The Seven-Branched Candlestick: The Schooldays of Young American Jew

eams, ambitions-and seemed to me an opening gate to a land stronger than any I had yet heard of: a land o

ken the "preliminaries" the year before, and I entered upon these "finals" low in spirit, disintere

ure, but by a small margin which left no doubt but that I shou

osely. You will say, before I am through, that I am perverse in that loyalty; perhaps so-but I do not wish to transgress up

ll, fine print as if my life depended upon its reading. When I came to understand that freshman must wear a black, green-buttoned cap upon the campus, a deep awe of collegiate law and order came over me. When I saw the little half-tone prints of the chapel, the gymnasium, the baseball field, I felt that I was glimpsing, before

lake with my aunt when they arrived. I knew what was in the big ominous envelope-and I was afraid to open it. I crammed it into my coat pocket, careful not to let my Aunt Selina see it, and went on to the

e envelope, stripped out the blue, bank-note sheet and read-yes, I had passed

w it now for certain. It was just a matter of course to her-this entrance into college-and to me, in turn, it meant so much: a new work, a new land, a life entir

raciously unpleasant for us. I was beginning to be old enough to feel it keenly-and not old

opelessly incapable of bridging. When one has been away for a year, one returns to find grim truths. I had met other people, seen other lives and other souls since I had been in boarding school: I was not clouded now by my blood relationship to Mrs. Haberman or by day after day of close but unintimate com

rs of the hotel. She seemed to imagine that it would interest every one-even Mrs. Van Brunt, the arbiter of elegance of the mountain clique, who,

Not that I have a prejudice against Jews, of course-in fact, I consider myself ver

nd why Mrs. Van Brunt had spoken them. A few minutes later she made a few unblinking and pointed remarks about having to attend a

town, every boy wants the full flavor of undergraduate life-wants to live on the campus, to throw himself heart and soul into the college games and

ncipation-always a little too

poke, her voice choked with tears, of the many years that she had cared for me, fostered me, guarde

r that she was right and that I was ashamed of wanting to leave her-that I would live home with her, and try to gain the best of college in that

stereotyped books on the moral conduct of college men, on the art of making friends, on the history and traditions of my university. I was

and the summer heather streaked with goldenrod, we did depar

college year, I sat for a long while at my table-desk, dreaming high things-hope and fear mingling with my dr

he shy, stammering manhood that I knew to be in my heart would fling itself suddenly into the open and make me strong and confident, helpful to myself and many others. I had always longed to be a leader-as every boy does-and so far I had been a slave-slave, most abjectly of all, to my own fears and prej

ther sort, little caring for creed in any form, but wishing I were safe in the comfort of having been born into the faith of the majority. As I looked at it then, I was going into these new four years with a tremend

bow before the inevitable stigma of my race-And yet, I hoped so yearningly that it would be otherwise. I hoped-and dreamed-and laughed at my dreams, and to

morning, headed for the dean's office to file my registration, I was met by a ratty, little

and was a safe distance across the gre

oi! o

my introduction i