The Plastic Age

When an American sets out to found a college, he hunts first for a hill. John Harvard was an Englishman and indifferent to high places. The result is that Harvard has become a university of vast proportions and no color. Yale flounders about among the New Haven shops, trying to rise above them. The Harkness Memorial tower is successful; otherwise the university smells of trade. If Yale had been built on a hill, it would probably be far less important and much more interesting.

Hezekiah Sanford was wise; he found first his hill and then founded his college, believing probably that anyone ambitious enough to climb the hill was a man fit to wrestle with learning and, if need be, with Satan himself. Satan was ever before Hezekiah, and he fought him valiantly, exorcising him every morning in chapel and every evening at prayers. The first students of Sanford College learned Latin and Greek and to fear the devil. There are some who declare that their successors learn less.

Hezekiah built Sanford Hall, a fine Georgian building, performed the duties of trustees, president, dean, and faculty for thirty years, and then passed to his reward, leaving three thousand acres, his library of five hundred books, mostly sermons, Sanford Hall, and a charter that opened the gates of Sanford to all men so that they might “find the true light of God and the glory of Jesus in the halls of this most liberal college.”

More than a century had passed since Hezekiah was laid to rest in Haydensville’s cemetery. The college had grown miraculously and changed even more miraculously. Only the hill and its beautiful surroundings remained the same.

As Hugh Carver hastened up the hill from the station, his two suitcases banged his legs and tripped him. He could hardly wait to reach the campus. The journey had been intolerably long⁠—Haydensville was more than three hundred miles from Merrytown, his home⁠—and he was wild to find his room in Surrey Hall. He wondered how he would like his roommate, Peters.⁠ ⁠… What’s his name? Oh, yes, Carl.⁠ ⁠… The registrar had written that Peters had gone to Kane School.⁠ ⁠… Must be pretty fine. Ought to be first-class to room with.⁠ ⁠… Hugh hoped that Peters wouldn’t think that he was too country.⁠ ⁠…

Hugh was a slender lad who looked considerably less than his eighteen years. A gray cap concealed his sandy brown hair, which he parted on the side and which curled despite all his brushing. His crystalline blue eyes, his small, neatly carved nose, his sensitive mouth that hid a shy and appealing smile, were all very boyish. He seemed young, almost pathetically young.

People invariably called him a nice boy, and he didn’t like it; in fact, he wanted to know how they got that way. They gave him the pip, that’s what they did. He guessed that a fellow who could run the hundred in 10:2 and out-box anybody in high school wasn’t such a baby. Why, he had overheard one of the old maid teachers call him sweet.

“Go ahead and yell. It’s easy as hell to cheer here in the gym; but what are you going to do Saturday afternoon?”

His voice was sharp with sarcasm, and to the shouts of “Yell! Fight!” that came from all over the gymnasium, he answered, “Yeah, maybe⁠—maybe.” He shifted his position, stepping toward the front of the platform, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.

“I’ve seen a lot of football games, and I’ve seen lots of rooters, but this is the goddamndest gang of yellow-bellied quitters that I’ve ever seen. What happened last Saturday when we were behind? I’m asking you; what happened? You quit! Quit like a bunch of whipped curs. God! you’re yellow, yellow as hell. But the team went on fighting⁠—and it won, won in spite of you, won for a bunch of yellow pups. And why? Because the team’s got guts. And when it was all over, you cheered and howled and serpentined and felt big as hell. Lord Almighty! you acted as if you’d done something.”

His right hand came out of his pocket with a jerk, and he extended a fighting, clenched fist toward his breathless audience. “I’ll tell you something,” he said slowly, viciously; “the team can’t win alone day after tomorrow. It can’t win alone! You’ve got to fight. Damn it! You’ve got to fight! Raleigh’s good, damn good; it hasn’t lost a game this season⁠—and we’ve got to win, win! Do you hear? We’ve got to win! And there’s only one way that we can win, and that’s with every man back of the team. Every goddamned mother’s son of you. The team’s good, but it can’t win unless you fight⁠—fight!”

“Well, I am.” Slade looked up defiantly. “I guess it’s up to me to explain⁠—and I don’t know how to do it. I’m a dumbbell. I can’t talk decently. I flunked English One three times, you know.” He hesitated a moment and then blurted out, “I was looking for those bags myself.”

“What?” Hugh leaned forward and stared at him, bewildered and dumbfounded. “You were looking for them?”

“Yeah.⁠ ⁠… You see, I’m a bad egg⁠—always been a bad one with women, ever since I was a kid. Gotta have one about every so often.⁠ ⁠… I⁠—I’m not much.”

“But what made you stop me?” Hugh pressed his hand to his temple. His head was aching, and he could make nothing out of Slade’s talk.

“Because⁠—because.⁠ ⁠… Oh, hell, Carver, I don’t know how to explain it. I’m twenty-four and you’re about nineteen and I know a lot that you don’t. I was brought up in South Boston and I ran with a gang. There wasn’t anything rotten that we didn’t do.⁠ ⁠… I’ve been watching you. You’re different.”

“How different?” Hugh demanded. “I want women just as much as you do.”

“That isn’t it.” Slade ran his fingers through his thick black hair and scowled fiercely at the fireplace. “That isn’t it at all. You’re⁠—you’re awfully clean and decent. I’ve been watching you lots⁠—oh, for a year. You’re⁠—you’re different,” he finished lamely.

Hugh was beginning to understand. “Do you mean,” he asked slowly, “that you want me to keep straight⁠—that⁠—that, well⁠—that you like me that way better?” He was really asking Slade if he admired him, and Slade got his meaning perfectly.

The bell rang. Henley called the roll, stuck his class-book into his coat pocket, placed his watch on the desk; then leaned back and looked the class over.

“Your themes are making me sick,” he began, “nauseated. I have a fairly strong stomach, but there is just so much that I can stand⁠—and you have passed the limit. There is hardly a man in this class who hasn’t written at least one theme on the glory that is Sanford. As you know, I am a Sanford man myself, and I have my share of affection for the college, but you have reached an ecstasy of chauvinism that makes Chauvin’s affection for Napoleon seem almost like contempt.

“In the last batch of themes I got five telling me of the perfection of Sanford: Sanford is the greatest college in the country; Sanford has the best athletes, the finest equipment, the most erudite faculty, the most perfect location, the most loyal alumni, the strongest spirit⁠—the most superlative everything. Nonsense! Rot! Bunk! Sanford hasn’t anything of the sort, and I who love it say so. Sanford is a good little college, but it isn’t a Harvard, a Yale, or a Princeton, or, for that matter, a Dartmouth or Brown; and those colleges still have perfection ahead of them. Sanford has made a place for itself in the sun, but it will never find a bigger place so long as its sons do nothing but chant its praises and condemn anyone as disloyal who happens to mention its very numerous faults.