"That's true, a good deal true," said Regan abruptly. "And the only remedy, the only way to fight the business deal, is to interest young men in politics, to make them feel that there are the new battle-fields."
"Now Tom's in it," said Lake, threshing the cards through his fingers. At the card-table the players began to listen, motioning with silent gestures.
"I am off," said Regan, bending forward eagerly and striking his fist against his open hand. "That's the one great thing our colleges should stand for; they ought to be great political hotbeds."
"And they're not," said Brockhurst shortly.
"The more's the pity," said Regan. "There I'm with you. They don't represent the nation: they don't represent what the big masses are feeling, fighting, striving for. By George, when I think of the opportunity, of what this place could mean, what it was meant to mean! Why, every year we gather here from every State in the Union a picked lot, with every chance, with a wonderful opportunity to seek out and know what the whole country needs, to be fired with the same great impulses, to go out and fight together—" He stopped clumsily in the midst of a sentence, and flung back his hair, frowning. "Good government, independent thinking, the love of the fight for the right thing ought to begin here—the enthusiasm of it all. Hang it, I can't express it; but the idea is immense, and no one sees it."
"I see it," said Pike. "That's my ambition. I'm going back; I'm going to own my own newspaper some day, and fight for it."
"But why don't the universities reflect what's out there?" said Regan with a gesture.
"Because, to make it as it should be, and as it was, a live center of political discussion," said Brockhurst, "you've got to give the individual a chance, break through this tyranny of the average, get away from business ideas."
"Just what do you mean when you say we are nothing but a business college?" said Stover, preparing to resist any explanation. He understood imperfectly what Regan was advocating. Politics meant to him a sort of hereditary division; what new forces were at work he completely ignored, though resolved on enlightenment. Brockhurst's attack on the organization of the college was personal, and he felt that his own membership in the sophomore society was aimed at.
"I mean this," said Brockhurst, speaking slowly in the effort to express a difficult thought. "I hope I can make it clear. What would be the natural thing? A man goes to college. He works as he wants to work, he plays as he wants to play, he exercises for the fun of the game, he makes friends where he wants to make them, he is held in by no fear of criticism above, for the class ahead of him has nothing to do with his standing in his own class. Everything he does has the one vital quality: it is spontaneous. That is the flame of youth itself. Now, what really exists?"