I take it that the purpose of education is to discover the special aptitudes of the student, and to foster them. And here was I, a man with one special aptitude; here were a score of teachers, with whom I had been in daily contact for five years; yet I am sure, if these teachers had been told that one man in the class of ’97 would come to be known throughout the civilized world in less than nine years, they would have guessed more than half my class-mates before they guessed me. I am not so egotistical as to imagine that I was the only man in that class who had special aptitudes; if none of the others have developed any, I think I know the reason—the machine had rolled them flat! CHAPTER III THE UNIVERSITY GOOSE Columbia University at the time I went to it had just moved up to its new buildings on Morningside Heights. The center of the group was a magnificent white marble library, built almost entirely for display, and with but little relation to books and those who were to use them. But of this I had no suspicion; I had come now to the real headquarters of education, and I studied the fascinating lists of courses, and my heart leaped, because I was free to choose whatever I wished of all this feast. I was a proud “bachelor of arts,” and declared my intention of becoming a still prouder “master of arts.” To achieve the feat I must complete a year’s course, consisting of a “major” subject and two “minors,” and I must also compose a “thesis.” To register for all this I paid a hundred and fifty dollars, earned by a newly discovered talent for writing dime novels. My major subject was English; and as part of the work Professor George Rice Carpenter undertook to teach me the art of composition. This was an undergraduate course, taken by students of Columbia College, and so I had a chance to see how they were taught. To my dismay I found it exactly the same dreary routine that I had been through at my City College. Our professor would set us a topic on which to write a “theme”: “Should College Students Take Part in Athletics;” or perhaps, “A Description of the Country in Winter.” My own efforts at this task were pitiful, and I was angrily aware that they were pitiful; I did not care anything about the matters on which I was asked to write, and I could never in my life write about anything I did not care about. I stood some six weeks of it, and then went to the professor and told him I wanted to drop the course.