When Stover returned to college as a junior, he showed the results of
his summer with Regan. He had gone into construction gangs, and learned
to obey and to command. He had had a glimpse of what the struggle for
existence meant in the stirring masses; and he had known the keenness of
a little joy and the reality of sorrow to those for whom everything in
life was real.
He had long ago surrendered the idea of entering Skull and Bones over
the enmity of Reynolds and Le Baron, and this relinquishing somehow
robbed him of all the awe that he had once felt. He had returned a man,
tempered by knowledge of the world, distinguishing between the
incidental in college life and the vital opportunity within his grasp.
The new debating club, launched in the previous spring, had been an
instant success, and its composition, carefully representative, had
become the nucleus of a new comradeship in the class. With the one idea
of proving his fitness to lead in this new harmonizing development,
Stover made his room a true meeting-place of the class, and, loyally
aided by Hungerford and Story, sought to restore all the old-time zest
and good-will to the gatherings about the sophomore fence. His efforts
were met by a latent opposition from Hunter and Bain, on one side, who
never outgrew their wounded resentment, and from Gimbel on the other,
who, though enthusiastically seconding him in the open, felt secretly
that he was being supplanted.
But, as Story had foreseen, Stover had the magnetism and the energy to
carry through what no other leader would have accomplished. Once
resolved on the accomplishment, upheld by a strong sentimental devotion,
Stover went at his task with a blunt directness that disdains all
objections.
Each Saturday night was given over to a rally of the class _en masse_ at
the Tontine. Certain groups held off at first, but soon came into the
fold when Stover, who was no respecter of persons, would find occasion
to say publicly:
"Hello there, what happened to you last night? Get out of that
silk-lined atmosphere of yours! Wake up! You're not too good for us, are
you?"
"Well, why weren't you there? It's no orgy--you can get lemonade or milk
if you want. There are bad men present, but we keep 'em from biting."
"I say, forget your poker game for one night. We all know you're dead
game sports. That's why we want you--to give us an atmosphere of real
life."
The remarks were made half in jest, half in earnest, but they seldom
failed of their object. At the Saturday night rallies it was the same.
Stover was everywhere, saying with his good-humored, impudent smile what
no one else dared to say, sometimes startling them with his boldness:
"Here now, fellows, no grouping around here. We want to see a sport and
a gospel shark sitting arm in arm. Come on, Schley, your social
position's all right--there's only one crowd here to-night. No one here
is going to boost you into a senior society. Percolate, fellows,
percolate. We've scrapped like Sam Hill, now we're tired of it. No more
biting, scratching, or gouging. Don't forget this is a love feast, and
they're going to be lovelier. Now let's try over that song for the
Princeton game. Bob Story perpetrated it--pretty rotten, I think, but
let's hit it up all the same."
The rallies jumped into popularity. The class gasped, then laughed at
Stover's abrupt reference to the late unpleasantness, and with the laugh
all constraint went. The class found itself, as a regiment returns to
its pride again. It went to the games in a body, it healed its
differences, and packed the long room at the Tontine each Saturday
night, shouting out the chorus which Buck Waters, McNab, Stone, and the
talent led.
Many, undoubtedly, marvelling at the ease with which Stover had inspired
the gathering, admired him for what they believed was a clever bid for
society honors. But the truth was that he succeeded because he had no
underlying motive, because he had achieved in himself absolute
independence and fearlessness of any outer criticism, and his strength
with the crowd was just the consciousness of his own liberty.
By the fall of junior year, he was the undisputed leader of the class, a
force that had brought to it a community of interest and friendly
understanding. Unknown to him, his classmates began to regard him,
despite his old defiance, as one whom a senior society could not
overlook. Stover had no such feeling. He believed that the hatred in
what remained of the sophomore society organization was, and would
continue, unrelenting, and this conviction had determined him in a
course of action to which he was impelled by other reasons.
He went through the football season as he had gone through the previous
season, with a record for distinguished brilliancy, acclaimed by all as
the best end in years, the probable captain of the next year. He wanted
the position, as he had desired it on his first arrival at Yale, and yet
he surrendered it. Hunter had developed into a tackle and made the team.
In the class below were two men of the defunct sophomore societies.
Stover had vividly before him the record of Dana, his captain of
freshman year, and the memory of the ordeal after the game, when he had
stood up and acknowledged his lack of leadership.
That this still resentful society element in the eleven would follow him
with distaste and reluctance, despite all traditional loyalty, he knew
too well. Moreover, sure that he was destined to be passed over on Tap
Day, he felt perhaps too keenly the handicap of such a rejection. Then,
at the bottom, reluctantly, he knew in his heart that Regan was the born
leader of men, and what once he had rebelled against he finally
acknowledged.
So when at the end of a victorious season the members of the eleven
gathered for the election of the next year's captain, he stood up
immediately and stated his views. It was a difficult announcement to
make, both on the score of seeming sentimentality, and from the danger
of seeming to refuse what might not be offered him.
But during the tests of the last year the self-consciousness which would
have prevented Brockhurst's expressing himself had completely gone.
Determined on one course of action, to be his own master, to do what he
wanted to do, and to say what he wanted to say, in absolute
fearlessness, he spoke with a frankness that amazed his comrades, still
under the fetish of upper-class supremacy.
"Before we begin," he said, "I've a few words I want to say. I suppose I
am a candidate here. I don't say I shouldn't be crazy to have the
captaincy. I would--any one would. What I say is that I have thought it
over and I withdraw my name. Even if you hadn't in Tom Regan here the
best type of leader you could get, it would be very unfortunate for our
chances next year if I were chosen. I'm quite aware that in a certain
element of the team, due to the open stand I felt forced to take in the
question of the sophomore society, there is a great deal of resentment
against me. I can understand that; it is natural. But there should be no
such division in a Yale team. We've got a tough fight next year, and we
need a captain about whom are no enmities, who'll command every bit of
the loyalty of the team"--he paused a moment--"and every bit of help he
can get from the college. I move that Tom Regan be unanimously elected
captain."
There was quite an outcry at the end of his declaration, especially from
Regan, who was utterly surprised. But Stover held firm, and perceived,
not without a little secret resentment, that the outcome came with
relief not only to the team but to the coaches.
When they returned, and Regan was still protesting, Stover said frankly:
"Look here, Tom, we don't split hairs with one another. If I had thought
it was right for me to stand for it I would have. I wanted it--like
hell. You remember Dana? I do. It's an awful thing to lead a team into
defeat, and say I was responsible. I don't care to do it. Besides, you
are the better man--and I'm of such a low, skulking nature I hate to
admit it. So shut up and buy me a rabbit at Mory's. I'm hungry as a
pirate."
He had said nothing of his determination to any one. He had been tempted
to talk it over with Jean Story, but he had refrained, feeling
instinctively that in her ambition for him, and in her inability to
judge the depth of certain antagonisms towards him, she would oppose
his determination.
The four friends had gone to Lyceum together--Swazey and Pike were in
the same building. There was a certain flavor of the simplicity and
ruggedness of old Yale in the building that gave to the meetings in
their rooms a character of old-time spontaneity.
By the opening of the winter term, Stover, the enthusiast, had begun to
see the weakness of movements that must depend on organization. The
debating club, which had started with a zest, soon showed its
limitations. Once the edge of novelty had worn off, there were too many
diverting interests to throng in and deplete the ranks.
When, following Regan's suggestion, they had attempted a new division on
the lines of the political parties, the result was decidedly
disappointing. There was no natural interest to draw upon, and the
political discussions, instead of fanning the club into a storm of
partizanship, lapsed into the hands of perfunctory debaters.
Regan himself took his disillusionment much to heart. They discussed the
reasons of the failure one stormy afternoon at one of their informal
discussions, to which they had returned with longing.
"What the devil is the matter?" said the big fellow savagely. "Why,
where I come from, the people I see, every mother's son of them, feed on
politics, talk nothing else--they love it! And here if you ask a man if
he's a Republican or a Democrat, he writes home and asks his father. A
condition like this doesn't exist anywhere else on the face of the
globe. And this is America. Why?"
When he had propounded the question, there was a busy, unresponsive
puffing of pipes, and then Pike added:
"That's what hits me, too. Just look at the questions that are coming
up; popular election of senators, income tax, direct primaries; it's
like building over the government again, and no one here cares or knows
what's doing. I say, why?"
"There may be fifty-two reasons for it," said Brockhurst, in his
staccato, biting way. "One is, our colleges are all turning into social
clearing houses, and every one is too absorbed in that engrossing
process to know what happens outside; second is the fact that our
universities are admirably organized instruments for the prevention of
learning!"
"Good old Brocky," said Swazey with a chuckle. "Just what I like; stormy
outside, warm inside, and Brocky at the bat. Serve 'em up."
Brockhurst, who was used to this reception of his pointed
generalizations, paid no heed. He, too, had grown in mental stature and
in control. A certain diffidence was over him, and always would be; but
when a subject came up that interested him, he forgot himself, and
rushed into the argument with a zeal that never failed to arouse his
listeners.
Brockhurst turned on Swazey with the license that was always
permissible.
"Well, what do you know? You've been here going on three years. You are
supposed to be more than half educated. And you're not a fair example
either, because you really are seeking to know something."
"Well, go on," said Swazey, thoroughly aroused.
"What do you know about the Barbizon school, and the logical reasons for
the revolt of the impressionists?"
Instantly there was an outcry:
"Not fair."
"Oh, I say."
"That's no test."
"Finishing your third year, gentlemen," said Brockhurst triumphantly,
"age over twenty; the art of painting is of course known to the
aborigines only in its cruder forms. Well, does any one know at least
who Manet is, or what he's painted?"
There was an accusing silence.
"Of course you've an idea of the Barbizon school--one or two of you. You
remember something about a Man with a Hoe or the Angelus--that's Sunday
supplement education. Now let me try you. Please raise hands, little
boys, when you know the answer to these questions, but don't bluff
teacher. I'm not contending you should have a detailed knowledge of the
world in your eager, studious minds. I am saying that you haven't the
slightest general information. I'll make my questions fair.
"First, music: I won't ask you the tendencies and theories of the modern
schools--you won't know that such a thing as a theory in music exists.
You know the opera of Carmen--good old Toreadore song. Do you know the
name of the composer? One hand--Bob Story. Do you know the history of
its reception? Do you know the sources of it? Do you know what Bach's
influence was in the development of music? Did you ever hear of
Leoncavallo, Verdi, or that there is such a thing as a Russian composer?
Absolute silence. You have a hazy knowledge of Wagner, and you know that
Chopin wrote a funeral march. That is your foothold in music; there you
balance, surrounded by howling waters of ignorance.
"Take up architecture. Do you know who built the Vatican? Do you know
the great buildings of the world--or a single thing about Greek, Roman
and Renaissance architecture? Do you know what the modern French
movement is based upon? Nothing.
"Take up religion. Do you know anything about Confucius, Shintoism, or
Swedenborg, beyond the names? Of course you would not know that under
Louis XVI a determined movement was made to reunite the Catholic and
Protestant branches, which almost succeeded. That's unfair, because of
course it is the forerunner of the great religious movement to-day. Do
you know the history of the external symbols of the Christian religion,
and what is historically new? Darkness denser and denser.
"Take literature. You have excavated a certain amount of Shakespeare,
and grubbed among Elizabethans, and cursed Spenser. Who has read Taine's
History of English Literature, or known in fact who Taine is? Only Bob
Story. And yet there is the greatest book on the whole subject; you
could abolish the English department and substitute it. Beside Story,
who else has had even a fair reading knowledge of any other
literature--Russian, Norwegian, German, French, Italian? Who knows
enough about any one of these writers to look wise and nod; Renan,
Turgeniev, Daudet, Björnson, Hauptman, Suderman, Strindberg? Do you know
anything about Goethe as a critic, or the influence of Poe upon French
literature? What do you know? I'll tell you. You know Les Misérables and
The Three Musketeers in French literature. You know Goethe wrote Faust.
You're beginning to know Ibsen as a name, and one may have read Tolstoi,
and all know that he's a very old man with a long white beard, who lives
among his peasants, has some queer ideas, and has started to die three
or four times. The papers have told you that.
"Take another field, of simple curiosity on what is doing in a world in
which by opportunity you are supposed to be of the leading class. What
do you know about the strength and spread of socialism in Germany,
France and England? In the first place no one of you here probably has
any idea of what socialism is; you've been told it's anarchy, and, as
that only means dynamite to you, you are against socialism, and will
never take the trouble to investigate it. What do you know about the new
political experiments in New Zealand?--nothing. What do you know about
the labor pension system in Germany, or the separation of the church and
state in France?--all subjects dealing with the vital development of the
race of bipeds on this earth of which you happen to be members.
"Now here is a catch question--all candidates for the dunce-cap will
take a guess. The Botticelli story is such a chestnut now that you all
know that it isn't a cheese or a wine--credit that to ridicule. I'm
going to give you a few names from all the professions, and let's see
who can tag them. What was Spinoza, Holman Hunt, Dostoiefski, Ambrose
Thomas, Savonarola (if you've read the novel you'd know that), Bastien
Le Page, Zorn, Bizet, Bossuet! Unfair?--not at all. These things are
just as necessary to know to a man of education and culture as it is to
a man of good manners to realize that peas are not introduced into the
mouth by being balanced on a knife."
"Help!" cried Hungerford, as Brockhurst went rushing on. "Great Scott,
what _do_ we know?"
"You know absolutely nothing," said Brockhurst savagely. "Here you are;
look at yourselves--four years when you ought to learn something, some
informing knowledge of all that has developed during the four thousand
years the human race has fought its way toward the light, four years to
be filled with the marvel and splendor of it all, and you don't know a
thing.
"You don't know the big men in music; you don't know the pioneers and
the leaders in any art; you don't know the great literatures of the
world, and what they represent; you don't know how other races are
working out their social destinies; you've never even stopped to examine
yourselves, to analyze your own society, to see the difference between a
civilization founded on the unit of the individual, and a civilization,
like the Latin, on the indestructible advance of the family. You have no
general knowledge, no intellectual interests, you haven't even opinions,
and at the end of four years of _education_ you will march up and be
handed a degree--Bachelor of Arts! Magnificent! And we Americans have a
sense of humor! Do you wonder why I repeat that our colleges are
splendidly organized institutions for the prevention of learning? No,
sir, we are business colleges, and the business of our machines is to
stamp out so many business men a year, running at full speed and in
competition with the latest devices in Cambridge and Princeton!"
"Brocky, you are terrific," said Swazey in admiration. There was too
much truth in the attack, violent as it was, not to have called forth
serious attention.
"I feel a good deal the way you do," said Bob Story, and Stover nodded,
"only it seems to me, Brocky, a good deal of what you're arguing for
must come from outside--in just such informal talks as this."
"That's true," said Brockhurst. "If the stimulus in the college life
itself were toward education all our meetings would be educational.
It's true abroad, it isn't here. You know my views. You think I'm
extreme. I'm getting an education because I didn't accept any such
flap-doodle as, 'What am I going to do for Yale?' but instead asked,
'What has Yale got to offer me?' I'm getting it, too."
Stover suddenly remembered the conversation they had together the year
before, and looking now at Brockhurst, revealed in a new strength, he
began to understand what had then so repelled him.
"The great fault," continued Brockhurst, "lies, however, with the
colleges. The whole theory is wrong, archaic and ridiculous--the theory
of education by schedule. All education can do is to instil the love of
knowledge. You get that, you catch the fire of it--you educate yourself.
All education does to-day is to develop the memory at the expense of the
imagination. It says: 'Here are so many pounds of Greek, Latin,
mathematics, history, literature. In four years our problem is to pass
them through the heads of these hundreds of young barbarians so that
they will come out with a lip knowledge.'"
"But come, we do learn something," said Hungerford.
"No, you don't, Joe," said Brockhurst. "You've translated the
Iliad--you've never known it. You've recited in Horace--you have no love
for him. You've excavated the plays of Shakespeare, a couple of acts at
a time; you don't know what Hamlet means or Lear, the beauty of it all
has escaped you. You've _recited_ in Logic and Philosophy, but you don't
understand what you're repeating. You're only _repeating_ all the time.
Your memory is trained to hold a little knowledge a little time--that's
all. You don't enjoy it, you're rather apologetic--or others are."
"Well, what other system is there?" said Regan.
"There is the preceptorial system of England," said Brockhurst, "where a
small group of men are in personal contact with the instructor. In
French universities, education is a serious thing because failure to
pass an examination for a profession means two extra years of army
service. Men don't risk over there, or divide up their time heeling the
_News_ or making a team. In Germany a man is given a certain number of
years to get a degree, and I believe has to do a certain amount of
original work.
"But of course the main trouble here is, and there is no blinking the
fact, that the colleges have surrendered unconsciously a great deal of
their power to the growing influence of the social organization. In a
period when we have no society in America, families are sending their
sons to colleges to place themselves socially. Some of them carry it to
an extreme, even directly avow their hope that they will make certain
clubs at Princeton or Harvard, or a senior society here. It probably is
very hard to control, but it's going to turn our colleges more and more,
as I say, into social clearing houses. At present here at Yale we keep
down the question of wealth pretty well; fellows like Joe Hungerford
here come in and live on our basis. That's the best feature about Yale
to-day--how it will be in the future I don't know, for it depends on the
wisdom of the parents."
"Social clearing house is well coined," said Hungerford. "I think it's
truer though of Harvard."
"That's perhaps because you see the mote in your neighbors' eyes," said
Brocky rising. "Well, discussion isn't going to change it. Who's always
talking about school for character--Pike or Brown? We might as well
stand for that--but it would not be very wise to announce it to the
American nation, would it?--we might be dubbed a reformatory. Fathers,
send your sons to college--reform their characters, straighten out the
crooks. At the end give 'em a degree of--of, say--G. B."
"What's that, Brocky?" said Swazey, grinning with the rest.
"Good Boy," said Brockhurst, who departed, as he liked, on the echoes of
the laugh which he had inspired.
"Whew!" said Hungerford, with a comical rubbing of his head. "What
struck me?"
"And I expect to make Phi Beta Kappa," said Swazey, with an apologetic
laugh.
"What a dreadfully disconcerting person," said Bob Story.
"By George, it takes the conceit out of you," said Stover ruthfully.
"Shall we all start in and learn something? What's the answer?"
At this moment a familiar slogan was heard below, increasing in riotous,
pagan violence with the approach of boisterous feet.
"_Oh, father and mother_
_Pay all the bills,_
_And we have all the fun._
_Hooray!_
_That's the way we do in college life--_
_In college life._"
The room burst into a roar of laughter.
"There's one answer," said Regan rising.
The door slammed open, and McNab and Buck Waters reeled in arm in arm.
"I say, fellows, we've cornered the sleigh market," said Dopey
uproariously. "We're all going to beat it to the Cheshire Inn, a bottle
of champagne to the first to arrive. Are you on?"
Half an hour later, Stover at the reins was whirling madly along the
crusty roads, in imminent danger of collision with three other
rollicking parties, who packed the sleighs and cheered on the galloping
horses, singing joyfully the battle hymn of the pagans:
"_Oh, father and mother_
_Pay all the bills,_
_And we have all the fun._
_Hooray!_
_That's the way we do_
_In college life._"