The Great Gray Plague Part 2

"I know this is difficult to face," said Baker sympathetically, "but I wanted you to understand, once and for all, just how Clearwater College appears to the completely objective eye."

Fenwick continued to stare at him without comment. Then he said flatly, "Let's see some more charts, Bill."

"Museum activities. This is an important function of a college level inst.i.tution. Clearwater has no museum."

"We can't afford one, in the first place. In the second place, I think you've overlooked what we do have."

"There _is_ a Clearwater museum?" Baker asked in surprise.

"Two or three hundred of them, I guess. Every kid in the county has his own collection of arrowheads, birds' eggs, rocks, and stuffed animals."

"I'm not joking, John," said Baker bleakly. "The museum aspect of the college is extremely important."

"What else?" said Fenwick.

"I won't go into everything we evaluate. But you should be aware of several other factors pertaining to the faculty, which are evaluated. We establish an index of heredity for each faculty member. This is primarily an index of ancestral achievement."

Fenwick's color deepened. Baker thought it seemed to verge on the purple. "Should I open the window for a moment?" Baker asked.

Fenwick shook his head, his throat working as if unable to speak. Then he finally managed to say, "Apart from the sheer idiocy of it, how did you obtain any information in this area?"

Baker ignored the comment, but answered the question. "You filled out forms. Each faculty member filled out forms."

"Yeah, that's right. I remember. Acres of forms. None of us minded if it was to help get the research grant. We supposed it was the usual Government razzmatazz to keep some GS-9 clerk busy."

"Our forms are hardly designed to keep people busy. They are designed to give us needed information about applicant inst.i.tutions."

"And so you plot everybody's heredity."

"As well as possible. You understand, of course, that the data are necessarily limited."

"Sure. How do our grandpas stack up on the charts?"

"Not very well. Among Clearwater's total faculty of thirty-eight there were no national political figures through three generations back. There was one mayor, a couple of town councilmen, and a state senator or two.

That is about all."

"Our people weren't very politically minded."

"This is a measure of social consciousness and contemporary evaluation."

Fenwick shrugged. "As I said, we aren't so good at politics."

"Achievements in welfare activities are similarly lacking. No notable intentions or discoveries, with the exception of one patent on a new kind of beehive, appear in the record."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _... But liars figure ...!_]

"And this keeps us from getting a research grant in physics? What _did_ our progenitors do, anyway? Get hung for being horse thieves?"

"No criminal activities were reported by your people, but there is a record of singular restlessness and dissatisfaction with established conditions."

"What did they do?"

"They were constantly on the move, for the most part. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries they were primarily pioneers, frontiersmen, settlers of new country. But when the country was established they usually packed up and went somewhere else. Rovers, trappers, unsettled people."

"This is not good?" Fenwick glanced at the chart that was open now. It was almost uncolored.

"I regret to say that such people are not cla.s.sed as the stable element of communities," said Baker. "We cannot evaluate the index of hereditary accomplishment for the Clearwater faculty very high."

"It appears that our grandpas were among those generally given credit for getting things set up," said Fenwick.

"Such citizens are indeed necessary," said Baker. "But our index evaluates stability in community life and accomplishments with long-range effects in science and culture."

"We haven't got much of a chance then, grandpa being foot-loose as he was."

"Other factors could completely override this negative evaluation. You see, this is the beauty of the Index; it doesn't depend on any one factor or small group of factors. We evaluate the whole range of factors that have anything to do with the situation. Weaknesses in one spot may be counterbalanced by strength in others."

"It looks like Clearwater is staffed by a bunch of b.u.ms without any strong spots."

"I wouldn't say it in such terms, but the reason I am pointing these things out to you, John, is to try to persuade you to disa.s.sociate yourself from such a weak organization and go elsewhere. You have fine talents of your own, but you have always had a pattern of a.s.sociating with groups like this one at Clearwater. Don't you see now that the only thing for you to do is go somewhere where there are people capable of doing things?"

"I _like_ Clearwater. I like the people at the College. Where else are we in the b.u.ms category?"

Baker suddenly didn't want to go on. The whole thing had become distasteful to him. "There are a good many others. I don't think we need to go into them. There is the staff reading index, the social activity index, wardrobe evaluation, hobbies, children--actual and planned."

"I want to hear about them," said Fenwick. "That wardrobe evaluation--that sounds like a real fascinating study."

"Actually, it's comparatively minor," said Baker. "Our psychologists have worked out some extremely interesting correlations, however. Each item of a man's wardrobe is a.s.signed a numerical rating. Tuxedo, one or more. Business suits, color and number. Hunting jackets. Slacks. Sport coats. Work shoes. Dress shoes. Very interesting what our people can do with, such information."

"Clearwater doesn't rate here?"

Baker indicated the chart. "I'm afraid not. Now, this staff reading index is somewhat similar. You recall the application forms asked for the number of pages of various types of material read during the past six months--scientific journals, newspapers, magazines, fiction."

"I suppose Clearwater is a pretty illiterate bunch," said Fenwick.

Baker pointed soundlessly to the graph.

"Hobbies and social activities are not bad," Baker said, after a time.

"Almost up to within ten points of the standard. A few less bingo parties and Brownie meetings and that many more book reviews or serious soirees would balance the social activity chart. If the model railroad club were canceled and a biological activity group subst.i.tuted, the hobby cla.s.sification would look much better. Then, in the number of children, actual and planned, Clearwater is definitely out of line, too.

You see, the standard takes the form of the well-known bell-shaped curve. Clearwater is way down on the high side."

"Too much biological activity already," Fenwick murmured.

Baker looked up. "What was that? I didn't hear what you said."

Fenwick leaned back and extended his arms on the desk. "I said your whole d.a.m.ned Index is nothing but a bunch of pseudo-intellectual garbage."