hrough Stevenson's essay on Whitman Jeff came to know the Scotch
writer, and from the first paragraph of him was a sealed follower of R.
L. S. In different ways both of these poets ministered to a certain love
of freedom, of beauty, of outdoor spaces that was ineradicably a part of
his nature. The essence of vagabondage is the spirit of romance. One may
tour every corner of the earth and still be a respectable Pharisee. One
may never move a dozen miles from the village of his birth and yet be
of the happy company of romantics. Jeff could find in a sunset, in
a stretch of windswept plain, in the sight of water through leafless
trees, something that filled his heart with emotion.

Perhaps the very freedom of these vacation excursions helped to feed his
growing discontent. The yeast of rebellion was forever stirring in
him. He wanted to come to life with open mind. He was possessed of an
insatiable curiosity about it. This took him to the slums of Verden, to
the redlight district, to Socialist meetings, to a striking coal camp
near the city where he narrowly escaped being killed as a scab. He knew
that something was wrong with our social life. Inextricably blended with
success and happiness he saw everywhere pain, defeat, and confusion. Why
must such things be? Why poverty at all?

But when he flung his questions at Pearson, who had charge of the work
in sociology, the explanations of the professor seemed to him pitifully
weak.

In the ethics class he met the same experience. A chance reference to
Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual world" introduced him to that
stimulating book. All one night he sat up and read it--drank it in with
every fiber of his thirsty being.

The fire in his stove went out. He slipped into his overcoat. Gray
morning found him still reading. He walked out with dazed eyes into
a world that had been baptized anew during the night to a miraculous
rebirth.

But when he took his discovery to the lecture room Dawson was not only
cold but hostile. Drummond was not sound. There was about him a specious
charm very likely to attract young minds. Better let such books alone
for the present. In the meantime the class would take up with him the
discussion of predeterminism as outlined in Tuesday's work.

There were members of the faculty big enough to have understood the boy
and tolerant enough to have sympathized with his crude revolt, but Jeff
was diffident and never came in touch with them.

His