“How Socratic you are,” Michael laughed. “Perhaps the Rhodes Scholars will answer your question. I remember reading somewhere lately that it was confidently anticipated the advent of the Rhodes Scholars would transform a provincial university into an imperial one. That may have been written by a Cambridge man bitterly aware of his own provincial university. Yet a moment’s reflection should have taught him that provincialism in academic matters is possibly an advantage. Florence and Athens were provincial. Rome and London and Oxford are metropolitan—much more dangerously exposed to the metropolitan snares of superficiality and of submerged personality with the corollary of vulgar display. Neither Rome nor London nor Oxford has produced her own poets. They have always been sung by the envious but happy provincials. Rome and London would have treated Shelley just as Oxford did. Cambridge would have disapproved of him, but a bourgeois dread of interference would have let him alone. As for an imperial university, the idea is ghastly. I figure something like the Imperial Institute filled with Colonials eating pemmican. The Eucalyptic Vision, it might be called.” “And you’d make a distinction between imperial and metropolitan?” Alan asked. “Good gracious, yes. Wouldn’t you distinguish between New York and London? Imperialism is the worst qualities of the provinces gathered up and exhibited to the world in the worst way. A metropolis takes provincialism and skims the cream. It is a disintegrating, but for itself a civilizing, force. A metropolis doesn’t encourage creative art by metropolitans. It ought to be engaged all the time in trying to make the provincials appreciate what they themselves are doing.” “I think you’re probably talking a good deal of rot,” said Alan severely. “And we seem to have gone a long way from my question.” “About the application of philosophy?” Alan nodded. “Dear man, as were I a Cantabrian provincial, I should say. Dear man! Doesn’t it make you shiver? It’s like the ‘Pleased to meet you,’ of Americans and Tootingians. It’s so terribly and intrusively personal. So informative and unrestrained, so gushing and——” “I wish you’d answer my question,” Alan grumbled, “and call me what you like without talking about it.” “Now I’ve forgotten my answer,” said Michael. “And it was a wonderful answer. Oh, I remember now. Of course, your philosophy is applicable to the world. You coming from a metropolitan university will try to infect the world with your syllogisms. You will meet Cambridge men much better educated than yourself, but all of them incompetent to appreciate their own education. You will gently banter them, trying to allay their provincial suspicion of your easy manner. You will——” “_You_ will simply not be serious,” said Alan. “And so I shall go to bed.”