James Hyslop gave me a course in what he called “practical ethics,” and this was a curious affair. In the first part he discussed abstract rules of conduct—regardless of the fact that there can be no such things. In the second part he attempted to apply these rules to New York City politics, explaining the methods by which Tammany politicians got their graft, and devising elaborate laws and electoral arrangements whereby these politicians could be kept out of office, or made to be good while in. The professor was a frail and ascetic-looking little man with a feeble black beard. It was painfully clear to me that the politicians were more clever than he, and would devise a hundred ways of countering his program before he had got it into action.

Now, as I look back upon this course, the thing which strikes me as marvelous is that never once in a whole year of instruction did the professor drop a hint concerning the economic basis of political corruption. The politicians got money—yes, of course; but who paid them the money, and what did the payers get out of it? In other words, what part was Big Business playing in the undermining of American public life? I took an entire course in “practical ethics” at Columbia University in the year ’99 or 1900—two hours a week for nine months—and never once did I hear that question mentioned, either by the professor or by any of the graduate students in that class!

You would have thought that this would have made James Hyslop safe for life; but alas! the poor man became too anxious concerning the growth of Socialism throughout the world, and decided that the way to counter it was to renew the faith of the people in heaven and hell. You may find his ideas on this point quoted in “The Profits of Religion,” page 224. He took to studying spiritualism, and the newspapers took him up, and the university authorities, who tolerate no sort of eccentricity, politely slid him out of his job.

After his recent visit to the United States, H. G. Wells wrote that the most vital mind he had met was James Harvey Robinson, author of “The Mind in the Making.” Twenty-two or three years ago I took with Professor Robinson a course in the history of the Renaissance and Reformation. It was a great period, when the mind of the race was breaking the shackles of mediæval tyranny in religion, politics, and thought. I read with eagerness about John Huss and Wyckliffe, Erasmus and Luther. I still hope for such heroes and for such an awakening in my own modern world; meantime, I observe that Professor Robinson, unable to stand the mediævalism of Columbia, has handed in his resignation.

Then MacDowell, the composer. Edward MacDowell was the first authentic man of genius I met; he is the only American musician whose work has won fame abroad. He was a man as well as an artist, and his courses in general musical culture were a rare delight. After much urging, he consented to play us parts of his own works, and discuss them with us. Needless to say, this was not orthodox academic procedure, and the college authorities, who do not recognize genius less than a hundred years away, would not give proper credits for work with MacDowell. The composer’s beautiful dream of a center of musical education came to nothing, and he retired, broken-hearted. As I described the tragedy at the time, he ran into Nicholas Murray Butler and was killed.

Finally, George Edward Woodberry, who was in the field of letters what MacDowell was in music, a master not merely of criticism but of creation; also a charming spirit and a friend to students. He gave a course in what he called comparative literature, and made us acquainted with Plato, Cervantes, Dante, Ariosto, Spenser, and Shelley. He was a truly liberalizing influence, and so popular among the men that the Columbia machine hated him heartily. I was taking Brander Matthews’ course at the same time as Woodberry’s, and would hear Matthews sneer at Woodberry’s “idealism,” and at his methods of teaching. A year later Woodberry was forced out, under circumstances which I shall presently narrate.

CHAPTER IV
THE GOOSE-STEPPERS

In the year 1901 I was twenty-one years of age, and was ready to quit Columbia. The great university had become to me nothing but a library full of books, and some empty class-rooms in which to sit while reading them. No longer was I lured by elaborate prospectuses, setting forth lists of “courses”; I had tried forty of them, and knew that nine-tenths of them were dull. The great institution was a hollow shell, a body without a soul, a mass of brick and stone held together by red tape.

But before I went out into the world, I made one final test of the place. I knew by this time exactly what I wanted to do in the world; I wanted to create literature. I had an overwhelming impulse, so intense that it had completely ruined me as a hack-writer; my “half-dime” novels had become impossible to me, and the question of how I was to earn my living was a serious one.

And here was a great university, devoted to the furthering of all the liberal arts. This university had trained me to love and reverence the great writers of the past; what was its attitude to the great writers of the future? The university controlled and awarded a vast number of scholarships and fellowships in all branches of learning; that is to say, it offered support to young men while they equipped themselves to understand and teach the writings of the past. But what about the writings of the future? What aid would the university give to these? I was planning to spend the summer writing a novel, and the idea occurred to me: Would Columbia University accept a novel as a thesis or dissertation, or as evidence of merit and of work accomplished, in competition for any fellowship or endowment under its control?