the undergraduate
organizations, will be just so much of a pledge on the part of your
college that she will honor you, give you power and position and the
opportunity to do bigger things. Don't you want those honors? Doesn't
that power mean anything to you?"

I could not answer him; I did not want to tell him that I thought myself
above these little things. He understood me, however, even in my
silence.

"They are things worth while," he said. "There is a senior society worth
'making,' if you can. It would be something to be proud of to be the
only Jew ever to have 'made' it. But it's more than an honor. That
senior society practically governs the student body--molds its thought,
holds sway over all campus opinion. Think what you could do if you were
a member of it. You could fight for the other Jewish boys, make things
easier and fairer for them--could spare them the unpleasant things you
had to bear. You could master all snobbery, could make the university a
place of real American democracy and gentlemanliness. Don't you think
that that's worth while?"

I admitted it was. I had not thought of it in that way.

"Now, this is what I suggest," he said. "It's getting near the end of
the term, and there's no use in your beginning any work down here at the
settlement while college is still in session. But when vacation begins,
I want you to come down here to live for a couple of months. I'll make
you a resident club-leader, and you'll have your full share of the best
sort of work." He paused a moment. "Will you come?"

"Will I? You bet I will!"

"Good! And in the meanwhile, take Trevelyan's advice--it's mine, to.
Stick to your college work and your college play, and don't bother about
the outside world for a while. That is your world--the college. Fight
hard in it. The whole world likes a stiff upper lip, and the college
world likes it best of all. And, sooner or later, Jew or Gentile, the
college world will repay you for all that you give it. If you go through
college shunning everyone, afraid of your own shadow, surly to the
approach of all who would be friendly to you, you will reap nothing but
loneliness and a bitter 'grouch.' If you loaf and play cards and hang
about the billiard parlors all day long, you won't make a friend worth
having, you won't gain anything worth remembering. If you work at your
studies only, you'll gain nothing but Phi Beta Kappa--and, for all its
worth, that'll mean nothing to you unless