whimsical
and humorous, and full of subtle touches. The tragic element is furnished
by ----, the ----. The author touches with keen satire on the follies and
vices of the time, while the interest in the principal love affair is
sustained until the final denouement. Altogether it would be difficult
to imagine a more brilliant example of dramatic--or literary--art."

I give this rather shocking example of sophomoric shiftlessness for the
purpose of illustrating my attitude toward my educational opportunities
and what was possible in the way of dexterously avoiding them. All I had
to do was to learn the names of the chief characters in the various
plays and novels prescribed. If I could acquire a brief scenario of each
so much the better. Invariably they had heroes and heroines, good old
servants or grandparents, and merry jesters. At the examination I
successfully simulated familiarity with a book I had never read and
received a commendatory mark.

This happy-go-lucky frame of mind was by no means peculiar to myself.
Indeed I believe it to have been shared by the great majority of my
classmates. The result was that we were sent forth into the world
without having mastered any subject whatsoever, or even followed it for
a sufficient length of time to become sincerely interested in it. The
only study I pursued more than one year was English composition, which
came easily to me, and which in one form or another I followed
throughout my course. Had I adopted the same tactics with any other of
the various branches open to me, such as history, chemistry or
languages, I should not be what I am to-day--a hopelessly superficial
man.

Mind you, I do not mean to assert that I got nothing out of it at all.
Undoubtedly I absorbed a smattering of a variety of subjects that might
on a pinch pass for education. I observed how men with greater social
advantages than myself brushed their hair, wore their clothes and took
off their hats to their women friends. Frankly that was about everything
I took away with me. I was a victim of that liberality of opportunity
which may be a heavenly gift to a post-graduate in a university, but
which is intellectual damnation to an undergraduate collegian.

The chief fault that I have to find with my own education, however, is
that at no time was I encouraged to think for myself. No older man ever
invited me to his study, there quietly and frankly to discuss the
problems of human existence. I was lef