where to store every new piece of knowledge he acquired, and kept
thereby an orderly brain. He read more than a book a week: everything he
could lay hands on in psychology, anthropology, biology, philosophy,
psycho-analysis--every field which he felt contributed to his own
growing conviction that orthodox economics had served its day. And how
he gloried in that reading! It had been years since he had been able to
do anything but just keep up with his daily lectures, such was the
pressure he was working under. Bless his heart, he was always coming
across something that was just too good to hold in, and I would hear him
come upstairs two steps at a time, bolt into the kitchen, and say: "Just
listen to this!" And he would read an extract from some new-found
treasure that would make him glow.

But outside of myself,--and I was only able to keep up with him by the
merest skimmings,--and one or two others at most, there was no one who
understood what he was driving at. As his reading and convictions grew,
he waxed more and more outraged at the way Economics was handled in his
own University. He saw student after student having every ounce of
intellectual curiosity ground out of them by a process of economic
education that would stultify a genius. Any student who continued his
economic studies did so in spite of the introductory work, not because
he had had one little ounce of enthusiasm aroused in his soul. Carl
would walk the floor with his hands in his pockets when kindred
spirits--especially students who had gone through the mill, and as
seniors or graduates looked back outraged at certain courses they had
had to flounder through--brought up the subject of Economics at the
University of California.

Off he went then on his pilgrimage,--his Research
Magnificent,--absolutely unknown to almost every man he hoped to see
before his return. The first stop he made was at Columbia, Missouri, to
see his idol Veblen. He quaked a bit beforehand,--had heard Veblen might
not see him,--but the second letter from Missouri began, "Just got in
after thirteen hours with Veblen. It went wonderfully and I am tickled
to death. He O.K.s my idea entirely and said I could not go wrong. . . .
Gee, but it is some grand experience to go up against him."

In the next letter he told of a graduate student who came out to get his
advice regarding a thesis-subject in labor. "I told him to go to his New
England home and study the reaction of machine-i