a new sensation. I did not understand it at first and misinterpreted
many things. The few days preceding the opening of the college sessions
I spent chasing around for a boarding-house, while my classmates were
hanging around the college buildings, making arrangements to join this
or that fraternity, and also solidifying the line of defense of the
freshmen against the hostile sophomores. There was a lively process of
organization going on under the leadership of groups of boys who came
from the same preparatory schools. These groups led and the others
were expected to follow without a murmur. Insubordination or even
indifference was condemned as lack of college spirit. This spirit was
necessary among the freshmen particularly, because, as I was informed
later, there was a great common danger--the sophomores! I saw some of
this feverish activity going on, but did not understand its meaning
and hence remained outside of it, as if I were a stranger and not a
member of the freshman class, which I heard described, by the freshmen
themselves, as the best freshman class in the history of Columbia.
The sophomores denied this in a most provoking manner; hence the
hostility. Nobody paid any attention to me; nobody knew me, because I
did not come from any of the preparatory schools which prepared boys
for Columbia. One day I saw on the campus two huge waves of lively
youngsters beating against each other just like inrolling waves of
the sea lifting on their backs the returning waves which had been
reflected from the cliffs of the shore. The freshmen were defending
a cane against fierce attacks of the sophomores. It was the historic
Columbia cane rush, I was told by Michael, the college janitor,
who stood alongside of me as I looked on. It was not a real fight
resulting in broken noses or blackened eyes, but just a most vigorous
push-and-pull contest, the sophomores trying to take possession of a
cane which a strong freshman, surrounded by a stalwart body-guard of
freshmen, was holding and guarding just as a guard of fanatic monks
would defend the sacred relics of a great saint. This freshmen group
was the centre of the scrimmage and it stood there like a high rock in
the midst of an angry sea. Coats and shirts were torn off the backs of
the brave fighters, some attacking and others defending the central
group, but not a single ugly swear-word was heard nor did I see a
single sign of intentional bloodshed. Members of the junior and senior
classes watched as umpires. Michael, the janitor, who knew everybody
on the college campus as a shepherd knows his sheep, was not quite
certain about my identity. He asked me whether I was a freshman, and
when I said “yes,” he asked me why in the world I was not in the rush,
defending the freshmen body-guard. He looked so anxious and worried
that I felt sure of being guilty of some serious offense against old
Columbia traditions. I immediately took off my coat and stiff shirt
and plunged into the surging waves of sophomores and freshmen and
had almost reached the central body-guard of freshmen, eager to join
in its defense, when a sophomore, named Frank Henry, grabbed me and
pulled me back, telling me that I had no business to cross the line of
umpires at that late moment. I did not know the rules of the game and
shoved him aside and we clinched. He was the strongest man in Columbia
College, as I learned later, but my kindling-wood operations on the
banks of the Passaic River had made me a stiff opponent. We wrestled
and wrestled and would have wrestled till sunset like Prince Marco and
the Arab Moussa Kessedjia in the old Serbian ballads, if the umpires
had not proclaimed the cane rush a draw. The main show being over,
the side show which Henry and I were keeping up had no further useful
purpose to serve, and we stopped and shook hands. He was glad to stop,
he admitted, and so was I, but he told my classmates that “if that
terrible Turk had been selected a member of the freshmen body-guard
the result of the cane rush might have been different.” I told him
that I was a Serb, and not a Turk, and he apologized, saying that he
could never draw very fine distinctions between the various races in
the Balkans. “But, whatever race you are,” said he, “you will be a good
fellow if you will learn to _play the game_.” Splendid advice from a
college boy! “_Play the game_,” what a wonderful phrase! I studied it
long, and the more I thought about it the more I was convinced that one
aspect of the history of this country with all its traditions is summed
up in these three words. No foreigner can understand this country who
does not know the full meaning of this phrase, which I first heard from
a Columbia College youngster. No foreign language can so translate the
phrase as to reproduce its brevity and at the same time convey its full
meaning. But, when I heard it, I thought of the bootblacks and newsboys
who, five years previously, had acted as umpires when I defended my
right to wear a red fez. To “play the game” according to the best
traditions of the land which offered me all of its opportunities was
always my idea of Americanization. But how many immigrants to this
land can be made to understand this?
Some little time after this incident I was approached by the captain
of the freshman crew, who asked me to join his crew. I remembered
young Lukanitch’s opinion about oarsmanship at Columbia, and I was
sorely tempted. But, unfortunately, I had only three hundred and eleven
dollars when I started my college career, and I knew that if I was to
retain my free tuition by high standing in scholarship and also earn
further money for my living expenses I should have no time for other
activities. “Study, work for a living, no participation in college
activities outside of the recitation-room! Do you call that college
training?” asked the captain of the freshman crew, looking perfectly
surprised at my story, which, being the son of wealthy parents, he
did not understand. I admitted that it was not, in the full sense of
the word, but that I was not in a position to avail myself of all the
opportunities which Columbia offered me, and that, in fact, I had
already obtained a great deal more than an immigrant could reasonably
have expected. I touched his sympathetic chord, and I felt that I had
made a new friend. The result of this interview was that my classmates
refrained from asking me to join any of the college activities for
fear that my inability to comply with their request might make me
feel badly. I had their sympathy, but I missed their fellowship, and
therefore I missed in my freshman year much of that splendid training
outside of the classroom which an American college offers to its
students.
At the end of the freshman year I gained two prizes of one hundred
dollars each, one in Greek and the other in mathematics. They were won
in stiff competitive examinations and meant a considerable scholastic
success, but, nevertheless, they excited little interest among my
classmates. Results of examinations were considered a personal matter
of the individual student himself and not of his fellow classmen. The
prizes were practically the only money upon which I could rely to
help carry me through my second year. The estimated budget for that
year, however, was not fully provided for, and I looked for a job
for the long summer vacation. I did not want a job in the city. My
kindling-wood activity of the preceding summer suited me better, and
after some consultation with my friend Christopher, the kindling-wood
peddler of Rutherford Park, I decided to accept a job on a contract
of his to mow hay during that summer in the various sections of the
Hackensack lowlands. No Columbia athlete ever had a better opportunity
to develop his back and biceps than I had during that summer. I made
good use of it, and earned seventy-five dollars net.
When my sophomore year began I awaited the cane rush which, according
to old Columbia custom, took place between the sophomores and the
freshmen at the beginning of each academic year, and I was prepared
for it; I knew also what it meant to “play the game.” This time my
class had to do the attacking and I helped with a vengeance. The
muscles which had been hardened in the Hackensack meadows proved most
effective and the result was that shortly I had the freshmen’s cane on
the ground, and was lying flat over it, covering it with my chest. The
pressure of a score of freshmen and sophomores piled up on top of me
threatened to squeeze the cane through my chest bone, which already, I
imagined, was pressing against my lungs, my difficult breathing leading
me to think that my last hour had come. Fortunately, the umpires
cleared away the lively heap of struggling boys on top of me, and I
breathed freely again. Some freshmen were found stretched alongside
of me with their hands holding on to the stick. An equal number of
sophomores held on, and, consequently, the umpires declared the rush
a draw. Nobody was anxious to have another rush, and it was proposed
by the freshmen to settle the question of class superiority by a
wrestling-match, two best out of three falls, catch as catch can. They
had a big fellow who had some fame as a wrestler of great strength, and
they issued a defiant challenge to the sophomores. My classmates held
a meeting in order to pick a match for the freshman giant, but nobody
seemed to be quite up to the job. Finally I volunteered, declaring
that I was not afraid to tackle the freshman giant. “Do you expect to
down him with Greek verses and mathematical formulæ?” shouted some of
my classmates, who had grave doubts about the muscle and the wrestling
ability of a fellow who had won Greek and mathematical prizes. They
knew nothing about my strenuous mowing in the Hackensack meadows
during three long months of that summer. The captain of the class crew
approached me, felt my biceps, my chest, and my back, and shouted,
“All right!” The wrestling-match came off, and the freshman giant
had no show with a boy who had learned the art of wrestling on the
pasture-lands of Idvor, and had held his own against experienced mowers
in the Hackensack meadows. The victory was quick and complete, and my
classmates carried me in triumph to Fritz’s saloon, not far from the
college, where many a toast was drunk to “Michael the Serbian.” From
that day on my classmates called me by my first name and took me up as
if I had been a distinguished descendant of Alexander Hamilton himself.
My scholastic victory in Greek and mathematics meant nothing to my
classmates, because it was a purely personal matter, but my athletic
victory meant everything, because it was a victory of my whole class.
Had I won my scholastic victory in competition with a representative
from another college, then the matter would have had an entirely
different aspect. _Esprit de corps_ is one of those splendid things
which American college life cultivates, and I had the good fortune to
reap many benefits from it. He who pays no attention to this _esprit de
corps_ in an American college runs the risk of being dubbed a “greasy
grind.”
The sophomore year opened auspiciously. Eight of my classmates formed
a class, the Octagon, and invited me to coach them in Greek and in
mathematics, twice a week. The captain of the class crew was a member
of it. I suspected that he remembered my reasons for refusing to join
the freshman crew and wanted to help. The Octagon class was a great
help in more ways than one. I gave instruction in wrestling also to
several classmates, in exchange for instruction in boxing. This was
my physical exercise, and it was a strenuous one. Devereux Emmet,
a descendant of the great Irish patriot, was one of these exchange
instructors; he could stand any amount of punishment in our boxing
bouts, which impressed upon my mind the truth of the saying that
“blood will tell.” Before the sophomore year was over my classmates
acknowledged me not only a champion in Greek and in mathematics, but
also a champion in wrestling and boxing. The combination was somewhat
unusual and legends began to be spun about it, but they did not turn
my head, nor lull me to sleep, not even when they led to my election
as class president for the junior year. This was indeed a great
compliment, for, because of the junior promenade, the dance given
annually by the junior class, it was customary to elect for that year
a class president who was socially very prominent. A distinguished
classmate, a descendant of three great American names, and a shining
light in New York’s younger social set, was my chief opponent and I
begged to withdraw in his favor; a descendant of Hamilton inspired awe.
But my opponent would not listen to it. He was a member of the most
select fraternity and not at all unpopular, but many of my classmates
objected to him, although he was the grandson of a still living
former Secretary of State and chairman of the board of trustees of
Columbia College. They thought that he paid too much attention to the
fashion-plates of London, and dressed too fashionably. There were other
Columbia boys at that time who, I thought, dressed just as fashionably,
and yet they were very popular; but they were fine athletes, whereas
my opponent was believed to rely too much upon the history of his long
name and upon his splendid appearance. He certainly was a fine example
of classical repose; his classmates, however, admired action. He was
like a young Alcibiades in breeding, looks, and pose, but not in action.
Some of the old American colleges have been accused from time to time
of encouraging snobbery and a spirit of aristocracy which is not in
harmony with American ideas of democracy. My personal experience as
student at Columbia gives competency to my opinion upon that subject.
Snobs will be found in every country and clime, but there were fewer
snobs at Columbia in those days than in many other much less exalted
places, although Columbia at that time was accused of being a nest
of dudes and snobs. This was one of the arguments advanced by those
friends of mine at the Adelphi Academy who tried to persuade me to
go to Princeton or Yale. The spirit of aristocracy was there, but it
was an aristocracy of the same kind as existed in my native peasant
village. It was a spirit of unconscious reverence for the best American
traditions. I say “unconscious,” and by that I mean absence of noisy
chauvinism and of that racial intolerance by which the Teutonism of
Austria and the Magyarism of Hungary had driven me away from Prague
and from Panchevo. A name with a fine American tradition back of it
attracted much attention, but it was only a letter of recommendation.
He who was found wanting in his make-up and in his conduct when
weighed by the best Columbia College traditions--and they were a
part of American traditions--had a lonely time during his college
career, in spite of his illustrious name or his family’s great wealth.
Foreign-born students, like Cubans and South Americans, met with a
respectful indifference so long as they remained foreigners. Needless
to say, many of them adopted rapidly the attractive ways of the
Columbia boys. But nobody would have resented it, or even paid any
attention to it, if they had retained their foreign ways. A hopeless
fellow became a member of that very small class of students known at
that time as “muckers.” They complained bitterly of snobbery and of
aristocracy. I do not believe that either the spirit of plutocracy,
or of socialism and communism, or of any other un-American current
of thought could ever start from an American college like Columbia
of those days, and bore its way into American life. That type of
aristocracy which made the American college immune from contagion
by un-American influence existed; it was very exacting, and it was
much encouraged. But when American college boys, accused of bowing to
the spirit of aristocracy, have among them a Hamilton, a Livingston,
a DeWitt, and several descendants of Jay, and yet elect for class
president the penniless son of a Serbian peasant village, because they
admire his mental and physical efforts to learn and to comply with
Columbia’s traditions, one can rest assured that the spirit of American
democracy was very much alive in those college boys.
My success with the Octagon class established my reputation as a doctor
for “lame ducks.” This was the name of those students who failed in
their college examinations, usually examinations in Greek, Latin, and
mathematics. Lame ducks needed a special treatment, called coaching.
I became quite an expert in it, and presently I saw a flock of lame
ducks gathering around me, offering liberal rewards for a speedy cure.
My summer vacations no longer called me to the Passaic River to cut
kindling-wood, nor to the Hackensack meadows to strain my back to
the utmost trying to keep up with experienced mowers. Coaching lame
ducks was incomparably more remunerative and also left me with plenty
of leisure time for tennis, horseback riding, or swimming and diving
contests. During the college sessions I usually had in charge several
bad cases of academic lameness, cases that could not be cured during
the summer vacations, but had to be carefully nursed throughout the
whole academic year. Financially I fared better than most of my young
professors, and I saved, looking ahead for the realization of a pet
dream of mine. My coaching experience was remunerative not only from
the material but also from the cultural side; it brought me in touch
with some of the best exponents of New York’s social life, where I
found a hearty welcome, a friendly sympathy, and many lessons which I
considered as among the most valuable acquisitions in my college life.
One of them deserves special mention here.
Lewis Morris Rutherfurd, a trustee of Columbia College, was at that
time the head of the famous Rutherfurd family. He was a gentleman of
leisure and devoted himself to science and particularly to photographic
astronomy, just as did his famous friend, Doctor John William Draper,
the author of the “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.”
Rutherfurd was a pioneer worker in this field of astronomy, and his
photographs of the moon and of the stars were always regarded by the
scientists of the world as most valuable contributions to astronomy.
The historic Rutherfurd mansion, with its astronomical observatory,
was on Eleventh Street and Second Avenue. Rutherfurd’s sons, Lewis and
Winthrop, were my fellow students at Columbia; Lewis was a year ahead
of me and Winthrop was a year below me. Through their cousin, a chum
and classmate of mine, I became acquainted with them. No handsomer boys
ever sat in Hamilton Hall: tall, athletic, and graceful, just like
two splendid products of the physical culture of classical Greece.
One of them held the American championship in racquets, and the Long
Island hunt clubs counted them among their best steeplechase riders.
Lewis just squeezed his way through college, but Winthrop, owing to
circumstances beyond his control, threatened to drop by the academic
roadside; the load of some seven conditions was too heavy and too
discouraging.
My chum, Winthrop’s cousin mentioned above, was a brilliant raconteur,
and he used to spin out with wonderful skill many a funny tale about
my coaching experiences, describing in a grotesque manner how an
audacious youngster, straying over here from a Serbian peasant village,
was bullying young aristocrats of New York, and how these aristocrats
were submitting to it like little lambs. Rutherfurd, senior, who was
my chum’s uncle, heard some of these humorous tales. He enjoyed them
hugely, and they suggested to him a scheme for diminishing somewhat
his son’s heavy load of conditions. He and his family were to spend
the summer of 1882 in Europe, and he suggested that Winthrop and I go
to his country place, where we could rule supreme and spend the summer
preparing for Winthrop’s autumn examinations. Winthrop consented, in
order to please his family, and he agreed to the definite programme of
work which I prescribed. Rutherfurd, senior, was anxious that Winthrop
should breathe the atmosphere of Columbia College for four years, even
if he should not get the full benefit of the college curriculum. He
had a view of college education which was somewhat novel to me and
made me understand more clearly the question which the captain of the
freshman crew had addressed to me in my freshman year: “Study, work
for a living, no participation in college activities outside of the
recitation rooms! Do you call that college training?” But I shall
return to this a little later.
“Winthrop is very fond of you,” said Rutherfurd, senior, before he
sailed for Europe, “and if you fail to pull him through, that will be
the end of his college career. Your job is a difficult one, almost
hopeless, but if you should succeed you would place me under a very
great obligation.” I was already under great obligations to him, for he
had disclosed a view of the world of intellect before my eyes such as
nobody else ever had. New York never produced a finer type of gentleman
and scholar than was Lewis Rutherfurd. His personality impressed me
as Henry Ward Beecher’s had, and I could easily have persuaded myself
that he was the reincarnation of Benjamin Franklin. I vowed to spare no
effort in my attempts to “place” him “under a very great obligation.”
Winthrop co-operated at first. But Winthrop’s friends at the Racquet
Club, at the Rockaway Hunt Club, and at Newport were puzzled, and they
inquired what strange influences kept Winthrop in monastic seclusion
at the Rutherfurd Stuyvesant estate in the backwoods of New Jersey.
Besides, a stableful of steeplechasers, which had won many prizes,
stood idle and looked in vain for their master, Winthrop, to train
them. Even the servants on the estate looked puzzled and could not
decipher the mysterious change that had come over their young autocrat.
A foreign-born youngster, a namesake of Michael, the Irish gardener on
the estate, seemed to be supreme in authority, and that puzzled the
servants still more. Winthrop was making great scholastic efforts, in
order to please his distinguished father, but he was a high-strung
youth and after a while his behavior began to suggest the fretting of
a thoroughbred protesting against the bit handled by the heavy touch
of an unskilled trainer. I saw a crisis approaching, and it finally
came. Winthrop suddenly refused to do another stroke of work unless the
programme of work was greatly modified to permit him to make occasional
trips to the Racquet Club, to the Rockaway Hunt Club, and to Newport.
I knew what that meant, and promptly refused; a hot discussion
followed, and some harsh words were spoken, resulting in a challenge
by Winthrop; I accepted and agreed that the best man was to have his
way during the remainder of the summer. Winthrop, the great racquet
player of America, the famous steeplechase rider of Long Island, and
the young aristocrat, kept his word, and responded eagerly to my calls
for additional scholastic efforts. He was a noble, handsome, and manly
American youth whose friendship I was proud to possess.
In the autumn Winthrop got rid of most of his conditions, proceeded
with his class, and eventually graduated from Columbia in 1884. My
imaginative chum, Winthrop’s cousin, composed a great tale describing
this incident and called it: “A Serbian Peasant versus an American
Aristocrat.” Those who had the good fortune to enjoy the humor of this
tale (and among them was F. Marion Crawford, the novelist and cousin
of my chum) pronounced it a great literary accomplishment, and they
all agreed that Winthrop was the real hero of the story; he had played
the game like a thoroughbred. Mr. Rutherfurd, senior, enjoyed the tale
as much as anybody, and he was delighted with the result of our summer
work. Winthrop’s behavior did not surprise him, because, he assured
me, Winthrop played the game as every American gentleman’s son would
have played it. “Every one of your classmates,” exclaimed this trustee
of Columbia College, “would have done the same thing; or he would be
unworthy of a Columbia degree.” The first function of the American
college, according to him, was to train its students in the principles
of conduct becoming an American who is loyal to the best traditions of
his country.
My senior year opened even more auspiciously than my sophomore or
my junior year had. Lewis Rutherfurd, trustee of Columbia College,
gentleman and scholar, and famous scientist, became my mentor.
Winthrop’s success was to place him under very great obligations to me,
he had said before he sailed for Europe in the spring, and after his
return his actions proved that he had meant even more than he had said.
A father could not have been more solicitous about my future plans than
he was, and his advice indicated that he understood my case much better
than I did myself. At the beginning of my senior year I was still
undecided as to what I was to do after graduation, and I began to feel
anxious; my mentor’s advice was most welcome, and it certainly was one
of the determining factors of my future plans.
* * * * *