....is, once again, surrounded by those ivied walls and academic integrity is questioned, denied -- and castigated. The smell of success has created a medicine show approach to selling education and Jerry Scott is out for the most convenient bandwagon. This he finds in Charleston State University where, as an assistant professor, the razor rather than the bootstrap is his means of elevation while his wife, engrossed in the novel she is compelled to write, is not, at first, the right kind of helpmate. Her efforts to conform to the pattern he is following smash when she realizes what a shoddy product he is selling, what rodent qualities he is showing in campus politics and what an unprincipled huckster he really is. The death of his department head, the unbridled drive of the President's assistant which spurs Scott to best him and the unwholesome pretense, leave Scott without a wife or the achievement of his ambitious. A Bill of Particulars (1956) made an issue of a woman lawyer -- this is pertinent and partisan.