ing out is
a painful experience. He discovers that he and his fellows are made of
very brittle clay: usually he loathes himself; often he loathes his
fellows.

"College isn't the Elysium that it is painted in stories and novels, but
I feel sorry for any intelligent man who didn't have the opportunity to
go to college. There is something beautiful about one's college days,
something that one treasures all his life. As we grow older, we forget
the hours of storm and stress, the class-room humiliations, the terror
of examinations, the awful periods of doubt of God and man--we forget
everything but athletic victories, long discussions with friends, campus
sings, fraternity life, moonlight on the campus, and everything that is
romantic. The sting dies, and the beauty remains.

"Why do men give large sums of money to their colleges when asked?
Because they want to help society? Not at all. The average man doesn't
even take that into consideration. He gives the money because he loves
his alma mater, because he has beautiful and tender memories of her. No,
colleges are far from perfect, tragically far from it, but any
institution that commands loyalty and love as colleges do cannot be
wholly imperfect. There is a virtue in a college that uninspired
administrative officers, stupid professors, and alumni with false ideals
cannot kill. At times I tremble for Sanford College; there are times
when I swear at it, but I never cease to love it."

"If you feel that way about college, why did you say those things to us
two years ago?" Hugh asked. "Because they were true, all true. I was
talking about the undergraduates then, and I could have said much more
cutting things and still been on the safe side of the truth. There is,
however, another side, and that is what I am trying to give you
now--rather incoherently, I know."

Hugh thought of Cynthia. "I suppose all that you say is true," he
admitted dubiously, "but I can't feel that college does what it should
for us. We are told that we are taught to think, but the minute we bump
up against a problem in living we are stumped just as badly as we were
when we are freshmen."

"Oh, no, not at all. You solve problems every day that would have
stumped you hopelessly as a freshman. You think better than you did four
years ago, but no college, however perfect, can teach you all the
solutions of life. There are no nostrums or cure-alls that the colleges
can give for all the ills and sickness