I had visited Garvin to speak on a matter to which I was giving considerable thought at the time: the curious disparagement of scholarship by so many of the students. I had even gone to the pains of having published in Garvin’s paper my undergraduate protest against the universal tendency to despise the “plugger” and to esteem the “grafter”; two terms which marked the antipodes of scholarship. My article, entitled, “On the Spirit of Work in College,” had been printed and followed by a parody, written by an unknown student and entitled: “Priddy Has A Grouch,” in which the writer had openly given all the honors of the college to the student who refrained from seeking a salutatory, vying with his classmates for the valedictory or hastening after academic honors of whatever sort. “Blatant heresy!” I announced, pointing out the anonymous article. “Oh, I don’t know,” replied Garvin. “I rather like it!” I regarded him in astonishment for a moment and then protested, “But think of it, man! Denouncing scholarship! A student in a college denouncing the very charter of the college. It’s incredible: audacious and heretical: undermining the very foundations of the college! And to think that you, an editor, interested in culture and education, support such a paradox. You ought to be tortured in a Smithfield fire or have your thumbs twisted with Inquisition screws!” “Oh, I don’t know!” smiled Garvin. “I’m not the only one that scoffs somewhat at the scholars: there are hundreds of us on the campus: hundreds of us.” “Yes,” I replied, “sour grapes, probably.” “Now look here, Priddy. I’m no loafer. You know me. I believe in education or I would not be spending my four years here. If I were to put all my time in study: the time which I invest in my editor’s duty, for instance, and in the mandolin club, I think there is in me a potential honor man at least, even as there is in Sanderson a potential valedictorian, and in Ellis a potential Phi Beta Kappa (if he left off athletics), and in Forrest a potential magna, triple X, summa, double-barrelled cum lauda if he didn’t put so much effort into the evening classes for the Italian laborers down at the Reservoir. But the truth is--these men, like myself, aren’t very enthusiastic about high marks, or the honors that high marks and class rankings bring to the undergraduate.” “No wonder the professors get discouraged, Garvin. It’s enough to make the college founder place dynamite under the campus and blow us to kingdom come!” Garvin’s eyes twinkled at his next question. “Hear about Scholarship Night, Priddy? I know you weren’t there for you went home that day.” “Hear about it?” I gasped. “I should say I had. They say that there was about as much enthusiasm over the reading of the honor roll that night, in assembly hall, before the students and invited guests, as there is enthusiasm over--well, say a book entitled, ‘The Thesaurus of Diction--or Recent Explorations into the Vocabulary of Monkeys.’”