But it must have looked chaotic, intellectually riotous, to a dignified dean of a classic university, and, no doubt, he would have had much in criticism of the university to offer, from his proper angle, after looking on the manner in which the students mixed their courses.
In my first term I spread myself through the common school, the business, the college preparatory, the collegiate, and the theological divisions of the University! It was akin to taking an academic ride in five carriages at once! When the professor dismissed me from the college class in logic I went immediately into the basement, where I joined the grammar class, and from the grammar class I went to the theological department and recited on Church History. From that class I went into the scientific department and was heard in zoölogy, and from zoölogy I found my way in the business department where I practised on the typewriter.
Though I came before this intellectual privilege with a hungry mind, yet, threaded throughout it all were the complaints of the professors in regard to the limitations under which they worked. The professor of science constantly unfolded to us, who met him in zoölogy, a pet dream of his which comprehended a future benefactor who should increase the number of specimens in the museum. The English professor was embarrassed frequently by the inadequacy of the library. In our Bible classes, the President would take us into his confidence, the day after a faculty meeting, and descant upon the hardship, the embarrassing, financial hardship, of meeting the expenses of the school. There was no lack of dignity to this proceeding, for each one of us felt under obligations to the University, knowing well enough that whatever financial sacrifices the faculty underwent, were sacrifices made in order that we might receive an education. So the President was within the bounds of propriety and discipline when he concluded his report with his customary: “And so, young ladies and gentlemen, if you are acquainted with any business men or wealthy person who might be made generous by our worthy appeal, kindly hand me their names and addresses after class. Mr. Stanton, you will please describe the order of creation as given in the first book of Moses!”
But it was not long before I had to realize that I had put myself under an exacting discipline by coming to Evangelical University. We had a dean who in effectiveness and as a sleuth would have been the dean of deans had an international society of them existed. The presence of young men and women on the campus rendered the Dean’s duties doubly hard. The rules were rules of a Mede. His surveillance was that of a man who felt an austere obligation to over a hundred anxious parents. No one, except by special permission, could be out of his room after half-past seven in the evening, save on society nights or on Sundays. For the enforcement of this rule, the Dean depended upon the reports of student monitors, but mainly upon his own vigilance. Every dormitory was always in danger of a visit from the Dean, and as the students in the dormitories were prevailingly men and women considerably beyond their ’teens, there was no inconsiderable disobedience of this rule; it made us feel too much like little children who are put to bed while the daylight lingers on the earth. I soon had a taste of the common experience. One evening three students met with Thropper and me to indulge in a heated and loud discussion on the question: “That it is best for a man to marry his first love!” We started it at half-past six and once on the line of our pros and cons all sense of time and existence went out of mind. We heard not the inrush of students as the last bell rang, nor heeded the brooding silence that had come over the campus. We lived only in our arguments on that “love” issue, and Thropper was in the midst of a very final story of first love coming out happily when tested by marriage, when three knocks were heard on our wall, given by the student in the next room: That was the signal that the Dean was stirring. Instantly the window was opened, our three visitors leaped out, and a few seconds later, when the Dean knocked on the door, Thropper met him innocently with the proposal, “Have a chair, sir?” and the Dean, glancing about merely said, with a pleasant smile, “I just thought I’d look in, that’s all.” When he left, we knew that when he went to the rooms of our three friends, upstairs, he would find them in their shirtsleeves poring over their books. I often saw him in the twilight or under the glow of lighted windows, this Dean performing his duty which, to a man of his fine, academic temper, must have been so incompatible: a tall, ungeared, gaunt-faced, tight-lipped man, stooped and stealthy, searching the campus with his glinting eyes, squaring his jaws as he approached windows where law-breakers were gathered, post-haste after delinquents!
I chanced to be one among a half-dozen stout English hearts; at least they were English hearts when somebody proposed that it might be a patriotic act for us to celebrate, in a fitting, English manner, the birthday of Queen Victoria. On account of the un-American aspect of the proposed celebration it was deemed injudicious to ask the consent of the Dean, for we felt sure he would prohibit it. We were determined, however, to conduct a celebration that would be quiet, dignified, and memorable, without having in it any semblance of disorder. We also resolved to hold it on a Saturday evening, when the rules were not so strictly upheld. To this end, then, we persuaded the master of the dining-hall, who was also chef and baker, to fall into our scheme, though he was a loyal American. We engaged him to fry the steaks, and also gave him an English recipe for chipped potatoes.
On the night of the celebration we met in a student’s room in the ell of Pungo Hall, in the rear: a quiet, isolated room which also had the double virtue of being a wash-room with a stove in it! Over this the chef worked, quietly. We blanketed the windows so that no one could peep on the scene. The table was spread and the seats occupied. Before us, on a white platter and in white dishes, were the steaks and the chips, surrounded by coffee, cake, and candy. After the meal, the chairman proposed speeches which had for their theme the greatness, the majesty, and the high repute of the “glorious Queen.” At the conclusion of these speeches, we tried to sing a reminiscent snatch of “Rule Britannia,” but had, finally, to compromise on “God Save the Queen.” The college bell had struck eleven when one of the party proposed that it might waken us up if we went out on the campus and exercised ourselves by holding a jumping contest. On account of the lavishness of the feast and the heartiness with which we had partaken, we were ready to fall in with this proposal.
In front of a little cottage in which a few students had double rooms, we leaped and jumped very quietly for some minutes, speaking in whispers, for it was nearly midnight, on the verge of the Sabbath. But suddenly we were startled by a loud voice calling from one of the windows, “I have your names!” The heartless monitor had spied on us. We were undone. Heartlessly, guiltily, we went back to our rooms. The damage had been done. We had been caught breaking the dread laws of the University. Nothing could keep us from the wrath of the Dean.
We indulged in our prayers and our Bible study and our church attendance the following day with little enthusiasm, for when we chanced to meet one another we asked the same question, over and over, “What will he say?” For we had our heart in it. We were not flagrant despisers of order. We cared for the respect of our Dean.
On Monday morning we assembled in chapel for the usual morning service. The Dean led the service. We were expecting that during the notices he would say, reading from his book, “I wish to see Mr. Priddy and Mr. this and Mr. that,” and so on through the list of Englishmen, “at the conclusion of chapel.” But not so. In place of the customary sermon of ten minutes, he delivered a very Patrick-Henryish philippic against certain unnamed students who had so far forgotten themselves as not only to be unpatriotic towards their adopted country, and had not only demeaned themselves by an unlawful “revelry,” but had even been indulging in sports at midnight, on the verge of the Sabbath, and thereby rendered themselves unfit to give God the highest, most efficient service on the holy day. The unexpectedness of it, the fierceness of it, the lurid interpretations put on our innocent feast, its coloring into a “night revel,” and the charge of impiety, unnerved me. I sat riveted to my chair, in a cold sweat. I felt as must a murderer in his sober moments when he realizes to the full the enormity of his deed. The Dean concluded his philippic, during which he had not mentioned a name, by this oracular notice:
“I want each one of those revelers to meet me after chapel, in my office.”