When I received my diploma
they seemed to think I was finished, and would stay just as they had
fixed me. They used to talk no little about finished products, and,
on commencement day, appeared to look upon me as one of them. On the
whole, I'm glad that I didn't fulfil their apparent expectations. I
have never been able to make out whether their attentions, on
commencement day, were manifestations of pride or relief. I can see
now that I must have been a sore trial to them. In my callow days,
when they occupied pedestals, I bent the knee to them by way of
propitiating them, but I got bravely over that. At first, what they
taught and what they represented were my majors, but when I came to
shift and reconstruct values, some of them climbed down off their
pedestals, and my knee lost some of its flexibility.
We had one little professor who afforded us no end of amusement by
his taking himself so seriously. The boys used to say that he wrote
letters and sent flowers to himself. He would strut about the campus
as proudly as a pouter-pigeon, never realizing, apparently, that we
were laughing at him.
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