sherman is no such proud and isolated soul. He is a "low
man" rather than a high one; he honestly cares what his friends will
think when they look into his basket to see what he has to show for his
day's sport. He watches the Foe of Compromise men go stumbling forward
and superbly falling, while he, with less inflexible courage, manages
to keep his feet. He wants to score, and not merely to give a pretty
exhibition of base-running. At the Harvard-Yale football game of 1903
the Harvard team showed superior strength in rushing the ball; they
carried it almost to the Yale goal line repeatedly, but they could not,
for some reason, take it over. In the instant of absolute need, the
Yale line held, and when the Yale team had to score in order to win,
they scored. As the crowd streamed out of the Stadium, a veteran
Harvard alumnus said: "This news will cause great sorrow in one home I
know of, until they learn by to-morrow's papers that the Harvard team
_acquitted itself creditably_." Exactly. Given one team bent upon
acquitting itself creditably, and another team determined to win, which
will be victorious? The stay-at-homes on the Yale campus that day were
not curious to know whether their team was acquitting itself
creditably, but whether it was winning the game. Every other question
than that was to those young Philistines merely a fine-spun
irrelevance. They took the Cash and let the Credit go.

There is much to be said, no doubt, for the Harvard veteran's point of
view. The proper kind of credit may be a better asset for eleven boys
than any championship; and to fish a bit of water consistently and
skillfully, with your best flies and in your best manner, is perhaps
achievement enough. So says the Foe of Compromise, at least. But the
Yale spirit will be prying into the basket in search of fish; it
prefers concrete results. If all men are by nature either Platonists or
Aristotelians, fly-fishermen or worm-fishermen, how difficult it is for
us to do one another justice! Differing in mind, in aim and method, how
shall we say infallibly that this man or that is wrong? To fail with
Plato for companion may be better than to succeed with Aristotle. But
one thing is perfectly clear: there is no warrant for Compromise but in
Success. Use a worm if you will, but you must have fish to show for it,
if you would escape the finger of scorn. If you find yourself camping
by an unknown brook, and are deputed to catch the necessary trout f