MR. ROOSEVELT'S OPPORTUNITY 63 



subject but from the comparative interest of the teacher. Admiration 

 and imitation are amongst the most potent of all formative forces. 

 A young man, whether he knows it or not, wants a hero. This want 

 may of course be supplied for him in very varying degrees and equivocal 

 manners. But at all events he has an eye for such diverse points in his 

 companions as physical prowess, genial manner, wit, leadership, distinc- 

 tion of air, some of the best parts of character, wealth or money-making 

 power — not to mention the grand item of elegant and gentlemanly attire. 

 Now a professor, to the undergraduate, is a more or less amiable "grind" 

 of riper years. Eiper, but still unluscious. He is in the center of the 

 undergraduate's vision for an hour, let us say, three times a week; 

 mainly under that lecture-system which, as it has been with fine accuracy 

 stated, enables the student to lean back and observe at perfect leisure 

 the personal peculiarities of the instructor. The student is to have a 

 career in time himself, and dimly or consciously he looks forward to it. 

 A general, a statesman, an explorer, an orator, a sportsman, a successful 

 lawyer, an archmillionaire — or even an artist — is by no means without 

 interest for him; but the amount of Lehenslierrlichkeit represented 

 in a professor does not reach what psycliologists call the threshold of 

 his appreciation. This fact colors the feeling of his class. To teach 

 young men like themselves might appear a high calling were it not 

 that to bore yoimg men like themselves seems a dingy trade. 



Now it must candidly be confessed that the student's view is not 

 without some elements of justice. A profession whose chief function 

 is performed in the classroom and which yet so often leaves the class- 

 room-hour on the whole such a lackluster memory does forfeit its 

 claims to some portion of the glamour that might perhaps ideally 

 attach to it. Not that the memory should be simply of entertainment. 

 There is much in the saying of Epictetus that the lecture-room should 

 often be, like a surgery, rather a place of beneficent pain than of 

 pleasure. What is important is that it should be a scene of effective- 

 ness. 



In 1881 Phillips Brooks, then preaching at the full tide of his 

 influence, was invited to become chaplain and professor at Harvard. 

 Efforts were made by men of weight in Boston to induce him not to quit 

 his work in that city. Mr. John Long, then governor, wrote in the 

 course of a letter since published : 



The Harvard boys do not need you so much. They have everything already. 

 If they develop some wild oats, yet the general surroundings of their college 

 life lead them to higher opportunities and standards sooner or later. 



Mr. Henry Higginson wrote: 



You can't work on those boys in the same way, simply because they are :.t 

 the questioning, critical, restless age. The vporst of them are not bad, but 

 frivolous or idle-minded. The best of them afe seeking for the truth everywhere. 



