Jack had heard endless discussions on this subject, and was ready for these questions, "No," he said in answer to the last one, "I don't think anything of the kind. Please don't imagine that at Harvard we are nothing but gladiator worshippers. We admire a plucky athlete, it is true, but not because he is strong or successful, only because of his grit and self-denial. Of course we want him to put the Crimson ahead, but we like him none the less if he fails, provided he has done his best and done it like a gentleman. We admire the same qualities just as much when we see them in any other field than that of athletics, but I suppose we don't recognize them so easily. But in that our little world is not so different from the big one. Now I am going to ask you some questions. Has any man during the last seventy years been elected President of these United States for his greatness, unless he was a soldier? Has not the general been preferred time and again to the statesman? Has not the warrior always been dear to the heart of the people, while other men, who have hammered away all their lives with longer-winded pluck and perseverance, must content themselves with secondary honor? The reason of this must be that when a man does his duty on the battle-field, his merit is more patent to the people than in the harder and less showy struggle of civil life. Are we youngsters, then, so very much younger than the old and wise ones who criticise us? Why, you yourself just now said that you were proud of your cousin because he was on the Yale crew." "Oh, no, I didn't say that," laughed the girl; "I only said that he was on the Yale crew and I was very proud of him. Why, Mr. Rattleton, what a sharp pleader you are! I had no idea that your talents lay in that direction." "By Jove! neither had I," exclaimed the ingenuous Jack, really wondering and somewhat abashed at his unaccustomed volubility. "I am only trying, you know, to repeat what I have heard other fellows say," he confessed, apologetically. "I suppose I have got it all mixed up and am talking like a fool, but please make allowances for me, because I am one, you know." "No you are not at all," she said slowly, to Jack's great relief. "But don't you think that you rather belittle yourself and your fellows by being too humble, and comparing yourselves with people who have not had your advantages? Ought not educated men, men of the same school that has produced our greatest thinkers and workers, ought they not to discern between the showy and the solid? Should the manliness of the athlete be any more patent to them than the higher courage of the student?"