The Doctor, himself, whose permission to drink of the water and to seat myself on the bench for a rest I had taken pains to secure, was a short, stout, bald-headed man of about sixty, whose clean-shaven cheeks were always flushed by an excess of blood. He had retired from active practise and was engaged in the delightful, old age recreation of seeing how many eggs he could persuade a harem of Plymouth Rocks to lay through a most careful, scientific mixture of laying foods, use of germless drinking troughs, and adaptation to an expensive mode of existence. One Saturday noon, as I sat on the bench puffing for breath, for the day was both dusty and hot, the Doctor, with the egg record for the week in his hands, which he came down to show me, sat down on the bench and said, “Well, do those wild students know what they are in college for?” “What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled by his sneer. “Usually,” he explained, “more’n half of the students in the college over there don’t know why they’re there!” “Oh,” I said, “there are a great number of my friends who are not certain what they are going to do in the world, after graduation, if that is what you mean, Doctor.” He rubbed his fat hands in revengeful gratification. “That’s just it! Just it!” he laughed, cynically. “It’s all a waste of good money and precious time. There’s no good can come of it. They don’t take their studies seriously enough. Let me see, how many subjects does a student have to select from under that new-fangled election system they have--study made easy, I call it--how many, now?” “I think there must be in the neighborhood of a hundred different courses, a majority of which are elective, so far I know.” “And the young lazybones pick out the easiest courses they can, independent of the good it’ll do ’em, eh?” “Perhaps they do,” I replied, antagonized by his critical and belligerent tone. “But then, I don’t believe that a liberal education: a college course, has to do merely with giving a student a lot of technical information!” The little man fussily remonstrated. “What? I thought that colleges were in the world to fit men for their work, and that if they’re to be doctors, why, they’re to be taught medicine and nothing else!” “That is the function of professional schools,” I agreed. “Take my case, for instance. I am a minister. I spent three years in a good theological seminary. While there I wanted technical information on my profession. I got it, and assimilated more or less--perhaps less. But when I came to college I did not come to add to my technical theological knowledge; not at all!” “What did you come for, then,” he asked, with another sneer, “to get the degree, I suppose, like a lot of others?” “I don’t think you give me credit for being a man of ordinary intelligence,” I replied, hotly, angered by his insinuation.