grown into a bit of a
dictator, and this habit of harangue he carried with him to College. To
talk enabled him to think, and expression is necessary to growth. So the
habit of argument with Coleridge seemed Nature's method of developing his
powers of mental analysis. No more foolish saying was ever launched than,
"Children should be seen and not heard." From lisping babyhood Coleridge
talked, and talked much. When he was twenty, at Cambridge, he drew the
boys to his room, until it was crowded to suffocation, just by the magic
of his voice, and the subtle quality of his thought. His questioning mind
went right to the heart of things, and in his divisions and heads and
subheads even the professors could not always follow him. Let us hope that
he himself always knew what he was trying to explain.

He discussed metaphysics, theology and politics, and very naturally got to
treading on thin ice.

In theology his reasoning led him into Unitarianism, then a very fearful
thing; and in politics he dallied with Madame la Revolution.

A polite note from the Master of the College, suggesting that he talk less
and follow the curriculum a little more closely, led him straight to the
Master, with whom he proposed to argue the case, or publicly debate it.
This was terrible!

Stephen Crane at Syracuse University, a hundred years later, did just such
a thing. He sought to argue a point in the classroom with Chancellor
Symms.

"Tut, tut!" said the Chancellor. "Have you forgotten what Saint Paul says
on that very theme?"

"Yes, I know," replied the best catcher ever on the Syracuse Nine; "yes, I
know what Saint Paul says, but I differ with Saint Paul." And Stevie,
unconsciously, was standing on the well-lubricated chute that landed him,
soon, well outside the campus.

The authorities did not admire the brilliant young Coleridge, full of his
reasons and prolix abstractions. He was attracting too much attention to
himself, and gradually gathering about him a throng of admirers who might
disturb the balance of things. He was there anyway only through
sufferance, and an intimation was given him that if he were not willing to
accept things as they existed, and as they were taught, he had better go
elsewhere.

Piqued by his treatment and feeling he had been misunderstood and wronged,
he suddenly disappeared.

Some months afterwards, an acquaintance found him in a company of
dragoons, duly enlisted in His Majesty's service, under an as