Manchurian Books

After all, those other fellows who took high places in the College
examinations and were the professor's model boys haven't done so
amazingly. Some are professors themselves, some technical experts; not
one can show things done such as I, following my own interest, have
achieved. For I have built boats that smack across the water like
whiplashes; no one ever dreamt of such boats until I built them; and I
have surprised three secrets that are more than technical discoveries,
in the unexpected hiding-places of Nature. I have come nearer flying
than any man has done. Could I have done as much if I had had a turn for
obeying those rather mediocre professors at the college who proposed
to train my mind? If I had been trained in research--that ridiculous
contradiction in terms--should I have done more than produce additions
to the existing store of little papers with blunted conclusions, of
which there are already too many? I see no sense in mock modesty upon
this matter. Even by the standards of worldly success I am, by the side
of my fellow-students, no failure.


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