“Oh, I don’t know!” smiled Garvin. “I’m not the only one that scoffs somewhat at the scholars: there are hundreds of us on the campus: hundreds of us.”
“Yes,” I replied, “sour grapes, probably.”
“Now look here, Priddy. I’m no loafer. You know me. I believe in education or I would not be spending my four years here. If I were to put all my time in study: the time which I invest in my editor’s duty, for instance, and in the mandolin club, I think there is in me a potential honor man at least, even as there is in Sanderson a potential valedictorian, and in Ellis a potential Phi Beta Kappa (if he left off athletics), and in Forrest a potential magna, triple X, summa, double-barrelled cum lauda if he didn’t put so much effort into the evening classes for the Italian laborers down at the Reservoir. But the truth is—these men, like myself, aren’t very enthusiastic about high marks, or the honors that high marks and class rankings bring to the undergraduate.”
“No wonder the professors get discouraged, Garvin. It’s enough to make the college founder place dynamite under the campus and blow us to kingdom come!”
Garvin’s eyes twinkled at his next question.
“Hear about Scholarship Night, Priddy? I know you weren’t there for you went home that day.”
“Hear about it?” I gasped. “I should say I had. They say that there was about as much enthusiasm over the reading of the honor roll that night, in assembly hall, before the students and invited guests, as there is enthusiasm over—well, say a book entitled, ‘The Thesaurus of Diction—or Recent Explorations into the Vocabulary of Monkeys.’”
“Enthusiasm!” repeated Garvin, “it was ten miles away that night. Just a handful of students, lonesomely huddled in the first few rows of seats and behind them a lighted vacancy. I tell you, Priddy, the students aren’t interested very much in pure scholarship: even many of the men who are here for a serious purpose.”
“Then why do they come here, Garvin, tell me that?” I demanded.
“For an education, Priddy.”