"I don't know what on earth we are coming to!" he said, stirring his coffee vigorously. "These new-fangled notions of our college presidents seem to me to be destructive in their tendency." "What's up now? Somebody flunked a football team?" asked the Idiot. "No, I quite approve of that," said Mr. Pedagog; "but this matter of reducing the college course from four to two years is so radical a suggestion that I tremble for the future of education." "Oh, I wouldn't if I were you, Mr. Pedagog," said the Idiot. "Your trembling won't help matters any, and, after all, when men like President Eliot of Harvard and Dr. Butler of Columbia recommend the short course the idea must have some virtue." "Well, if it stops where they do I don't suppose any great harm will be done," said Mr. Pedagog. "But what guarantee have we that fifty years from now some successor to these gentlemen won't propose a one-year course?" "None," said the Idiot. "Fact is, we don't want any guarantee--or at least I don't. They can turn colleges into bicycle academies fifty years from now for all I care. I expect to be doing time in some other sphere fifty years from now, so why should I vex my soul about it?" "That's rather a selfish view, isn't it, Mr. Idiot?" asked Mr. Whitechoker. "Don't you wish to see the world getting better and better every day?" "No," said the Idiot. "It's so mighty good as it is, this bully old globe, that I hate to see people monkeying with it all the time. Of course, I wasn't around it in the old days, but I don't believe the world's any better off now than it was in the days of Adam." "Great Heavens! What a thing to say!" cried the Poet.