The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-13
UniversaIity
By DR. FRANK CRANE

It is terrible price we pay for efficiency. When I meet the successful specialist, the recognized authority in medicine,' ''the leader of the bar," the most popular preach CT" in the city, the merchant who has made an enormous business out of small begin nings the politician who has achieved lead ership, in fact, any man who has gained the heights and stands triumphant above the universal struggle, am often not so much impressed by what he has won as by what he has lost.
 Life is so wide, and its wilderness so good. it is so interesting in its endless variety, that it seems a pity to have to deny ones self so much in order to excel
 confess to a greed for life which I fear is wholly inconsistent with excellence. Too many things interest me- 1 should like to enter the fight and rise to the top, be fa- nous and all that, but am not willing to pay the price. I decline to concentrate and excel. Why excel? I'd rather live.
 For, from my youth up, there never was profession l did not love, a science I did not want to pursue, an art that did not ap- peal to me. I never had a natural bent for anything, my natural bent was for every- thing.
 | studied law awhile, but could not bring myself to be lawyer because wanted too much to be musician. Then I threw my self madly into music. will not go on with my autobiography. Suffice it to say that universals have always overbalanced particular enthusiasms in me. | love commercial life; but one cannot be q seller of goods and a farmer, too, and l love the country; yet could not live per manently in the country, because the city fascinates me and respond to all it's pow erful appeal.
 adore botany and would love to keep a greenhouse and nursery; astronomy is at- trnctive and my imagination is content with a life of nightly watches with the stars; but then l could not be geologist, nor an en- 1 tomologist nor a chemist.
 l. envy clerks in a shop or q post office, or any place where work is livened by l'esprit de corps; I would like to go to col- lege again and live with the fellows I love, school teachers and their atmosphere; po- litical campaigning is great fun; I am fond of church and church-people; and I thor oughly enjoy myself in a free-thinkers de- batting society.
 I like to put on my grand tenu and go to banquets and high society affairs and I | like to sit in the Pantheon cafe on the "Boul Mich" in Paris and converse with penniless students and their butterfly friends the self-conscious literary Brahman of Bos- ton is most interesting to me, but no more so than the Illinois farmer.
 am the universal companion. Hence I am very much alone. Incapable of partisanship miss the dumb loyalty of fellow members of things, of those who love me simply be- cause belong.
 like mems society, man clubs, games and occupations; but l am perfectly at home in a company of women I am fond of grown folks and old people, but there are few things I like better than to be among n lot of children I can play their games and en- joy them.
 l belong to a church, but am not a useful member because am too fond of other churches. never saw q church to which didn't think it would be pleasant to be- long.
 am glad I am a human being, yet when I perceive the extraordinary sense of smell in dogs, and of sight in cats, and other mar velous excellencies of Instinct among ami malls, feel distinct sense of loss and that perhaps we may have paid too much for our humanity.
 suppose shall always be bystandet, observing the innumerable compartments of life know I ought to get down from my spectators seat and "get into the game" and do something. But can't enter a class 5 would miss the other classes too much,