Thus I worked out my system—education in spite of the educators! I would start a course, and get a preliminary view of the subject, and the list of the required readings; then I would go off by myself and do the readings. Almost invariably there was one book which the professor used as a text-book, and his lectures were nothing but an inadequate résumé thereof. At the beginning of his course on the drama Brander Matthews would say “Gentlemen, I make it a point of honor with you not to read my book—‘The Development of the Drama,’ until after you have finished my course!” Brander Matthews was a new type to me, the literary “man of the world.” His mind was a store-house of gossip about the theater and the stage-world, and I was interested, and eagerly read the plays. I knew that Brander was not my kind of man, that his world was not for me; but what kind of world I was going to choose, or to make for myself, I did not at that time know. As I dwell on these days, I see before me his loose, rather shambling figure, with a queerly shaped brown beard and a cigarette dangling from the lower lip. I do not know how this dangling was contrived, but I doubt if I ever saw the professor at a lecture that he did not have that cigarette in position as he talked. Brander is the beau ideal of the successful college professor, metropolitan style; a clubman, easy-going and cynical, but not too much so for propriety; wealthy enough to be received at the dinners of trustees, and witty enough to be welcome anywhere. He is a bitter reactionary, and has become one of President Butler’s most active henchmen; his reputation as author of more than forty books is made use of by the New York “Times” for an occasional job of assassinating a liberal writer. With Nicholas Murray Butler I took a course in the critical philosophy. At this time he was a modest professor, and his dazzling career lay in the future. I shall have many impolite things to say about Butler, so let me make it plain that there is nothing personal in my attitude; to me he was always affable. He possesses a subtle mind, and uses it thoroughly. With him I read “The Critique of Pure Reason” twice through and as a work of supererogation I read also the impossible German. I had had a little metaphysics before this, and was now pleased to have Kant demonstrate that I had wasted my time. I took seriously what I read, and assumed that my professor was taking seriously what he taught; so imagine my bewilderment when shortly afterwards I learned that Professor Butler had left the Presbyterian church, and had joined the Episcopal church, as one of the steps necessary to becoming president of Columbia University. It gave me a shock, because I knew he had no belief whatever in any of the dogmas of the Christian religion, and had completely demonstrated to me the impossibility of any valid knowledge concerning immortality, free will or a First Cause.