There was one American captain of industry with a monstrously developed bump of acquisitiveness; as he described himself: “I am a great clamorer for dividends.” It was frequently charged that in the early days his clamoring—or at any rate that of his subordinates—did not stop at arson and burglary; it is certain that it did not stop at railroad rebates, “midnight tariffs,” and numerous other violations of law. By such means he made himself master of the oil industry of the country, and was on the way to acquiring the railways and the banks and the Child’s restaurants. He had made one or two hundred millions of dollars, and was busily turning it into one or two billions; but he found rising against him a clamor of public execration, and the poor rich man, whose second most conspicuous bump was of fear, began casting about for some way to take the curse off himself. About that time he met an educator—one of these typical American combinations of financial shrewdness and moral fervor, a veritable wizard of a money-getter, a “vamp” in trousers, a grand, impressive, inspirational Chautauqua potentate. The old oil king was completely captivated. We can imagine him going home to the privacy of the royal bed-chamber, or wherever it is that oil kings and queens exchange domestic confidences. “Say, Laura, I met a fellow today—by crackie, he’s a wonder! He’s a professor of Semitics, or pyrotechnics, or something or other, I forget just what—but he knows everything there is, and he’s going to build me a university and make me the greatest philanthropist in America!” “Now, John,” says the oil queen, “you better be careful and hold on to your money. The Lord is able to take care of people’s souls, and they don’t need this newfangled modern learning.” “That’s all right, my dear,” says the oil king, “but every business has to advertise. I figured out that this is the cheapest yet. And, besides, I always wished I’d had an education, so that you and I might get invited out to dinner-parties, and not have everybody laugh at us the way they do.” This oil king had a pathetic trust in education, as something you could buy ready-made for cash, the same as a political machine or a state railroad commission. If anybody tried to put off on him an oil-field that had got salt water in, he would know the difference; but it did not occur to him that there might be fakes in education, or that a petroleum philanthropist might not be able to order the whole of the human spirit, F. O. B. Chicago, thirty days net. I picture the educational “he-vamp,” President Harper, calling into consultation some fellow-faker in the architectural line. Says the architectural wizard: “I suppose this old bird will want something plain and economical—the biggest floor-space for his money.”