"I mean we are the ones who are limited, who are liable to miss the big opportunities of college life. We have got into the habit, under the pretense of good fellowship, of herding together." "Why shouldn't we?" persisted Hunter. "Because we shut ourselves up, withdraw from the big life of the college, know only our own kind, the kind we'll know all our life; surrender our imagination. We represent only a social idea, a good time, good friends, good figure-heads on the different machines of the college. But we miss the big chance--to go out, to mingle with every one, to educate ourselves by knowing opposite lives, fellows who see things as we never have seen them, who are going back to a life a thousand miles away from what we will lead." He expressed himself badly, and, realizing it, said impatiently: "Here, what I mean is this. It's not my idea, it's Brockhurst's, it's Tom Regan's. The biggest thing we can do is to reflect the nation, to be the inspiration of the democracy of the country, to be alive to the fight among the people for real political independence. We ought to get a great vision when we come up here, as young men, of the bigness of our country, of the privilege of fighting out its political freedom, of what American manhood means in the towns of Georgia and Texas, in the little manufacturing cities of New England, in the great West, and in the small homes of the big cities. We ought to really know one another, meet, discuss, respect each other's point of view, independence--odd ways if you wish. We don't do it. We did once--we don't now. Princeton doesn't do it, Harvard doesn't do it. We're over-organized away from the vital thing--the knowledge of ourselves." "Then you'd abolish the sophomore societies?" said Hunter, crowding him to the wall. "I don't know. Sometimes I've felt it's the system that is wrong," said Stover frankly. "Lately, I've changed my mind. I think we can do what we want--at least I know I've gone out and met whom I wanted to without my being in a sophomore society making the slightest difference. I say I don't know where the trouble is; whether the whole social system here and elsewhere is the cause or the effect. It may be that it is the whole development of America that has changed our college life. I don't know; those questions are too big for me to work out. But I know one thing, that my own ideas of what I want here have taken a back somersault, and that I'm going out of here knowing everything I can of every man in the class." Suddenly he remembered Hunter's opposition, and turning, concluded: "One thing more; if ever I make up my mind that the sophomore society system or any other system ought to be abolished, I'll stand out and say so." When he had finished, his classmates began talking all at once, Hunter and Bain in bitter opposition, Bob Story in warm defense, Hungerford, in his big-souled way, coming ponderously to his assistance.