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Life has given you one of its precious treasures, a child; a body to nurture, a character to train, a mind with endless possibilities of growth, a soul with hidden stores of tenderness and beauty—all these are Nature’s gifts. Modern science has shown that within the child’s soul lies magically locked up all the past of our race; also, it is evident that within it lies all the future of our race. What our children are now being made is what America will be.

You send these little ones to school. Twenty-three millions of them troop off every week-day morning, with their shining faces newly washed, their clothing cleaned and mended. You bear them, you rear them, with infinite pains and devotion you prepare them, and feed them into the gigantic educational machine.

You do not know much about this machine. You have turned it over to others to run. Every year you pay to maintain it a billion dollars of wealth which you have produced by real and earnest toil. You take it for granted that this billion dollars is competently used; that those who run the machine are giving your twenty-three million children the best education that forty-three dollars and forty-seven cents per child will buy.

The purpose of this book is to show you how the “invisible government” of Big Business which controls the rest of America has taken over the charge of your children. In the course of a public debate with the writer, in the Civic Club in New York City, May, 1922, Dr. Tildsley, district superintendent of the public school system of that city, made the statement: “I do not know any school system in the United States which is run for the benefit of the children. They are all run for the benefit of the gang.” This statement, made upon high authority, is the thesis of “The Goslings.” Come with me and let me show you what is this “gang” which runs the school system of the United States; how they got their power, what use they make of it, and what this means to the bodies and minds of your twenty-three million little ones.

To assist the reader in finding his way through a big book, I give traveling directions:

Pages 1 to 22 take you behind the scenes of that “invisible government” which is now ruling America, including its schools. Pages 22 to 59 show in detail what this “invisible government” is doing to the schools of one large American city—Los Angeles. Pages 59 to 93 study the schools of New York, and 94 to 109 those of Chicago. Pages 109 to 224 deal with school conditions in a score of other large cities. I realize that this is a large number; but then, many people are interested in these cities. You will find both melodrama and humor in the stories; and if there is too much, you can skip!

Beginning at page 224 is a study of the state and national machines of the school world; and whatever else you miss, do not miss the National Education Association, and how it was stolen from the teachers of America—there is no drama on Broadway to equal that for thrills. From 275 to 329 you will find a score of powerful Big Business organizations which have assumed to take control of our schools. From 330 to 349 comes the Catholic Church in relation to the schools—this in addition to details given in a number of cities. From 349 to 417 you will find a general survey of the school situation from the point of view of both pupils and teachers. The concluding chapters discuss “The Goose-step” and its critics, and developments in the college world since its publication.

THE GOSLINGS

A Study of the American Schools