“I don’t know it as I ought to.”

“Is that ‘Splinter’s’ fault?”

“No, it’s mine.  You know how hard I worked in the closing half of my last year in the high school, but that didn’t, and I suppose couldn’t, make up for what I hadn’t done before.”

“Are you working hard now?”

“On my Greek?”

“Yes.”

“I’m putting more time on that than on everything else.”

“I didn’t ask you about the ‘time,’ but about the work.”

“Why, yes.  I don’t just see what you mean.  I spend three hours on my Greek every day we have it.”

“It’s one thing to ‘spend the time’ and another to work.  Some men will accomplish more in an hour than others will in three.”

“I do my best,” said Will gloomily.  He felt almost as if his father was unfair with him and was disposed to question what he had said.

“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.”