I
When the assistant in the history department announced to Professor
Endicott his intention of spending several months in Paris to complete
the research work necessary to his doctor's dissertation,[114-1] the
head of the department looked at him with an astonishment so
unflattering in its significance that the younger man laughed aloud.
"You didn't think I had it in me to take it so seriously, did you,
Prof?" he said, with his usual undisturbed and amused perception of the
other's estimate of him. "And you're dead right, too! I'm doing it
because I've got to, that's all. It's borne in on me that you can't
climb up very fast in modern American universities unless you've got a
doctor's degree, and you can't be a Ph.D. without having dug around
some in a European library. I've picked out a subject that needs just
as little of that as any--you know as well as I do that right here in
Illinois I can find out everything that's worth knowing about the early
French explorers of the Mississippi--but three months in the
Archives[114-2] in Paris ought to put a polish on my dissertation that
will make even Columbia and Harvard sit up and blink. Am I right in my
calculations?"
Professor Endicott's thin shoulders executed a resigned shrug. "You are
always right in your calculations, my dear Harrison," he said; adding,
with an ambiguous intonation, "And I suppose I am to salute in you the
American scholar of the future."
Harrison laughed again without resentment, and proceeded indulgently to
reassure his chief. "No, sir, you needn't be alarmed. There'll always
be enough American-born scholars to keep you from being lonesome, just
as there'll always be others like me, that don't pretend to have a
drop of real scholar's blood in them. I want to _teach!_--to teach
history!--American history!--teach it to fool young undergraduates who
don't know what kind of a country they've got, nor what they ought to
make out of it, now they've got it. And I'm going in to get a Ph. D.
the same way I wear a stiff shirt and collars and cuffs, not because I
was brought up to believe in them as necessary to salvation--because I
wasn't, Lord knows!--but because there's a prejudice in favor of them
among the people I've got to deal with." He drew a long breath and went
on, "Besides, Miss Warner and I have been engaged about long enough. I
want to earn enough to get married on, and Ph. D. means advancement."
Professor Endicott assented dryly: "That is undoubtedly just what it
means nowadays. But you will 'advance,' as you call it, under any
circumstances. You will not remain a professor of history. I give you
ten years to be president of one of our large Western universities."
His accent made the prophecy by no means a compliment, but Harrison
shook his hand with undiminished good-will. "Well, Prof, if I am, my
first appointment will be to make you head of the history department
with twice the usual salary, and only one lecture a week to deliver to
a class of four P.G's--post-graduates, you know. I know a scholar when
I see one, if I don't belong to the tribe myself, and I know how they
ought to be treated."
If, in his turn, he put into a neutral phrase an ironical significance,
it was hidden by the hearty and honest friendliness of his keen, dark
eyes as he delivered this farewell.
The older man's ascetic face relaxed a little. "You are a good fellow,
Harrison, and I'm sure I wish you any strange sort of success you
happen to desire."
"Same to you, Professor. If I thought it would do any good, I'd run
down from Paris to Munich[116-1] with a gun and try scaring the editor
of the _Central-Blatt_ into admitting that you're right about that
second clause in the treaty of Utrecht."[116-2]
Professor Endicott fell back into severity. "I'm afraid," he observed,
returning to the papers on his desk, "I'm afraid that would not be a
very efficacious method of determining a question of historical
accuracy."
Harrison settled his soft hat firmly on his head. "I suppose you're
right," he remarked, adding as he disappeared through the door, "But
more's the pity!"