"Another factor which contributes to the Index," said Baker, "is the cultural impact of the institution upon the community. We measure that in terms of the number and quality of cultural activities brought into the community by the university or college. We include concerts, lectures, terpsichorean activities, Broadway plays, and so on."
"Terpsichorean activities. I like that," said Fenwick.
"Primarily ballet," said Baker.
"Sure."
"Clearwater's record here is very low. It fact, there isn't any."
"This helps us get turned down for a research grant in physics?"
"It's a factor in the measurement of the overall status."
"Look," said Fenwick, "the citizens of Clearwater are so infernally busy with their own shindigs that they wouldn't know what to do if we brought a long-hair performance into town. If it isn't square-dancing in the Grange Hall, it's a pageant in the Masonic Temple. The married kids would probably like to see a Broadway play, all right, but they're so darned busy rehearsing their own in the basement of the Methodist Church that I doubt they could find time to come. Besides that, there's the community choir every Thursday, and the high school music department has a recital nearly every month. People would drop dead if they had any more to go to in Clearwater. I'd say our culture is doing pretty good."
"Folk activities are always admirable," said Baker, "but improvement of the cultural level in any community depends on the injection of outside influences, and this is one of the functions of the university. Clearwater College has not performed its obligation to the community in this respect."
Fenwick appeared to be growing increasingly ruddy. Baker thought he saw moisture appearing on Fenwick's forehead.
"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 institution. 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
"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 institutions."
"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."
"And this keeps us from getting a research grant in physics? What
"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."