e we oldsters
will still be the chiefs and you kids will be the Indians. Have I made
myself clear?"

"Yes sir. But how about Brennan?"

Judge Carter looked at the unhappy man. "You still want revenge? Won't he
be punished enough just hearing the word 'pedagogue'?"

"For the love of--"

"Don't blaspheme," snapped the judge. "You'd hang if James could bring
a shred of evidence, and I'd help him if I could." He turned to James
Holden. "Now," he asked, "will you repair your machine?"

"And if I say No?"

"Can you stand the pressure of a whole world angered because you've
denied them their right to an education?"

"I suppose not." He looked at Brennan, at Professor White and at Jack
Cowling. "If I've got to trust somebody," he said reluctantly, "I suppose
it might as well be you."

BOOK FOUR:

THE NEW MATURITY

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It is the campus of Holden Preparatory Academy.

It is spring, but many another spring must pass before the ambitious ivy
climbs to smother the gray granite walls, before the stripling trees grow
stately, before the lawn is sturdy enough to withstand the crab grass and
the students. Anecdote and apocrypha have yet to evolve into hallowed
tradition. The walks ways are bare of bronze plaques because there are no
illustrious alumni to honor; Holden Preparatory has yet to graduate its
first class.

It is youth, a lusty infant whose latent power is already great enough
to move the world. As it rises, the world rises with it for the whole
consists of all its parts; no man moves alone.

The movement has its supporters and its enemies, and between them lies a
vast apathy of folks who simply don't give a damn. It supporters deplore
the dolts and the sluggards who either cannot or will not be educated.
Its enemies see it as a danger to their comfortable position of eminence
and claim bitterly that the honored degree of doctor is being degraded.
They refuse to see that it is not the degradation of the standard but
rather the exaltation of the norm. Comfortable, they lazily object to the
necessity of rising with the norm to keep their position. Nor do they
realize that the ones who will be assaulting their fortress will
themselves be fighting still stronger youth one day when the mistakes are
corrected and the program streamlined through experience.

On the virgin lawn, in a spot that will someday lie in the shade of a
great oak, a group of students sit, sprawl, lie. The oldest