursuit of large administrative salaries on a widespread basis by faculty. The comparative immunity to beautification of teaching and research would be added to the rewards of faculty service considered by promotion and tenure committees and produce substantial increases in faculty morale, which seems to be declining nationwide.

Students would be the greatest beneficiaries of my proposal. Universities could abandon their expensive and largely useless programs of customer service, because the faces of administrative staff members would be wreathed with smiles, and their tongues would learn civility without the necessity of instruction. Faculty would seek the good opinion of their students and abandon past abusive practices, desiring to avoid inclusion in the beautification pool. Programs of learning would over time conform to the requirements of life rather than those of power, and students would find themselves happily engaged in intellectual pursuits in the expectation of further happiness. The overall effect would be a widespread resurgence of academic freedom, the freedom to learn and to teach, which we all know follows the requirements of virtue. The study of Aristotle would return to the universities for the first time since the end of the middle ages, and a new era of social bliss would ensue.

Since my own state possesses great skill in beautification, I propose additionally that institutions in other states, which because of diffidence or lack of expertise might find themselves inadequately prepared for compliance, be encouraged to send their candidates for yearly beautification to Texas, where the procedure can be performed efficiently, quickly, and humanely. I note in passing that the Harris County district attorney has recently been quoted in the press as follows: 'What we hold with in Texas may not agree with what people think in Denmark or somewhere, but we in Texas think that [beautification] is appropriate.' I believe there would be no difficulty in finding the willingness in Texas to serve the beautification needs of campuses across the country, and any warehousing needs that might arise as well, Texas possessing an abundance of prison cells.