I was old enough, I thought, to review all the past--to see myself with youth's over-harsh criticism of itself--to realize that, so far, I had made a miserable, cringing, cowardly botch of my conduct and convictions. Some day, soon, I seemed to feel, there would come a moment of crisis--a moment when all the shy, stammering manhood that I knew to be in my heart would fling itself suddenly into the open and make me strong and confident, helpful to myself and many others. I had always longed to be a leader--as every boy does--and so far I had been a slave--slave, most abjectly of all, to my own fears and prejudices. But it would be different at college: there would be something--I did not know what--which would fling courage into me, fill my veins with flame--and it troubled me to wonder what that thing would be. Had any one told me, then, that it would be Judaism, I should have either laughed or been insulted. For I was just as much afraid as ever of what hardships my religion might work for me at college. I had as much fear, as much abhorrence of the truth, in that regard. I wanted so much to forget it--to be one of the other sort, little caring for creed in any form, but wishing I were safe in the comfort of having been born into the faith of the majority. As I looked at it then, I was going into these new four years with a tremendous handicap scored against me. It seemed so unfair: I cared so little for Jewish things, yet I would have to be identified with them throughout my entire course. I had learned, by now, that I could not escape them. I went into college with a deeper sense of the injustice of it all than I had ever had. I was going with the feeling that, come what may, I should have to bow before the inevitable stigma of my race--And yet, I hoped so yearningly that it would be otherwise. I hoped--and dreamed--and laughed at my dreams, and told myself that college men were only boys, after all: boys as bigoted, as cruel in their prejudices as any that I had met at high school or military academy. And perhaps I was justified in this last opinion. For, when I appeared on the campus the next morning, headed for the dean's office to file my registration, I was met by a ratty, little sophomore who made me buy a second-hand freshman cap from him at four times its original value. And when he had my money in his pocket, and was a safe distance across the green from me, he began to laugh and shout: "Oi, oi! oi, oi!" So that this was my introduction into college life. VIII WITHIN THE GATES