I said, "No." I only had an idea that he might be able to use me here at the settlement in some capacity.
"There's a good deal in what Trevelyan said," he told me. "While you're at college you might as well give college all that it needs of your time and energy. College will surely pay you back. All the work that you do on a team, for a college paper, for any of the undergraduate organizations, will be just so much of a pledge on the part of your college that she will honor you, give you power and position and the opportunity to do bigger things. Don't you want those honors? Doesn't that power mean anything to you?"
I could not answer him; I did not want to tell him that I thought myself above these little things. He understood me, however, even in my silence.
"They are things worth while," he said. "There is a senior society worth 'making,' if you can. It would be something to be proud of to be the only Jew ever to have 'made' it. But it's more than an honor. That senior society practically governs the student body—molds its thought, holds sway over all campus opinion. Think what you could do if you were a member of it. You could fight for the other Jewish boys, make things easier and fairer for them—could spare them the unpleasant things you had to bear. You could master all snobbery, could make the university a place of real American democracy and gentlemanliness. Don't you think that that's worth while?"
I admitted it was. I had not thought of it in that way.
"Now, this is what I suggest," he said. "It's getting near the end of the term, and there's no use in your beginning any work down here at the settlement while college is still in session. But when vacation begins, I want you to come down here to live for a couple of months. I'll make you a resident club-leader, and you'll have your full share of the best sort of work." He paused a moment. "Will you come?"
"Will I? You bet I will!"
"Good! And in the meanwhile, take Trevelyan's advice—it's mine, to. Stick to your college work and your college play, and don't bother about the outside world for a while. That is your world—the college. Fight hard in it. The whole world likes a stiff upper lip, and the college world likes it best of all. And, sooner or later, Jew or Gentile, the college world will repay you for all that you give it. If you go through college shunning everyone, afraid of your own shadow, surly to the approach of all who would be friendly to you, you will reap nothing but loneliness and a bitter 'grouch.' If you loaf and play cards and hang about the billiard parlors all day long, you won't make a friend worth having, you won't gain anything worth remembering. If you work at your studies only, you'll gain nothing but Phi Beta Kappa—and, for all its worth, that'll mean nothing to you unless it brings along with it the respect and good will of all the men from whom you wrested it. At college as much as in any business office a smile will beget a smile, willingness to work will reap willingness to reward—and Alma Mater, if only you prove your love for her by working for her, will return your love tenfold."
He reached over the desk and touched my arm.
"I don't mean to be just rhetorical," he continued. "I have been through the same inner struggle and wonder and repugnance that you have—and I know how deeply you feel it. Well, I worked blindly ahead at the things that college gave me to work at—the football team and the newspaper and all that—and soon enough I knew that I had been working into manhood by the only right road. Manhood is a matter of disposition, not of work. There's a place for manhood in your little college world. Go and find that place—and give it all that is manly and courageous in you."