The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume IStillman, William James
General
The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I
Stillman, William James
Journalists -- Biography; Stillman, William James, 1828-1901
The doctor's reading of character and detective powers were barely
short of the miraculous, and his management of refractory students
became so well known that many who had been expelled from the other
universities were sent to Union and graduated with credit, so that the
college acquired the nickname of "Botany Bay." There came to him once
for admission a student expelled from Yale for persistent violation
of the regulations, and naturally without the letter which by general
usage was required from the president of one university to another,
certifying the good standing of the student. The president of Yale
wrote to the doctor to ask "if he meant to take that scoundrel into
his college." The doctor, who had made a rapid examination of the man,
replied, "Yes, and make a man of him." In one of my post-graduate
years, when I was staying with the doctor, he told me the story of
this man. He had estimated his character at a glance correctly, and
saw in him a mismanaged student. He was admitted unconditionally,
as if he had come with the best of characters, and for a time he
justified the confidence reposed in him. But the uneasy nature one
day broke out, and he committed a gross violation of the rules. The
discipline of the doctor began always with a friendly conversation,
and with some men ended with it, for he knew so well how to paint the
consequences of expulsion that it sufficed; but on the entry of this
student into his library, he saw on looking at him that he "had the
devil in his eye." He had, in fact, said to his roommate on getting
the summons to the interview, "If the doctor thinks he is going to
break me in he'll find himself mistaken." The doctor had a curious
kind of vision which made it impossible to say which of the persons in
the room he was looking at, and when, while seeming to be engaged on
his book, he had looked into the eyes of the student, and saw that the
light of battle was kindled in them, he waited for a little, and then,
as if preoccupied, said to him in his most kindly tone, "I am very
much occupied at this moment, my son; won't you come in to-morrow
evening?" The young man went back to his room already half conquered
by the affectionate manner, but the important point gained in the
doctor's tactics was that the psychological moment of combat in the
student had been reached and could not be kept up for a day, and when
on the next evening the interview took place, his combativeness had
given place to perplexity and complete demoralization. In this state
the doctor gave him a paternal lesson on the consequences to his
future life of the rebellion against necessary discipline and of
persistent disorderly conduct, but without any actual reproof or
mention of his offense, and all in his invariably kindly tone as if it
were a talk on generalities, and then dismissed him to think it over.
He had established cordial relations with the rebel, and from that day
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