It was a rigidly Orthodox school, with services three times a day and with European-trained rabbis, many of them in long, dark coats, all of them bearded. For the first part of the day, from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, we studied only Talmud. From three-fifteen to six-fifteen or seven-fifteen, depending on the schedule of classes we had chosen for ourselves, we went through a normal college curriculum. On Fridays from nine to one, we attended the college; on Sundays, during that same time span, we studied Talmud.
I found that I liked this class arrangement very much; it divided my work neatly and made it easy for me to concentrate separately upon Talmud and college subjects. The length of the school day, though, was something else; I was frequently awake until one in the morning, doing homework. Once my father came into my room at ten minutes to one, found me memorizing the section on river flukes from my biology textbook, asked me if I was trying to do four years of college all at once, and told me to go to bed right away. I went to bed – half an hour later, when I had finished the memorizing.
Danny's gloom and frustration grew worse day by day, despite the fact that the students in his Talmud class looked upon him with open-mouthed awe. He had been placed in Rav Gershenson's class, the highest in the school, and I had been placed one class below. He was the talk of the Talmud Department by the end of two weeks and the accepted referee of all Talmudic arguments among the students. He was also learning a great deal from Rav Gershenson, who, as Danny put it, loved to spend at least three days on every two lines he taught. He had quickly become the leader of the few Hasidic students in the school, the ones who walked around wearing dark suits, tieless shirts, beards, fringes, and earlocks. About half of my high school class had entered the college, and I became friendly enough with many of the other non-Hasidic students. I didn't mix much with the Hasidim, but the extent to which they revered Danny was obvious to everyone. They clung to him as though he were the reincarnation of the Besht, as though he were their student tzaddik, so to speak. But none of this made him too happy; none of it was able to offset his frustration over Professor Appleman, who, by the time the first semester ended, had him so thoroughly upset that he began to talk about majoring in some other subject. He just couldn't see himself spending four years running rats through mazes and checking human responses to blinking lights and buzzing sounds, he told me. He had received a B for his semester's work in psychology because he had messed up some math equations on the final examination. He was disgusted. What did experimental psychology have to do with the human mind? he wanted to know.
We were in the week between semesters at the time. Danny was sitting on my bed and I was at my desk, wishing I could help him, he looked so thoroughly sad. But I don't know a thing about experimental psychology, so there was little I could offer by way of help, except to urge him to stick out the year, something might come of it, he might even get to like the subject.
'Did you ever get to like my father and his planned mistakes?' he asked testily.
I shook my head slowly. Reb Saunders had stopped inserting deliberate errors into his Shabbat evening talks the week we had entered college, but the memory of it still rankled. I told Danny that I had disliked the mistake business and had never really got used to it, despite my having witnessed it many times.
'So what makes you think sitting long enough through something you hate will get you to like it?'
I had nothing to say to that, except to urge him again to stick out the year with Professor Appleman. 'Why don't you talk to him about it?' I asked.
'About what? About Freud? The one time I mentioned a Freudian theory in class, all I got out of Appleman was that dogmatic psychoanalysis was related to psychology as magic was related to science. "Dogmatic Freudians,'" Danny was imitating Professor Appleman – or so I assumed; I didn't know Professor Appleman, but Danny's voice had taken on a somewhat professorial quality – '
'Dogmatic Freudians are generally to be regarded as akin to the medieval physicists who preceded the era of Galileo. They are interested solely in confirming highly dubious theoretical hypotheses by the logic of analogy and induction, and make no attempt at refutation or inter-subjective testing." That was my introduction to experimental psych. I've been running rats through mazes ever since: 'Was he right?' I asked.
'Was who right?'
'Professor Appleman: 'Was he right about what?'
'About Freudians being dogmatic?'
'What followers of a genius aren't dogmatic, for heaven's sake?
The Freudians have plenty to be dogmatic about. Freud was a genius: 'What do they do, make tzaddik out of him?'
'Very funny,' Danny said bitterly. 'I'm getting a lot of sympathy from you tonight: 'I think you ought to have a heart-to-heart talk with Appleman: 'And tell him what? That Freud was a genius? That I hate experimental psychology? You know what he once said in class?'
He assumed the professorial air again. '
'Gentlemen, psychology may be regarded as a science only to the degree to which its hypotheses are subjected to laboratory testing and to subsequent mathematization.' Mathematization yet! What should I tell him, that I have mathematics? I'm taking the wrong course. You should be taking that course, not me I'
'He's right, you know,' I said quietly.
'Who?'
'Appleman. If the Freudians aren't willing to try testing their theories under laboratory conditions, then they are being dogmatic.'
Danny looked at me, his face rigid. 'What makes you so wise about Freudians all of a sudden?' he asked angrily.
'I don't know a thing about the Freudians,' I told him quietly. 'But I know a lot about inductive logic. If the Freudians -'
'Damn it (' Danny exploded. 'I never even mentioned the followers of Freud in class! I was talking about Freud himself! Freud was a scientist. Psychoanalysis is a scientific tool for exploring the mind. What do rats have to do with the human mind?'
'Why don't you ask Appleman?' I said quietly.
'I think I will,' Danny said. 'I think I'll do just that. Why not? What have I got to lose? It can't make me any more miserable than I am now.'
'That's right,' I said.
There was a brief silence, during which Danny sat on my bed and stared gloomily down at the floor.
'How are your eyes these days?' I asked quietly.
He sat back on the bed, leaning against the wall. 'They still bother me. These glasses don't help much.'
'Have you seen a doctor?'
He shrugged. 'He said the glasses should do it. I just have to get used to them. I don't know. Anyway, I'll talk to Appleman next week. The worst that could happen is I drop the Course.' He shook his head grimly. 'What a miserable business. Two years of reading Freud, and I have to end up by doing experimental psychology.'
'You never know,' I said. 'Experimental psychology might come in handy some day.'
'Oh, sure. All I need to do is get to love mathematics and rats. Are you coming over this Saturday?'
'I'm studying with my father Shabbat afternoon,' I told him.
'Every Saturday afternoon?'
'Yes.'
'My father asked me last week if you were still my friend. He hasn't seen you in two months.'
'I'm studying Talmud with my father,' I said.
'You review?'
'No. He's teaching me scientific method.'
Danny looked at me in surprise, then grinned. 'You're planning to try scientific method on Rav Schwarz?'
'No,' I said. Rav Schwarz was my Talmud teacher. He was an old man with a long, gray beard who wore a black coat and was constantly smoking cigarettes. He was a great Talmudist, but he had been trained in a European yeshiva, and I didn't think he would take kindly to the scientific method of studying Talmud. I had once suggested a textual emendation in class, and he had given me a queer look. I didn't think he even understood what I had said.