“Brocky, you certainly are a radical—a terrific one,” said Pike, shaking his head. Regan, smoking, said nothing.
“A sort of red-shirt, eh?” said Brockhurst, smiling.
“You always go off on a tangent.”
“Well, there’s a good deal in what Brocky says,” said Regan, nodding slowly, “about bringing us all back into the campus and shutting out the world. It’s the men here, all sorts and conditions, that, after all, are big things, the vital thing. I’m thinking over what you’re saying, Brocky—not that I follow you altogether, but I see what you’re after—I get it.”
Stover, on the contrary, was aware of only an antagonism, for his instinct was always to combat new ideas. There were things in what Brockhurst had said that touched him on the quick of his accepted loyalty. Then, he could not quite forget that in the matter of his sophomore society he had rejected him as being a little “queer.” So he said rather acidly:
“Brockhurst, one question. If you feel as you do, why do you stay here?”
Brockhurst, who had withdrawn after his outburst, a little self-conscious again, flushed with anger at this question. But with an effort he controlled himself, saying:
“Stover has not perceived that I have been talking of general conditions all through the East; that I am not fool enough to believe one Eastern university is different in essentials from another. What I criticize here I criticize in American life. As to why I remain at Yale, I remain because I think, because, having the advantages of my own point of view, I can see clearer those who are still conventionalized.”
“But you don’t believe in working for Yale,” persisted Stover, for he was angry at what he perceived had been his discourtesy.
“Work for Yale! Work for Princeton! Work for Harvard! Bah! Sublime poppycock!” exclaimed Brockhurst, in a sort of fury. “Of all drivel preached to young Americans, that is the worst. I came to Yale for an education. I pay for it—good pay. I ask, first and last, what is Yale going to do for me? Work for Yale, go out and slave, give up my leisure and my independence—to do what for Yale? To keep turning the wheels of some purely inconsequential machine, or strive like a gladiator. Is that doing anything for Yale, a seat of learning? If I’m true to myself, make the most of myself, go out and be something, stand for something after college, then ask the question if you want. Ridiculous! Hocus-pocus and flap-doodle! Lord! I don’t know anything that enrages me more. Good night; I’m going. Heaven knows what I’ll say if I stay!”
He clapped his hat on his head and broke out of the door. The chorus of exclamations in the room died down. Ricketts, still shifting his victorious pile, began to whistle softly to himself. Regan, languidly stretched out, with a twinkle in his eyes kept watching Stover, staring red and concentrated into the fire.
“Well?” he said at last.
Stover turned.
“Well?” said Regan, smiling.
Dink rapped the ashes from his pipe, scratched his head, and said frankly:
“Of course I shouldn’t have said what I did. I got well spanked for it, and I deserve it.”
“What do you think of his ideas?” said Regan, nodding appreciatively at Stover’s fair acknowledgment.
“I don’t know,” said Stover, puzzled. “I guess I haven’t used my old thinker enough lately to be worth anything in a discussion. Still—”
“Still what?” said Regan, as Dink hesitated.
“Still, he has made me think,” he admitted grudgingly. “I wish he didn’t quite—quite get on my nerves so.”
“There’s a great deal in what he said tonight,” said Pike meditatively; “a great deal. Of course, he is always looking at things from the standpoint of the individual; still, just the same—”
“Brocky always states only one side of the proposition,” said Brown, who rarely measured swords when Brockhurst was present in the flesh. “He takes for granted his premise, and argues for a conclusion that must follow.”
“Well, what’s your premise, Brown?” said Stover hopefully, for he wanted to be convinced.
“This is my premise,” said Brown fluently. “The country has changed, the function of a college has changed. It is now the problem of educating masses and not individuals. Today it is a question of perfecting a high average. That’s what happens everywhere in college: we all tend toward the average; what some lose others gain. We go out, not as individuals, but as a type—a Yale type, Harvard type, Princeton type, five hundred strong, proportionately more powerful in our influence on the country.”
“Just what does our type take from here to the nation?” said Stover; and then he was surprised that he had asked the question that was vital.
“What? What does this type stand for? I’ll tell you,” said Brown readily, with the debater’s trick of repeating the question to gain time. “First, a pretty fine type of gentleman, with good, clear, honest standards; second, a spirit of ambition and a determination not to be beaten; third, the belief in democracy.”
“All of which means,” said Regan, “that we are simply schools for character.”
“Well, why not?” said Pike. “Isn’t that a pretty big thing?”
“You’re wrong on the democracy, Brown,” said Regan, with a snap of his jaws.
“I mean the feeling of man to man.”
“Perhaps.”
Stover at that moment was not so certain that he would have answered the same. The discussion had so profoundly interested him that he forgot a certain timidity.
“What would Brockhurst answer to the school-for-character idea?” he said.
“I calculate he’d have a lovely time with it,” said Ricketts, with a laugh, “a regular
