CHAPTER I.
Convocation.
Freda returned to her home in Lockwood, advising Mauney to try for a position on the Lockwood Collegiate staff. She told him that the town had its faults, but her father, who was mayor, would be able to help him get the situation. He wrote and applied, and was informed by return mail that he would be considered in due course. Meanwhile he waited in Merlton for Convocation, to receive his academic degree.
Convocation was an impressive function—the great assembly hall filled with begowned and mortar-boarded seniors, and with their admiring relatives and friends; the broad platform crowded with the professors wearing their multi-colored gowns, while rich organ music shook like a solemn presence through the huge auditorium. After the presentation of the diplomas, Richard Garnett, the President, made a short address.
“You are going forth,” he said, “to sow in other soils the seeds you have gathered here.”
The majesty of a university president lends his words an authoritative dignity suitable to such a solemn occasion. The graduate, pausing on the threshold of the world, finds a grandeur in this farewell address. He becomes inspired to catch the ideal. It is he who must carry forth the light. He, and his fellows beside him in the hall, are to be the torch bearers. It is an exquisite moment before the Chancellor’s “Convocatio dimissa est” and the final thunder of the pipe organ as they step forth, citizens of the world.
Mauney took heart again. Denied a position on the university staff, he thought now of those “other soils” where he was needed even more. It would have been pleasant to remain in Merlton, adding his moiety of effort to the distinguished total of a renowned university. In time it might have brought fame. But the ideals of Christianity had been rife during the past four years. No man could go through Merlton without learning that nobility of character lay in service to humanity. The courageous, educational formula of Garnett was responsible for this leaven. It deserved as much praise and received as much as unspectacular courage ever does. A thousand men scoffed at Garnett as a visionary. A thousand fawned upon him for personal reasons. A hundred knew him. There were many thoughtless individuals ready to teach him his function. But there were many also who left Merlton each year inflamed by his idealism and determined to serve humanity’s needs. Garnett might have considered this a tribute much deeper than praise.