The Vision Splendid | Page 8

the time he had wondered just
what the president of the Verden Union Water Company had meant. He
was slowly puzzling his way to an answer.
Chancellor Bland referred often to the "largehearted Christian
gentlemen who gave of their substance to promote the moral and
educational life of the state." But Jeff knew that many believed Frome
and Merrill to be no better than robbers on a large scale. He knew the
methods by which they had gained their franchises and that they ruled
the politics of the city by graft and corruption. Yet the chancellor was
always ready to speak or write against municipal ownership. It was
common talk on the streets that Professor Perkins, of the chair of
political science, had had his expenses paid to England by Merrill to
study the street railway system of Great Britain, and that Perkins had
duly written several bread-and-butter articles to show that public
ownership was unsuccessful there.
The college was a denominational one and the atmosphere wholly
orthodox. Doubt and skepticism were spoken of only with horror. At
first it was of himself that Jeff was critical. The spirit of the place was
opposed to all his convictions, but he felt that perhaps his reaction upon
life had been affected too much by his experiences.
He asked questions, and was suppressed with severity or kindly
paternal advice. It came to him one night while he was walking
bareheaded under the stars that there was in the place no intellectual

stimulus, though there was an elaborate presence of it. The classrooms
were arid. Everywhere fences were up beyond which the mind was not
expected to travel. A thing was right, because it had come to be
accepted. That was the gospel of his fellows, of his teachers. Later he
learned that it is also the creed of the world.
What Jeff could not understand was a mind which refused to accept the
inevitable conclusions to which its own processes pushed it. Verden
University lacked the courage which comes from intellectual honesty.
Wherefore its economics were devitalized and its theology an
anachronism.
But Jeff had been given a mind unable to lie to itself. He was in very
essence a non-conformist. To him age alone did not lend sanctity to the
ghosts of dead yesterdays that rule to-day.
CHAPTER 3
"Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. He who would
gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness,
but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the
integrity of your own mind," --Emerson.
CONVERSING ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY, THE REBEL
LEARNS THAT IT IS SOMETIMES WISE TO SOFT PEDAL
IDEAS UNLESS THEY ARE ACCEPTED ONES
During his freshman year Jeff saw little of his cousin beyond the usual
campus greetings, except for a period of six weeks when the junior
happened to need him. But the career of James K. tickled immensely
the under classman's sense of humor. He was becoming the most
dazzling success ever developed by the college. Even with the faculty
he stood high, for if he lacked scholarship he had the more showy gifts
that went farther. He knew when to defer and when to ride roughshod
to his end. It was felt that his brilliancy had a solidity back of it, a
quality of flintiness that would endure.
James was inordinately ambitious and loved the spotlight like an actor.

The flamboyant oratory at which he excelled had won for him the
interstate contest. He was editor-in-chief of the "Verdenian," manager
of the varsity football team, and president of the college senate.
With the beginning of his senior year James entered another phase of
his development. He offered to the college a new, or at least an
enlarged, interpretation of himself. Some of his smiling
good-fellowship had been sloughed to make way for the benignity of a
budding statesman. He still held a tolerant attitude to the antics of his
friends, but it was easy to see that he had put away childish things. To
his many young women admirers he talked confidentially of his aims
and aspirations. The future of James K. Farnum was a topic he never
exhausted.
It was, too, a subject which greatly interested Jeff and Sam Miller. His
cousin might smile at his poses, and often did, but he never denied
James qualities likely to carry him far.
"His one best bet is his belief in himself," Sam announced one night.
"It's a great thing to believe in yourself."
"He's so dead sure he's cast for a big part. The egoism just oozes out of
him. He doesn't know himself that he's a faker."
"He is a long way from that," Jeff protested warmly.
"Take his oratory," Miller went on irritably. "It's all bunk.