"My dear Brown, it isn't even debatable," said Brockhurst, with a little contempt, for he did not understand nor like the man of flowing words. "What have we to-day that is bigger? Is it this organization of external activities? We have more bricks and stones, but have we the great figures in the teaching staff? I grant you, this is purely an economic failure—but at the bottom of the whole thing compare the spirit inside the campus now and then. Who were the leaders then? The men of brains. Then the college did reflect the country; then it was a vital hotbed of political thought. To-day everything that has been developed is outside the campus; and it's so in every college. This is the tendency—development away from the campus at the expense of the campus. That's why, when you ask me would I wipe out our business athletics and our professional musical and traveling dramatic clubs, I say, yes, absolutely. I would have the limits of college to be the walls of the campus itself, and we'd see, when men cease to be drafted for one grind or another, whether they couldn't begin to meet to think and to converse. However, that brings up the whole pet problem of education, and, I'm through talking. Go on, Pike; tell us that we are, after all, only schools for character."
"Brocky, you certainly are a radical—a terrific one," said Pike, shaking his head. Regan, smoking, said nothing.
"A sort of red-shirt, eh?" said Brockhurst, smiling.
"You always go off on a tangent."
"Well, there's a good deal in what Brocky says," said Regan, nodding slowly, "about bringing us all back into the campus and shutting out the world. It's the men here, all sorts and conditions, that, after all, are big things, the vital thing. I'm thinking over what you're saying, Brocky—not that I follow you altogether, but I see what you're after—I get it."
Stover, on the contrary, was aware of only an antagonism, for his instinct was always to combat new ideas. There were things in what Brockhurst had said that touched him on the quick of his accepted loyalty. Then, he could not quite forget that in the matter of his sophomore society he had rejected him as being a little "queer." So he said rather acidly:
"Brockhurst, one question. If you feel as you do, why do you stay here?"
Brockhurst, who had withdrawn after his outburst, a little self-conscious again, flushed with anger at this question. But with an effort he controlled himself, saying:
"Stover has not perceived that I have been talking of general conditions all through the East; that I am not fool enough to believe one Eastern university is different in essentials from another. What I criticize here I criticize in American life. As to why I remain at Yale, I remain because I think, because, having the advantages of my own point of view, I can see clearer those who are still conventionalized."