MY MOST INSPIRING MOMENT
The Snob
Cure
A noted novelist recalls with gratitude how he
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y"nn7 Sloan Wilson felt a bit nmug.
Hi father had followed hi recommendation in
buying the eigam; they bore a brand
name that marked them a fit for a gentleman.
ONE BRIGHT summer morn
ing 24 years ago, a mail
man handed me an envelope
with the austere letterhead of
Harvard University.
With trembling fingers I opened
it and read the words: "The Admis
sions Committee is pleased. . . ."
Rushing through the rest of it, I
ran eagerly to my father. "I got into
Harvard!" I said breathlessly.
"That's good," he said mildly. "I
hope they don't make a snob out of
you."
This surprised me, because I had
not noticed in myself any tendency
to become a snob. It would indeed
have been difficult for any child of
my parents to remain a snob for
long. My father, the son of a New
England schoolmaster, had painfully
worked his way through the Univer
sity of Virginia by driving a phy
sician's wagon on night calls. He
had nothing but scornful memories
of many young Southern dandies he
had met there. A magazine editor
and a professor of journalism, he
believed only in the aristocracy of
personal accomplishment.
"Let me tell you the derivation of
the word 'snob,' " he said on that
memorable day when I was admitted
to Harvard. "In the old days in Eng
land, a man's rank was always put
after his name. If he had no rank,
the Latin words sine nobilitate were
written. These were shortened to
snob, and it means quite clearly,
'without nobility.' "
"Yes, Dad," I said. At that age I
sometimes felt my father was almost
unbearably academic.
The following September I went
to Harvard, and although the phrase
"Harvard undergraduate" has a cer
tain style and gayety to it, the fact
is I was scared to death. I knew no
one in the whole Boston area, and
the great brick dormitories seemed
more like tombs than a friendly
place to live.
I don't know what I expected at
10 romily Wtrkly. J .wary 20. INJ
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