Delphi complete works of.., p.55
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 55
“You don’t,” said Tomlinson the Wizard in a hesitating tone as he looked at the smooth grass of the campus, “I suppose, raise anything on it?”
“No, no; this is only for field sports,” said the president; “sunt quos curriculo—”
To which Dr. Boyster on the other side added, like a chorus, “pulverem Olympicum.”
This was their favourite quotation. It always gave President Boomer a chance to speak of the final letter “m” in Latin poetry, and to say that in his opinion the so-called elision of the final “m” was more properly a dropping of the vowel with a repercussion of the two last consonants. He supported this by quoting Ammianus, at which Dr. Boyster exclaimed, “Pooh! Ammianus: more dog Latin!” and appealed to Mr. Tomlinson as to whether any rational man nowadays cared what Ammianus thought?
To all of which Tomlinson answered never a word, but looked steadily first at one and then at the other. Dr. Boomer said afterwards that the penetration of Tomlinson was wonderful, and that it was excellent to see how Boyster tried in vain to draw him; and Boyster said afterwards that the way in which Tomlinson quietly refused to be led on by Boomer was delicious, and that it was a pity that Aristophanes was not there to do it justice.
All of which was happening as they went in at the iron gates and up the elm avenue of Plutoria University.
The university, as everyone knows, stands with its great gates on Plutoria Avenue, and with its largest buildings, those of the faculties of industrial and mechanical science, fronting full upon the street.
These buildings are exceptionally fine, standing fifteen stories high and comparing favourably with the best departmental stores or factories in the City. Indeed, after nightfall, when they are all lighted up for the evening technical classes and when their testing machinery is in full swing and there are students going in and out in overall suits, people have often mistaken the university, or this newer part of it, for a factory. A foreign visitor once said that the students looked like plumbers, and President Boomer was so proud of it that he put the phrase into his next Commencement address; and from there the newspapers got it and the Associated Press took it up and sent it all over the United States with the heading, “Have Appearance of Plumbers; Plutoria University Congratulated on Character of Students,” and it was a proud day indeed for the heads of the Industrial Science faculty.
But the older part of the university stands so quietly and modestly at the top end of the elm avenue, so hidden by the leaves of it, that no one could mistake it for a factory. This, indeed, was once the whole university, and had stood there since colonial days under the name Concordia College. It had been filled with generations of presidents and professors of the older type with long white beards and rusty black clothes, and salaries of fifteen hundred dollars.
But the change both of name and of character from Concordia College to Plutoria University was the work of President Boomer. He had changed it from an old-fashioned college of the by-gone type to a university in the true modern sense. At Plutoria they now taught everything. Concordia College, for example, had no teaching of religion except lectures on the Bible. Now they had lectures also on Confucianism, Mohammedanism Buddhism, with an optional course on atheism for students in the final year.
And, of course, they had long since admitted women, and there were now beautiful creatures with Cleo de Merode hair studying astronomy at oaken desks and looking up at the teacher with eyes like comets. The university taught everything and did everything. It had whirling machines on the top of it that measured the speed of the wind, and deep in its basements it measured earthquakes with a seismograph; it held classes on forestry and dentistry and palmistry; it sent life classes into the slums, and death classes to the city morgue. It offered such a vast variety of themes, topics and subjects to the students, that there was nothing that a student was compelled to learn, while from its own presses in its own press-building it sent out a shower of bulletins and monographs like driven snow from a rotary plough.
In fact, it had become, as President Boomer told all the businessmen in town, not merely a university, but a universitas in the true sense, and every one of its faculties was now a facultas in the real acceptance of the word, and its studies properly and truly studia; indeed, if the businessmen would only build a few more dormitories and put up enough money to form an adequate fondatum or fundum, then the good work might be looked upon as complete.
As the three walked up the elm avenue there met them a little stream of students with college books, and female students with winged-victory hats, and professors with last year’s overcoats. And some went past with a smile and others with a shiver.
“That’s Professor Withers,” said the president in a sympathetic voice as one of the shivering figures went past; “poor Withers,” and he sighed.
“What’s wrong with him?” said the Wizard; “is he sick?”
“No, not sick,” said the president quietly and sadly, “merely inefficient.”
“Inefficient?”
“Unfortunately so. Mind you, I don’t mean ‘inefficient’ in every sense. By no means. If anyone were to come to me and say, ‘Boomer, can you put your hand for me on a first-class botanist?’ I’d say, ‘Take Withers.’ I’d say it in a minute.” This was true. He would have. In fact, if anyone had made this kind of rash speech, Dr. Boomer would have given away half the professoriate.
“Well, what’s wrong with him?” repeated Tomlinson, “I suppose he ain’t quite up to the mark in some ways, eh?”
“Precisely,” said the president, “not quite up to the mark — a very happy way of putting it. Capax imperii nisi imperasset, as no doubt you are thinking to yourself. The fact is that Withers, though an excellent fellow, can’t manage large classes. With small classes he is all right, but with large classes the man is lost. He can’t handle them.”
“He can’t, eh?” said the Wizard.
“No. But what can I do? There he is. I can’t dismiss him. I can’t pension him. I’ve no money for it.”
Here the president slackened a little in his walk and looked sideways at the prospective benefactor. But Tomlinson gave no sign.
A second professorial figure passed them on the other side.
“There again,” said the president, “that’s another case of inefficiency — Professor Shottat, our senior professor of English.”
“What’s wrong with him?” asked the Wizard.
“He can’t handle small classes,” said the president. “With large classes he is really excellent, but with small ones the man is simply hopeless.”
In this fashion, before Mr. Tomlinson had measured the length of the avenue, he had had ample opportunity to judge of the crying need of money at Plutoria University, and of the perplexity of its president. He was shown professors who could handle the first year, but were powerless with the second; others who were all right with the second but broke down with the third, while others could handle the third but collapsed with the fourth. There were professors who were all right in their own subject, but perfectly impossible outside of it; others who were so occupied outside of their own subject that they were useless inside of it; others who knew their subject, but couldn’t lecture; and others again who lectured admirably, but didn’t know their subject.
In short it was clear — as it was meant to be — that the need of the moment was a sum of money sufficient to enable the president to dismiss everybody but himself and Dr. Boyster. The latter stood in a class all by himself. He had known the president for forty-five years, ever since he was a fat little boy with spectacles in a classical academy, stuffing himself on irregular Greek verbs as readily as if on oysters.
But it soon appeared that the need for dismissing the professors was only part of the trouble. There were the buildings to consider.
“This, I am ashamed to say,” said Dr. Boomer, as they passed the imitation Greek portico of the old Concordia College building, “is our original home, the fons et origo of our studies, our faculty of arts.”
It was indeed a dilapidated building, yet there was a certain majesty about it, too, especially when one reflected that it had been standing there looking much the same at the time when its students had trooped off in a flock to join the army of the Potomac, and much the same, indeed, three generations before that, when the classes were closed and the students clapped three-cornered hats on their heads and were off to enlist as minute men with flintlock muskets under General Washington.
But Dr. Boomer’s one idea was to knock the building down and to build on its site a real facultas ten storeys high, with elevators in it.
Tomlinson looked about him humbly as he stood in the main hall. The atmosphere of the place awed him. There were bulletins and time-tables and notices stuck on the walls that gave evidence of the activity of the place. “Professor Slithers will be unable to meet his classes today,” ran one of them, and another “Professor Withers will not meet his classes this week,” and another, “Owing to illness, Professor Shottat will not lecture this month,” while still another announced, “Owing to the indisposition of Professor Podge, all botanical classes are suspended, but Professor Podge hopes to be able to join in the Botanical Picnic Excursion to Loon Lake on Saturday afternoon.” You could judge of the grinding routine of the work from the nature of these notices. Anyone familiar with the work of colleges would not heed it, but it shocked Tomlinson to think how often the professors of the college were stricken down by overwork.
Here and there in the hall, set into niches, were bronze busts of men with Roman faces and bare necks, and the edge of a toga cast over each shoulder.
“Who would these be?” asked Tomlinson, pointing at them. “Some of the chief founders and benefactors of the faculty,” answered the president, and at this the hopes of Tomlinson sank in his heart. For he realized the class of man one had to belong to in order to be accepted as a university benefactor.
“A splendid group of men, are they not?” said the president. “We owe them much. This is the late Mr. Hogworth, a man of singularly large heart.” Here he pointed to a bronze figure wearing a wreath of laurel and inscribed GULIEMUS HOGWORTH, LITT. DOC. “He had made a great fortune in the produce business and wishing to mark his gratitude to the community he erected the anemometer, the wind-measure, on the roof of the building, attaching to it no other condition than that his name should be printed in the weekly reports immediately beside the velocity of the wind. The figure beside him is the late Mr. Underbugg, who founded our lectures on the Four Gospels on the sole stipulation that henceforth any reference of ours to the four gospels should be coupled with his name.”
“What’s that after his name?” asked Tomlinson.
“Litt. Doc.?” said the president. “Doctor of Letters, our honorary degree. We are always happy to grant it to our benefactors by a vote of the faculty.”
Here Dr. Boomer and Dr. Boyster wheeled half round and looked quietly and steadily at the Wizard of Finance. To both their minds it was perfectly plain that an honourable bargain was being struck.
“Yes, Mr. Tomlinson,” said the president, as they emerged from the building, “no doubt you begin to realize our unhappy position. Money, money, money,” he repeated half-musingly. “If I had the money I’d have that whole building down and dismantled in a fortnight.”
From the central building the three passed to the museum building, where Tomlinson was shown a vast skeleton of a Diplodocus Maximus, and was specially warned not to confuse it with the Dinosaurus Perfectus, whose bones, however, could be bought if anyone, any man of large heart; would come to the university and say straight out, “Gentlemen, what can I do for you?” Better still, it appeared the whole museum which was hopelessly antiquated, being twenty-five years old, could be entirely knocked down if a sufficient sum was forthcoming; and its curator, who was as ancient as the Dinosaurus itself, could be dismissed on half-pay if any man had a heart large enough for the dismissal.
From the museum they passed to the library, where there were full-length portraits of more founders and benefactors in long red robes, holding scrolls of paper, and others sitting holding pens and writing on parchment, with a Greek temple and a thunderstorm in the background.
And here again it appeared that the crying need of the moment was for someone to come to the university and say, “Gentlemen, what can I do for you?” On which the whole library, for it was twenty years old and out of date, might be blown up with dynamite and carted away.
But at all this the hopes of Tomlinson sank lower and lower. The red robes and the scrolls were too much for him.
From the library they passed to the tall buildings that housed the faculty of industrial and mechanical science. And here again the same pitiful lack of money was everywhere apparent. For example, in the physical science department there was a mass of apparatus for which the university was unable to afford suitable premises, and in the chemical department there were vast premises for which the university was unable to buy apparatus, and so on. Indeed it was part of Dr. Boomer’s method to get himself endowed first with premises too big for the apparatus, and then by appealing to public spirit to call for enough apparatus to more than fill the premises, by means of which system industrial science at Plutoria University advanced with increasing and gigantic strides.
But most of all, the electric department interested the Wizard of Finance. And this time his voice lost its hesitating tone and he looked straight at Dr. Boomer as he began,
“I have a boy—”
“Ah!” said Dr. Boomer, with a huge ejaculation of surprise and relief; “you have a boy!”
There were volumes in his tone. What it meant was, “Now, indeed, we have got you where we want you,” and he exchanged a meaning look with the professor of Greek.
Within five minutes the president and Tomlinson and Dr. Boyster were gravely discussing on what terms and in what way Fred might be admitted to study in the faculty of industrial science. The president, on learning that Fred had put in four years in Cahoga County Section No. 3 School, and had been head of his class in ciphering, nodded his head gravely and said it would simply be a matter of a pro tanto; that, in fact, he felt sure that Fred might be admitted ad eundem. But the real condition on which they meant to admit him was, of course, not mentioned.
One door only in the faculty of industrial and mechanical science they did not pass, a heavy oak door at the end of a corridor bearing the painted inscription: Geological and Metallurgical Laboratories. Stuck in the door was a card with the words (they were conceived in the courteous phrases of mechanical science, which is almost a branch of business in the real sense): Busy — keep out.
Dr. Boomer looked at the card. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Gildas is no doubt busy with his tests. We won’t disturb him.” The president was always proud to find a professor busy; it looked well.
But if Dr. Boomer had known what was going on behind the oaken door of the Department of Geology and Metallurgy, he would have felt considerably disturbed himself.
For here again Gildas, senior professor of geology, was working among his blue flames at a final test on which depended the fate of the Erie Auriferous Consolidated and all connected with it.
Before him there were some twenty or thirty packets of crumpled dust and splintered ore that glittered on the testing-table. It had been taken up from the creek along its whole length, at even spaces twenty yards apart, by an expert sent down in haste by the directorate, after Gildas’s second report, and heavily bribed to keep his mouth shut.
And as Professor Gildas stood and worked at the samples and tied them up after analysis in little white cardboard boxes, he marked each one very carefully and neatly with the words, PYRITES: WORTHLESS.
Beside the professor worked a young demonstrator of last year’s graduation class. It was he, in fact, who had written the polite notice on the card.
“What is the stuff, anyway?” he asked.
“A sulphuret of iron,” said the professor, “or iron pyrites. In colour and appearance it is practically identical with gold. Indeed, in all ages,” he went on, dropping at once into the classroom tone and adopting the professional habit of jumping backwards twenty centuries in order to explain anything properly, “it has been readily mistaken for the precious metal. The ancients called it ‘fool’s gold.’ Martin Frobisher brought back four shiploads of it from Baffin Land thinking that he had discovered an Eldorado. There are large deposits of it in the mines of Cornwall, and it is just possible,” here the professor measured his words as if speaking of something that he wouldn’t promise, “that the Cassiterides of the Phoenicians contained deposits of the same sulphuret. Indeed, I defy anyone,” he continued, for he was piqued in his scientific pride, “to distinguish it from gold without a laboratory-test. In large quantities, I concede, its lack of weight would betray it to a trained hand, but without testing its solubility in nitric acid, or the fact of its burning with a blue flame under the blow-pipe, it cannot be detected. In short, when crystallized in dodecahedrons—”
“Is it any good?” broke in the demonstrator.
“Good?” said the professor. “Oh, you mean commercially? Not in the slightest. Much less valuable than, let us say, ordinary mud or clay. In fact, it is absolutely good for nothing.”
They were silent for a moment, watching the blue flames above the brazier.
Then Gildas spoke again. “Oddly enough,” he said, “the first set of samples were undoubtedly pure gold — not the faintest doubt of that. That is the really interesting part of the matter. These gentlemen concerned in the enterprise will, of course, lose their money, and I shall therefore decline to accept the very handsome fee which they had offered me for my services. But the main feature, the real point of interest in this matter remains. Here we have undoubtedly a sporadic deposit — what miners call a pocket — of pure gold in a Devonian formation of the post-tertiary period. This once established, we must revise our entire theory of the distribution of igneous and aqueous rocks. In fact, I am already getting notes together for a paper for the Pan-Geological under the heading, Auriferous Excretions in the Devonian Strata: a Working Hypothesis. I hope to read it at the next meeting.”
