"Now, Will," said Mr. Phelps quietly, but in a tone of voice which his boy clearly understood, "it would be an easy thing for me to smooth over this matter and make light of it, but my love and interest in you are too strong to permit me to think of that for a moment. I believe in you, my boy, but there are some things in which I cannot aid you, some things which you must learn and do for yourself. Last year you faced your crisis as a man should, and I believe you will face this one too." "It seems as if there was always something to be faced." "There is. That's it, exactly. My boy, Splinter, as you call your professor in Greek, is not limited to the faculty of Winthrop College. In one form or another he presents himself all through your life. His name is simply that of the perpetual problem." "I don't see, then--" interrupted Will. "No, you don't see; but it is just because I do, and I am your father, that I am talking in this way. Why do you think I have sent you to college? It isn't for the name of it, or for the fun you will get out of it, or even for the friendships you will form here, though every one of these things is good in itself. It is to have you so trained, or rather for you so to train yourself, that when you go out from Winthrop you will be able to meet the very problems of which I am speaking and master them. They come to all, and the great difference in men is really in their ability to solve these very things. I think it is Emerson who says, 'It is as easy for a large man to do large things as it is for a small man to do small things.' And that is what I want for you, my boy, the ability to do the greater things." "But I'll never use Greek any. I wish I could take some other study in its place." "Just now it is not a question of Greek or something in its place. It is a question of facing and overcoming a difficulty or permitting it to overcome you. You must decide whether you will be a victor or a victim. There are just three things a man can do when he finds himself compelled to meet one of these difficult things that in one form or another come to everybody. He can turn and run from it, but that's the part of a coward. He can get around it, evade it somehow, but that's the part of the timid and palterer, and sooner or later the superficial man is found out. Then there is the best way, which is to meet and master it. Everybody has to decide which he will do, but do one of the three he must, and there is no escape." "You think I ought to hit it between the eyes?" "Yes, though I should not put it in quite that way," said his father with a smile. "I'd like to smash it! I don't like it! I'll never make a Greek scholar, and I detest Splinter. He's as dry as a bone or a Greek root! He hasn't any more juice than a piece of boiled basswood!" "That does not alter the matter. It won't change, and you've got to choose in which of the three ways I have suggested you will meet it."