NEW FORCES AT WORK.
"You will be kind enough, sir, to write upon the blackboard two
couplets:
"'What do you _think_
I'll shave you for nothing and _give you a drink_.'
"And
"'_What_ do you think
I'll shave you for _nothing_ and give you a drink.'
"You will observe that, while the wording is the same, the inflection
is different. Please punctuate them properly, and express the idea I
intend to convey."
This from a professor, keen-eyed and unassuming in demeanor, to a big,
long-limbed young fellow, facing, with misgivings despite himself, a
portion of the test of whether or not he were qualified for admission
as a freshman into one of our great modern universities. He had not
been under much apprehension until the moment for the beginning of the
trial. There was now to be met the first issue in the new field. He
plunged into his task.
Then the professor:
"Well, yes, you have caught my idea. How write upon the board: 'This
is the forest primeval,' and a dozen lines or so following, from this
slip. Scan that for me; parse it; show me the relations of words and
clauses, and all that sort of thing."
A pause; some only half-confident explanation, and enlargement upon the
subject by the young man.
The professor again:
"H-u-u-m--well--now you may write--no, you needn't--just tell me the
difference, in your opinion, between what are known as conjunctions and
prepositions. Say what you please. We ask no odds of them. Be
utterly free in your comment."
More explanations by the young man. The professor: "We'll not pursue
that subject. You might tell us, incidentally, what a trochaic foot
is?--Yes.--And who wrote that 'Forest primeval' you just
scanned?--Certainly--That will do, I think. Oh, by the way, who was
Becky Sharp?--The most desirable woman in 'Vanity Fair,' eh? I may be
half inclined to agree with you, but I was asking who, not what. Good
afternoon. You have passed your examination in English literature. I
trust you may be equally successful in other departments. Good
afternoon, sir."
And this was all from a professor whose name was known on more than one
continent and who was counted one of the greatest of educators. Such
was his test of what of English literature was required in a freshman.
A lesser man than this great teacher would have taken an hour for the
task and learned less, for, after all, did not the examination cover
the whole ground? The droll range of the inquiry was such that the
questioner had gauged, far better than by some more ponderous and
detailed system, the quality of the young man's knowledge in one field.
One of the strong teachers this, one not afraid of a departure, and one
of those who, within the last quarter of a century, have laid the
foundations of new American universities deep and wide, and given to
the youth facilities for a learning not creed-bound, nor school-bound,
but both liberal and of all utility.
It was well for the particular freshman whose examination is here
described that his first experience with a professor was with such a
man. It gave confidence, and set him thinking. With others of the
examiners he did not, in each instance, fare so happily. What
thousands of men of the world there are to-day who remember with
something like a shudder still the inquisition of Prof. ----, whose
works on Greek are text-books in many a college; or the ferocity of
Prof. ----, to whom calculus was grander than Homer! But the woes of
freshmen are passing things.
What Grant Harlson did in college need not be told at any length. He
but plucked the fruit within his reach, not over-wisely in some
instances, yet with some industry. He had, at least, the intelligence
to feel that it is better to know all of some things than a little of
all things, and so surpassed, in such branches as were his by gift and
inclination, and but barely passed in those which went against the
mental grain.
It may be the professor of English literature had something to do with
this. Between Grant and him there grew up a friendship somewhat
unusual under all the circumstances. One day the professor was
overtaken by the student upon a by-way of the campus, and asked some
questions regarding certain changed hours of certain recitations, and,
having answered, detained the questioner carelessly in general
conversation. The elder became interested--perhaps because it was a
relief to him to talk with such a healthy animal--and, at the
termination of the interview, invited him to call. There grew up
rapidly, binding these two, between whose ages a difference of twenty
years existed, a friendship which was never broken, and which doubtless
affected to an extent the student's ways, for he at least accepted
suggestions as to studies and specialties. This relationship resulted
naturally in transplanting to the mind of the youth some of the fancies
and, possibly, the foibles of the man. One incident will illustrate.
The student, during a summer vacation, had devoted himself largely to
the copying of Macaulay's essays, for, in his teens, one is much
impressed by the rolling sentences of that great writer. Upon his
return Harlson told of his summer not entirely wasted, and expressed
the hope that he might have absorbed some trifle of the writer's style.
The professor of English literature laughed.
"Better have taken Carlyle's 'French Revolution' or any one of half a
dozen books which might be named. Let me tell a little story. Some
time ago a fellow professor of mine was shown by a Swedish servant girl
in his employ a letter she had just written, with the request that he
would correct it. He found nothing to correct. It was a wonderfully
clear bit of epistolary literature. He was surprised, and questioned
the girl. He learned that, though well educated, she knew but little
English, and had sought the dictionary, revising her own letter by
selecting the shortest words to express the idea. Hence the letter's
strength and clearness. Stick to the Saxon closely. Macaulay will
wear off in time." And this was better teaching than one sometimes
gets in class.
This is no tale of the inner life of an American university. It is but
a brief summary of young Harlson's ways there. But some day, I hope, a
Thomas Hughes will come who will write the story, which can be made as
healthful as "Tom Brown," though it will have a different flavor. What
a chance for character study! What opportunity for an Iliad of many a
gallant struggle! Valuable only in a lesser degree than what is
learned from books is what is learned from men in college, that is,
from young men, and herein lies the greater merit of the greater place.
In the little college, however high the grade of study, there is a lack
of one thing broadening, a lack of acquaintance with the youth of many
regions. The living together of a thousand hailing from Maine or
California, or Oregon or Florida, or Canada or England, young men of
the same general grade and having the same general object, is a great
thing for them all. It obliterates the prejudice of locality, and
gives to each the key-note of the region of another. It builds up an
acquaintance among those who will be regulating a land's affairs from
different vantage-grounds in years to come, and has its most practical
utility in this. When men meet to nominate a President this fact comes
out most strongly. The man from Texas makes a combination with the man
from Michigan, and two delegations swing together, for have not these
two men well known each other since the day their classes met in a rush
upon the campus twenty years ago?
No studious recluse was Harlson. His backwoods training would not
allow of that. In every class encounter, in every fray with townsmen,
it is to be feared in almost every hazing, after his own gruesome
experience--for they hazed then vigorously--he was a factor, and
beefsteak had been bound upon his cheek on more than one occasion. A
rollicking class was his, though not below the average in its
scholarship, and the sometimes reckless mood of it just suited him.
"There were three men of Babylon, of Babylon, of Babylon."
There is what some claim is an aristocracy in American colleges. It is
asserted that the leading Greek fraternities are this, and that the
existence of Alpha Delta Phi, Psi Upsilon or Delta Kappa Epsilon, or
others of the secret groups, is not a good thing for the students as a
whole. Yet in the existence of these societies is forged another of
the links of life to come outside, and all the good things to be gained
in college are not the ratings won in classes. Harlson was one of
those with badges and deep in college politics. He never had occasion
to repent it.
And so, with study, some rough encounter and much scheming and much
dreaming, time passed until the world outside loomed up again at close
quarters. The present view was a new struggle. The great money
question intervened. There had come a blight upon his father's dollar
crop, and when Grant Harlson left the university he was so nearly
penniless that the books he owned were sold to pay his railroad fare.