CHAPTER III.THE TWO PROFESSORS.
Professor Barnaby Gooch, thin, wrinkled, crabbed, and bald, rapped sharply on the door of Professor Zenas Gunn’s private study. As the knock was not answered at once, Professor Gooch rapped again, sharply, nervously, and in a manner that denoted irritation. Then he pushed the door open and walked in.
Professor Gunn, dignified, old-fashioned, yet kindly in appearance, stepped from behind a screen and came forward. Before he could speak, however, Professor Gooch rasped forth:
"I’ve nearly beaten the skin from my knuckles rapping on your door. Are you deaf, professor—are you deaf, sir?"
"I hope not, professor," was the answer.
"But you didn’t answer me—you didn’t answer. You let me pound away—you let me hammer."
"I was engaged when you first rapped, sir," said Professor Gunn somewhat stiffly. "I was about to answer your knock."
"Ah-a!" rasped Professor Gooch. "You were about to answer! But you were in no hurry."
"You seem to be in a bad humor this morning, Professor Gooch. Is there anything wrong? Will you have a chair?"
"No; I won’t have a chair. Yes, there is something wrong. I have come to speak to you about it, sir."
"Very well."
"It’s not very well; it’s very bad," declared Professor Gooch, rapping on the floor with his cane and glaring at the head professor. "It’s a disgrace, I say! It’s all wrong! It’s a matter to which we must give our immediate attention."
"If there is anything so very bad that requires our attention it shall have it."
"Ah-a! I hope so—I hope so! I have seen it coming on for some time. I have on several occasions expressed myself as opposed to it. Now—now, sir, something must be done!"
"As yet I am not aware of what you are speaking. Will you kindly enlighten me?"
"I’m speaking of this matter of permitting football and athletics and such frivolous things to interfere with the regular course of studies and drill at this academy—that’s what I’m speaking of. And it is high time somebody spoke up. The tendency of our day to permit such things at schools and colleges is deplorable—deplorable, sir. I mean it!"
Professor Gooch shook his cane at his companion, as if threatening him. When Professor Gunn started to speak, he went on:
"Wait sir—wait! Hear me! I say it’s deplorable.Do young men go to school and to college to be trained to break one another’s bones in a murderous game called football? Is that why parents send their sons to school? Is that what fathers desire their sons should be taught? You know it is not; you cannot say it is. In former times such games were not given prominence here. True, they were played some, but those who took part in them were not encouraged and shown special favors by the faculty and officers of this school. Such is not the case now. Baseball, football, and kindred dangerous sports and games are encouraged here. You know it is true, Professor Gunn. You will not say it isn’t true!"
"Still," said the head professor calmly, "I am at a loss to understand why you are making all this fuss."
"Fuss!" gasped Professor Gooch, throwing up both hands and waving his cane dangerously near the other’s head. "Fuss, sir! Is that what you call it? Well, it’s high time to make a fuss! It’s time to see if something cannot be done to check this tendency to go football crazy. I mean to see if something cannot be done. There is altogether too much of this business at Fardale. Next I shall hear that inducements have been offered students to come here because they can play baseball or football unusually well. That is what we’re coming to, sir."
"Do you think so?" said Professor Gunn, still with perfect calmness.
"Hey?" exclaimed Professor Gooch. "I know it! I see it approaching! Now, what do you think of that? What do you think of this craziness for athletics? Answer me, sir!"
"Excuse me," said the head professor, "if I sit down. Of course, you may stand if you prefer. You ask me what I think of athletics. I will answer you briefly. I think that athletics as practised in our schools and colleges is doing a great work for the young men of our country."
"Hey?" again squawked Professor Gooch. "Great work! What kind of work, may I ask?"
"Making stronger, healthier, manlier men, and truly that is a good work."
"Fudge!" snorted Professor Gooch.
"Truth," asserted Professor Gunn.
"Fudge!" again burst from Professor Gooch. "I say fudge, and I mean fudge! Does it make a stronger and manlier chap of a fellow to put him into a game of football and break his leg or his collar-bone? Bah! Don’t talk to me, Professor Gunn! It makes that boy just so much weaker. Yes, sir!"
"The youth who is properly trained and prepared for the game of football rarely meets with a serious accident."
"Fudge, sir—fudge! What is the good of all this training and preparing for a game so brutal?"
"The training and preparing helps build up thephysical powers of the lad, gives him health and strength to fight the battles of life. It prepares him for success in the world."
"Tut! tut! tut! What nonsense! It’s education, sir, that prepares the boy for the battle of life."
"But what is education without health, Professor Gooch? Give a man a fine education and a weak body, and he has not the energy or courage to make the most of his education. I’m an old man, sir, and I can remember the time when I entertained ideas similar to your own. But I have studied and sought to advance with the advance of time. I have endeavored not to become antiquated and a back number. I have seen that it is the young man with the strong and healthy body who wins in the battle of life. Of course, he must have education to go with his health and strength, and, therefore, the two things go hand in hand. I believe, sir, the time is coming when physical training will be compulsory in nearly all the schools of our land. I hope the time is not far distant when it will be compulsory here at Fardale. A boy cannot be a successful football-player unless he is something of an athlete. Thus football encourages a certain class of aspirants to train their bodies and to become athletic, as the only way they can get on the teams. In that way alone, regardless of any other, it is a good thing."
Several times Professor Gooch had sought to interruptthe head professor, but Professor Gunn checked him and persisted in speaking till he had finished.
"He! he! he!" laughed Professor Gooch sneeringly. "That’s fine talk, but it’s nothing but talk. I’d like to know what good it would have done me to train and become an athlete when I was a boy?"
"It would have filled out your flat chest, professor, and it would have given you better arms and shoulders and legs. It would have made you a handsomer man, and it might have prevented your becoming sour and crabbed in your old age."
"Yah!" snarled Professor Gooch. "Are you trying to make sport of me, sir? If you are, I won’t stand it! I’m opposed to all this athletic nonsense, and I shall remain so. But, more than anything else, I am unalterably against favoritism, which is creeping into this school."
"I do not understand your meaning."
"I’ll make you understand. I have reliable information that a member of this school has been excused from drill in order that he might have time to practise with the football-team. What do you think of that, sir? Now, I think you’re surprised."
"He must be a very good football-player, else such a thing could not happen."
"What has that to do with it? Drill is a regular part of the course here, and football is something entirely foreign. I hold that no one should be excusedfrom drill, much less a scholar who has just entered here. Such a course is bound to produce dissatisfaction and arouse protest. In fact, it has done so already—already, sir. I have in my pocket such a protest. It was that which brought me to you, and I hope you will do something about it. It is a protest against the excusing of Richard Merriwell from drill in order that he may practise with the football-team. There is much feeling over it. You can see what football has done here, sir—you can see."
Professor Gooch brought out the protest.
"Permit me to examine it," said Professor Gunn, adjusting his spectacles and taking the paper from the hand of the other. "Ah! I see there are only five names attached out of a very large class."
"That’s enough—that’s enough! It shows the feeling!"
"Um-mum!" came from Professor Gunn, as he read the protest. "I fancy I see something of a personal feeling in this."
"Well, there seems to be reason for such a feeling. The statement is made that Richard Merriwell is insolent and overbearing toward his classmates, that he makes sport of his superiors, that he mocks and derides the faculty, and that he has sought to bring disgrace upon at least one cadet by circulating false and malicious reports concerning him."
There was a sudden stir behind the screen, a quick step, and a boy, with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes, appeared.
"I demand to know," cried Dick Merriwell, "the names of my accusers!"