He rubbed his fat hands in revengeful gratification.
“That’s just it! Just it!” he laughed, cynically. “It’s all a waste of good money and precious time. There’s no good can come of it. They don’t take their studies seriously enough. Let me see, how many subjects does a student have to select from under that new-fangled election system they have—study made easy, I call it—how many, now?”
“I think there must be in the neighborhood of a hundred different courses, a majority of which are elective, so far I know.”
“And the young lazybones pick out the easiest courses they can, independent of the good it’ll do ’em, eh?”
“Perhaps they do,” I replied, antagonized by his critical and belligerent tone. “But then, I don’t believe that a liberal education: a college course, has to do merely with giving a student a lot of technical information!”
The little man fussily remonstrated.
“What? I thought that colleges were in the world to fit men for their work, and that if they’re to be doctors, why, they’re to be taught medicine and nothing else!”
“That is the function of professional schools,” I agreed. “Take my case, for instance. I am a minister. I spent three years in a good theological seminary. While there I wanted technical information on my profession. I got it, and assimilated more or less—perhaps less. But when I came to college I did not come to add to my technical theological knowledge; not at all!”
“What did you come for, then,” he asked, with another sneer, “to get the degree, I suppose, like a lot of others?”
“I don’t think you give me credit for being a man of ordinary intelligence,” I replied, hotly, angered by his insinuation.