boy, Splinter, as you call your
professor in Greek, is not limited to the faculty of Winthrop College.
In one form or another he presents himself all through your life. His
name is simply that of the perpetual problem."

"I don't see, then--" interrupted Will.

"No, you don't see; but it is just because I do, and I am your father,
that I am talking in this way. Why do you think I have sent you to
college? It isn't for the name of it, or for the fun you will get out of
it, or even for the friendships you will form here, though every one of
these things is good in itself. It is to have you so trained, or rather
for you so to train yourself, that when you go out from Winthrop you
will be able to meet the very problems of which I am speaking and master
them. They come to all, and the great difference in men is really in
their ability to solve these very things. I think it is Emerson who
says, 'It is as easy for a large man to do large things as it is for a
small man to do small things.' And that is what I want for you, my boy,
the ability to do the greater things."

"But I'll never use Greek any. I wish I could take some other study in
its place."

"Just now it is not a question of Greek or something in its place. It is
a question of facing and overcoming a difficulty or permitting it to
overcome you. You must decide whether you will be a victor or a victim.
There are just three things a man can do when he finds himself compelled
to meet one of these difficult things that in one form or another come
to everybody. He can turn and run from it, but that's the part of a
coward. He can get around it, evade it somehow, but that's the part of
the timid and palterer, and sooner or later the superficial man is found
out. Then there is the best way, which is to meet and master it.
Everybody has to decide which he will do, but do one of the three he
must, and there is no escape."

"You think I ought to hit it between the eyes?"

"Yes, though I should not put it in quite that way," said his father
with a smile.

"I'd like to smash it! I don't like it! I'll never make a Greek scholar,
and I detest Splinter. He's as dry as a bone or a Greek root! He hasn't
any more juice than a piece of boiled basswood!"

"That does not alter the matter. It won't change, and you've got to
choose in which of the three ways I have suggested you will meet it."

"I suppose that's so," said Will quietly. "But it doesn't make it any
easier."

"Not