E-text prepared by Bethanne M. Simms, Barbara Kosker, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) THE SEVEN-BRANCHED CANDLESTICK The Schooldays of Young American Jew by GILBERT W. GABRIEL New York Bloch Publishing Company, Inc. "The Jewish Book Concern" 1925 Copyright, 1917 Bloch Publishing Company CONTENTS I. BY WAY OF PROLOGUE 5 II. IN THE BEGINNING 16 III. FRIDAY NIGHT 25 IV. THE BOY AND THE SCHOOL 34 V. THE MILITARY ACADEMY 42 VI. MY STEERFORTH 51 VII. FRESHMAN YEAR 61 VIII. WITHIN THE GATES 70 IX. MY AUNT AND I 79 X. THE RULES OF THE GAME 88 XI. A MAN'S WORK 98 XII. THE HEART OF JUDEA 107 XIII. CHILD AND PARENT 116 XIV. AN UNGRATEFUL NEPHEW 125 XV. COLLEGE LIFE 135 XVI. THE HUN'S INVASION 144 XVII. MANY IMPULSES 154 XVIII. I STAND--BUT NOT ASIDE 163 XIX. "BATTLE ROYAL" 172 XX. THE CANDLES ARE LIGHTED 181 The Seven-Branched Candlestick I BY WAY OF PROLOGUE "Years of Plenty" was the name an Englishman recently gave to a book of his school days. My own years of secondary school and college were different from his, by far, but no less full. I shall only say by way of preface that they numbered seven. There were two of them at high school, one at a military school on the Hudson, and four at our city's university. Seven in all. Because they were not altogether happy, I have no right to think of them as lean years. For each one of them meant much to me--means as much now as I look back and am chastened and strengthened by their memory. Each is as a lighted candle in the dark of the past that I look back upon. And I like to imagine that, since there are seven of them, they are in the seven-branched candlestick which is so stately and so reverent a symbol of my Faith. For it was my school days which gave me that Faith.