diploma and the knowledge of the ages in my hand. I had never heard of
Socrates, but I would have challenged him to a debate without the
slightest fear."

"Since then I have grown more humble, so humble that there are times
when I am ashamed to come into the class-room. What right have I to
teach anybody anything? I mean that quite sincerely. Then I remember
that, ignorant as I am, the undergraduates are more ignorant. I take
heart and mount the rostrum ready to speak with the authority of a
pundit."

He realized that he was sliding off on a tangent and paused to find a
new attack. Pudge Jamieson helped him.

"I suppose that's all true," he said, "but it doesn't explain why
college is really worth while. The fact remains that most of us don't
learn anything, that we are coarsened by college, and that we--well, we
worship false gods."

Henley nodded in agreement. "It would be hard to deny your assertions,"
he acknowledged, "and I don't think that I am going to try to deny them.
Of course, men grow coarser while they are in college, but that doesn't
mean that they wouldn't grow coarser if they weren't in college. It
isn't college that coarsens a man and destroys his illusions; it is
life. Don't think that you can grow to manhood and retain your pretty
dreams. You have become disillusioned about college. In the next few
years you will suffer further disillusionment. That is the price of
living."

"Every intelligent man with ideals eventually becomes a cynic. It is
inevitable. He has standards, and, granted that he is intelligent, he
cannot fail to see how far mankind falls below those standards. The
result is cynicism, and if he is truly intelligent, the cynicism is
kindly. Having learned that man is frail, he expects little of him;
therefore, if he judges at all, his judgment is tempered either with
humor or with mercy."

The dozen boys were sprawled lazily in their chairs, their feet resting
on the rungs of the chairs before them, but their eyes were fastened
keenly on Henley. All that he was saying was of the greatest importance
to them. They found comfort in his words, but the comfort raised new
doubts, new problems.

"How does that affect college?" Winsor asked.

"It affects it very decidedly," Henley replied. "You haven't become true
cynics yet; you expect too much of college. You forget that the men who
run the college and the men who attend it are at best human beings, and
that means that very much cann