Both threw up their hands.

"We don't have such figures," one of them said.

But the future sociologist Martin Horwitz came up to us and said, "What worker or peasant could send his son to a private university?"

My traveling companions from Oakland to San Francisco were an older professor of psychology, lively and talkative, and two students who had graduated--David Egger and Ellen Maytag. We talked about Jack London, then turned to Ernest Hemingway, and the "lost generation" about which they were singing the praises.

"We now have a new generation that we call 'the beat generation,'" David Egger suddenly said. "They are young people, many of them students, who are loafing around, not working. They don't believe in anything. They have lost faith in the power of reason."

"And what is better about you, 'the silent ones?'" the psychology professor suddenly spoke out, addressing himself to the students. "When I was young I dreamed of earning a million, saving the world, writing the famous novel. And what are the dreams of the American student of today? They don't go further than the limits of a car in the garage and a job in the 'General Motors' Corporation."

"And what am I supposed to do about it?" objected David Egger. "If I don't think that way, who is going to look out for me? Go into politics? No, our politics are a dirty business. Of course, I ought now to really start thinking about a job. It I don't, who is going to feed me?"

"Not all of us dream only about that!" Ellen Maytag interrupted David. "Some people also think about how to keep the peace. If only they would tell us how to do it. They teach us things we already know... We can't trust our reporters, can't believe our radio and TV programs. They all distort the truth. Our professors are immortalizing falsehood. For 4 years the university administration stuffs us with lies. This is not only in Stanford."

One wonders how this conversation would have ended if fresh and smiling Walter Clemens had not appeared at that minute and announced that it was time to get ready for our flight to the state of South Carolina.

"Then," Walter Clemens told us in the airplane, "You will find out about the conditions of Negroes in the South of the U.S.A."

"Is that a southern state?" we asked him. "South Carolina is really a border state."

"On the contrary, it is typical," insisted Walter Clemens.

In this "border" state no matter where you go you will find signs around you "Only for whites" and "Only for colored." The schools and universities are "for whites" and "for colored." Even the signs on the doors of the toilets in a tobacco factory indicate where the white can go, and where the Negro can go.

"How on earth do you explain that?" we asked the students of the "white" University of Chapel Hill.

"Tradition," they answered in embarrassed fashion, and averting their eyes, added, "It's hard to fight against it. It has its roots deep in the slavery period."