Quincy found one of the last seats. A string of cars at the rear had not
been opened. By this means, the astute Company packed its patrons
economically and, as the traffic overflowed, opened another car. The boy
made himself at ease by the window. He hoped fervently that no one would
come beside him. But especially, he hoped that no one of the other
fellows whom he saw grouped and chatting in the corridor, on the
platform, would be his neighbor, if neighbor he must have. Quincy feared
that with one of these there would be danger of a conversation. And he
feared that. He feared it, because he felt that he should have things in
common with his prospective mates. And he had none--that he could think
of.
Greatly to his relief, then, just as the filled train glided into
motion, a huge man with a great black slouch hat, sat down beside him.
Quincy gazed steadily out of the window. He half observed his neighbor
open a leather case, draw from it a batch of pamphlets and proceed,
quietly, unflaggingly, to go through them. They were well on their way
before the boy’s interest made him turn for a look at the nature of
these pamphlets. The big man had placed all of them back in his case,
save the one he was reading. This one he held close, vertically, before
his face so that Quincy could not possibly have seen its subject. He did
remark, however, that this man must be very near-sighted. Then he looked
at him more keenly. Could it be that he was a professor? His bad eyes
and his portfolio seemed proof. But his huge, strong body and his
western hat belied it. The man had a strong, yet gentle face. All of his
features were large, yet all of them were soft in an harmonious
expression. As he read, he bit nervously at his lips. His massive,
fleshy hands clutched periodically at the fragile paper, rumpling it.
His nostrils distended as he took breath.
And then, of a sudden, as Quincy looked, the man turned from his reading
and their gaze met. The boy was embarrassed. He wished to look away. But
the big brown smile in the man’s eyes held his.
“This your first year?”
“Yes, sir.” He wished to ask whether “freshman” was really writ so large
upon him. But instead, he smiled rather sheepishly.
“This paper,” the man went on, talking with a free confidence, “is so
stupid, that if I go on reading it, I shall be ill-humored by the time I
reach home.” He placed it, face-downward, on his lap.
“M-may I see what it is?” Quincy stammered.
The man broke into a hearty laughter that sounded liquid above the rush
of the train.
“Oh! Oh!” he said, “after what I’ve said of it, it would scarcely be
discreet--_would_ it, now? You see, it’s by a colleague.” He seemed to
leave the verdict to Quincy.
“Excuse me. I--I didn’t know.”
“You agree, then?” asked the man.
“I certainly do,” replied Quincy with conviction.
“Good!” And this paper also, was thrust back with the others. There was
a pause. Then, he continued: “I’ll tell you, however, generally, what
it was that I found stupid. It was one of those ‘common-sense’ ideas.
They’re usually stupid. This is a paper on education. It talks chiefly
of teaching rules.”
“Yes?” asked the boy, awaiting more.
“Well--isn’t that enough? Can you imagine anything more stupid and less
educational than teaching _rules_?”
Quincy beamed with amazement. “You really think that?”
“Have rules ever done you any good,” went on the professor; “any rules
except such as you dug out for yourself? What’s a good rule on a false
basis? And what’s the use of any rule at all, if the right thing’s
underneath? Do you have to teach a rule to a tree to make it grow--or to
a ball to make it fall? If we build up from a right basis, the rest--the
right rule--must follow by mathematical law. Isn’t that reasonable? And
if, with a true foundation, the rules an individual derives clash with
the rules accepted,--why the accepted rules are simply wrong. I think,
to tell you the truth, that we all teach rules the way the good-hearted
practice charity--to overcome with an act what has grown wrong from the
bottom up.”
“I’m glad to hear you talk that way,” replied the boy. “It seems
strange.”
The man laughed.
“Do you--” Quincy hesitated,--“Are you a--teacher?”
“My name is Deering.”
“Not Professor Lawrence Deering!” Quincy demanded. The other nodded.
So this was the famous Professor Deering. “Oh! And you teach that way
yourself?”
“I try to. But it’s hard in an institution that doesn’t agree with you.
Hard also, with products so nearly finished as--say--you are. I should
have gone in for kindergartening.”
What an open candor this was, thought Quincy, from a great man to an
unknown boy! From this moment of realization, he would have gone far and
suffered much for Professor Deering. Then it occurred to him that since
he knew the professor’s name, he must announce his own.
“My name is Burt--Quincy Burt,” he said.
The great man’s hand went out warmly. “I am glad to know you, Mr. Burt.
I hope you will like your college years.”
“Oh--I’m sure now, I will!”
“You have lots of friends, I suppose, entering with you?”
“None at all,” the boy answered quickly, “I come from a private school
in New York. There were only ten boys in my class. None of them is
coming up here.”
“Then, if I may ask,” the man spoke deferentially, “why are you so
confident that you will enjoy your college course?”
Quincy looked up with feeling, at his questioner.
“I seem somehow,” he said, “to have been welcomed.”
There was a note in the boy’s voice that silenced the big man. Quincy,
in that moment, felt that Professor Deering must be very sensitive. He
also would have been silenced by such a leak of sentiment.
“You make me glad I spoke to you,” he said at last. “Our college is not
too well adapted for boys who enter without a crowd. That very fact is
a good thing, if the boys really have the _stuff_.”
Quincy’s amazement here was that a scholar famed throughout America
should employ slang.
“What do you mean, exactly, by _stuff_?” he asked.
Professor Deering examined him closely. “Well, you see,” he said,
“there’s an empire of false standards in such a college as ours,--in all
American institutions, to speak frankly. The flaw lies in the creed,
which is fostered by the faculty, that college is a place to do things,
a standard-in-itself, a place-in-itself. For this arbitrary creed,
arbitrary goals and targets are set up--secret societies, athletic
insignia, a host of extra-curriculum activities. These are looked on,
not as play, but as ends. They become the _business_ of the bulk of our
students. By senior year, the students themselves laugh at them--at the
professors for fostering them--with real life before them. But at the
beginning, it is hard to hold one’s balance, to remember that college as
a thing-in-itself is trumpery; that it can be exalted only if it be made
subservient to personal, spiritual growth.”
“Results, then--you mean--are bad?”
“They’re as bad as rules,” laughed Professor Deering.
This excited Quincy. “How then can you give marks in your classes?”
The Professor looked at him, not with anger as Quincy had feared, after
putting this question, but with pleasure. He smiled.
“You haven’t got me there! I must give marks, since our College thinks
it must give degrees. But I give the marks only nominally. In my
classes, each June, the students hand in to me their own marks--given
to themselves in honor and by their personal lights. In that way, I
outdo the authorities above me.”
“Does anyone ever flunk himself?”
“It has happened frequently. My practice, moreover, has proved to me how
little conceit there really is in youth.” Quincy’s eyes glowed at this.
“I have a reputation for very low marking. Of course, it is the men who
are responsible. But I never over-ride their judgment, in either
extreme.”
“Even if you disagree?”
“Would that be reasonable?” flashed back Professor Deering.
Just then, a man came up and placed his hand on the Professor’s
shoulder.
“I’ve been all through the train, looking for you, Deering,” he said.
“Didn’t you know we had an extra seat for you in the Pullman? Will you
come?”
The Professor smiled as a man does who is found out, once again, in an
old foible. Then, he turned politely to his neighbor.
“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Burt?”
Quincy wished to speak graciously. “Thank you,” he said, with what
seemed irrelevance.
The big man nodded seriously--embarrassed at such embarrassment.
He gathered up his coat and his portfolio and trudged away, supporting
himself with his massive hands down the corridor of the swinging train.
* * * * *
The time that remained--though the long part of the journey--was brief
to Quincy. He now had his seat to himself--and he was doubly glad. For
he could have thought of no substitute for Professor Deering who would
not have been sacrilege.
What an amazing adventure this had been! Quincy had found strange
opinions in books; but to meet them vitally, poignantly in life, to hear
them imparted, not to the world, but to him, and to him, not as the
humble listener he would willingly have been, but as the equal, the
critic, the fellow-thinker! In these things that had actually come to
pass should have lain almost ecstasy to Quincy. Yet, he was bewildered
at not being more bewildered by them. He could not understand how he was
managing, in their light, to contain himself. For it dawned on him that
he was taking all these wonders quite calmly, almost as
matters-of-course; as if their like had occurred even in fancy, many
times before. It seemed they should have dazzled him, flung him into
some land where such things belong. And instead, here he was solidly in
his seat, while the train rushed on, in full possession of his nature,
sturdily, serenely eased with life.
Quincy found himself watching the shoulders, the necks, the heads of two
young men who were several seats in front of him. From the tilt of their
hats, the cool assurance of their nods, he knew them as upperclassmen.
They fascinated him, somehow. They seemed very remote from Professor
Deering. They seemed more the expected thing. And always, the expected
thing tended to unnerve him, even as the sudden flash of wonder gave him
a grip on the realities.
The forward door opened suddenly. There was the inrush of air, the
clatter of pounding wheels, the swift slam as the door fell to. Before
it, stood a tall, svelte fellow, exuding a smooth confidence. He espied
the two men whom Quincy had been watching. Hands went up; names were
called warmly. He rushed to them. And with affectionate hand-shakes and
stout slaps on shoulders, they gave greeting after the summer’s
separation. Then, they began to talk. The svelte newcomer leaned over
from the aisle and words flew fast. Evidently, it was the man by the
window for whom his words were especially intended. This continued for
some time, and then the man directly below him got up. The newcomer
protested suavely. Quincy marvelled at such affection and ceremonious
courtesy. The man who had arisen evidently assured the other that he
would gladly and easily find another seat so that the two might with
more comfort impart their urgent news. He stepped away. The newcomer, as
quickly and utterfully forgetful as he had been solicitous, slipped into
the seat. And he who had given it up came down the aisle and placed
himself with Quincy.
They examined each other; Quincy surreptitiously, the upperclassman with
a bland impudence. Quincy was thoroughly ill at ease. He turned his face
full on the window. And then he heard the man’s voice coming toward him.
He was a rather stout, florid fellow with fat lips and eyes that would
have been a merry blue had they not turned so hard.
“Goin’ up, first time?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Quincy.
“Where do you come from?”
“New York.”
The man shook his head impatiently. “What prep, I mean.”
“None.” He named his private school.
With unconcealed effrontery, the man looked him over,--his clothes, his
hands, his face. At Quincy’s answer, a change had come over the fellow.
It was as if the boy had admitted that he was a pauper or an idiot. He
had been in a mood for asking questions; Quincy’s admission that he came
unlabeled, unclassified, uncounted, put him in a mood for giving advice.
“Well,” said the upperclassman, “you’ll find that your coming in alone
will make no difference--” as if his manner had not stultified his
words! “This is a democratic place. Every man has as good a chance to
make good as another. Prep school prominence wears off by midyears.
Don’t let it worry you. Go in for as many activities as you can. You
look as if you could run. Can you?”
“Yes,” said Quincy.
“Fine! Go in for track. Go in for the papers, whether you can write or
not. Keep a cool head. You got the odds against you, of course, coming
in alone. But if you can sprint or tear off funny stories better than
the next fellow, you’ll make good, just the same.”
Quincy did not like this man--nor understand him. His words gave him a
sense of faintness. He wished to be silent. But his consciousness of the
new life made him feel that he must try to understand, even if it did
mean a process so painful and disagreeable as the asking of questions.
So he nerved himself and spoke:
“What exactly do you mean by ‘making good’?”
The upperclassman smiled with an air of amiable sufferance.
“Getting there, of course,” he said. “Doing something.... You’ll find
out soon enough.”
This explanation was very vague to Quincy. He thought perhaps he might
help him to explain.
“Do you mean,” he asked, “being elected to a fraternity?”
His neighbor turned upon him with a look of horror in his eyes. He
seemed speechless with an inexplicable pain, much as Quincy thought he
might be, if some stranger suddenly, gratuitously, should insult his
sister. And then, after a pause, the wounded upperclassman spoke.
“Look here!” he said, in a solemn monotone that was suffused with deep
emotion. “Do you want to get _queered_? Shut up about such things; do
you understand? Shut up _tight_!”
The boy sat there, ashamed and helpless as if he had been stripped. He
could not get away. He could not defend himself. He could not act as if
he had done nothing. He could not apologize. So he merely sat there and
faced his tormentor with eyes that had in them both pride and
humiliation.
The upperclassman seemed pleased with the result of his gentle warning.
He seemed even a little sorry; and it tickled him, doubtless, to
entertain so generous a sentiment toward a freshman. He nodded wisely,
shook his head as if conscious of the lavish weakness in so kind an
attitude, and then got up. The visitor forward, had gone. As he left for
his own seat, he turned back to Quincy and bowed.
“My name is Guthridge. I’m a senior. Come and see me, _any time_. I’ll
be glad if I can be of service.” He seemed to be easing himself of a
formula as well learned as was his name. Then he left.
Quincy remembered that Professor Deering had not invited him to call.
How thrilled and happy that would have made him! And here was an
invitation he would have gone far in order to avoid--had there been
compulsion of accepting it. There were curious ironies in this new life.
By the time the train-man had shouted out his station and they had
rolled, with airy sighings and steely creakings, to a stand-still, these
impressions of the new reality were still swirling inchoate, hectically
colored, in his head. He was far from having mastered them. He had not
yet even faced them. Yet, here it was!