Читать книгу The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools - Upton Sinclair - Страница 8

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Naturally, we have to begin with the “Times”; and at the very outset, to show you what the “Times” wants from our schools, I narrate the experience of Mr. M. C. Bettinger, until recently a member of the board of education, and for thirty-eight years connected with the educational system of Los Angeles. In the year 1906 Mr. Bettinger happened to be in the office of Superintendent Foshay, when that gentleman was packing up his belongings and preparing to retire from his job. He took out of his desk a bale of papers two inches thick, fastened with a rubber-band. “Thank God,” he said, “at least I don’t have to pay any more tribute to the ‘Times.’ These are receipts for money which I’ve had to pay to that paper upon one pretext or another for the past eleven years!”

Or consider the experience of Dr. E. C. Moore, who succeeded Mr. Foshay as superintendent. In the year 1907 the National Education Association held its convention in Los Angeles, and in the guide-book prepared for it was an article by General Otis, publisher of the “Times,” denouncing union labor. Dr. Moore had the courage to cut out these passages, and for this General Otis set out to “get” him, and in due course did so.

Dr. Moore’s blunder was that at Christmas time he sent out an order to the principals of schools to be guarded in their proceedings so as not to give offense to any class of people. This was a routine notice, its significance being that Jewish children should not be compelled to take part in religious ceremonials obnoxious to their faith. But Otis saw in it his opportunity; Superintendent Moore was attacking the Christian religion and undermining the basis of all morality! Should such a man remain superintendent of the educational system of a Christian community? The “Times” printed literally pages of attacks upon this basis, interviews with clergymen and parents, and reports of sermons denouncing Dr. Moore, who was thus forced to move on to Yale University.

Next came John H. Francis, and he had a wonderful idea. He was going to have junior high schools all over the city, and the youngsters were to have stenography and typewriting and bookkeeping and manual training—perfect little clerks and shop foremen turned out in two or three years! Francis was a man with a passion for education, a wonderful platform orator; he got his junior high schools, and the fame of them spread all over the United States. But they cost a pile of money, and they didn’t perform the wonders which the business men had hoped for; instead, they got the youngsters interested in music and art and dramatics and debating—and got them organized, so that you couldn’t take these things away from them without a riot! So the Black Hand lost all their enthusiasm for Superintendent Francis, and they tried on him their favorite device of the detective agency and the woman scandal. Recall my statement that the big private detective agencies form an important part of the educational system of the United States!

The president of the board, who was elected to oust Superintendent Francis, was Judge Walter Bordwell, before whom Clarence Darrow was tried. Bordwell was a flabby and repulsive looking man, with the manners of an Irish section-boss; he was a relative of Chandler, and a pet of the “Times.” In 1918, shortly after ousting Francis, Bordwell became the “Times’” candidate for governor; and, as part of his campaign, an assistant superintendent of schools sent a letter to teachers asking them to vote for the Judge. The name of this assistant is Mrs. Susan Dorsey, and I ask you to remember her, because a little later we shall find her rewarded for her fidelity by being made superintendent of schools; we shall find the teachers of Los Angeles presuming to go into politics in the interest of the schools—and Mrs. Dorsey insisting that politics must be rigidly excluded from the system!

Along with Judge Bordwell was elected Mr. Washburn, ex-banker, whose one idea of school administration was to keep down the taxes; Mrs. Waters, the widow of a bank president; and Colonel Andrew Copp, an officer in the state militia. Mr. Bettinger, at that time assistant superintendent, tells me anecdotes which show the attitude of these people toward education. “We don’t want you to come here with opinions,” said Mrs. Waters; “we want you to obey orders.” And in almost the same words Colonel Copp addressed a delegation of teachers who came to him to complain of inability to get supplies. “Don’t come here with your views of things,” stormed the Colonel; “what we want you to do is to do what you’re told.”

In the course of discussion before a board Committee, Mr. Bettinger made so bold as to give his definition of education: “to aid in the unfoldment of a human mind.” Colonel Copp was so furious that he was hardly able to keep still until Mr. Bettinger finished. “Education?” he cried. “I’ll tell you what education is! Education is getting a lot of young people into a room, teaching them a lesson out of a book, hearing them recite it, putting down a mark in figures, and at the end of the year that’s their record. That’s what education is, and we are going to have that and nothing else in Los Angeles.”

Judge Bordwell had gone to New York to put the problem of the Los Angeles schools before the great mogul of plutocratic education, President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia. He came back with Albert Shiels, a product of Butler’s educational enameling machine, who was to make a survey. Shiels was an accountant, not an educator; also, under the charter of the city, he was ineligible for superintendent, not having lived a year in the state. But a little thing like a charter provision would not be allowed to block the will of Judge Bordwell. Dr. Shiels was made superintendent and started publishing anti-Bolshevik propaganda in the teachers’ paper, and circularizing the teachers with such literature. He published in President Butler’s “Educational Review” an article assailing the Soviet government, which article contained no less than one hundred and twenty-four misstatements of fact. Challenged to debate this issue, Dr. Shiels wrote to me: “I believe it is contrary to good public policy to place Bolshevism and its practices on a par with debatable questions.”

But Dr. Shiels soon became disgusted with the crudity of his political masters, and went back to New York to take up a pleasanter job for Nicholas Miraculous. The new president of the school board, a banker and perfect plutocrat by the name of Lynn Helm, selected an assistant superintendent, formerly a teacher of Latin and Greek, as the new boss of the schools. He stated as his reason that he knew she was “safe”; and time has proven that he was a good judge of employes. Mrs. Susan M. Dorsey rules the system as I write, and you will have a chance to watch her in action. For the moment it may suffice to record that for thirty years she has been a member of the Baptist Temple, Reverend J. Whitcomb Brougher, pastor. When “Billy” Sunday came to Los Angeles, some people found fault with him, and Rev. Brougher rushed to his defense, describing Sunday’s critics in the following highly educational language:

The dirty, low-down, contemptible, weazen-brained, impure-hearted, shrivelled-souled, gossiping devils do not deserve to be noticed.... Scandal-mongers, gossip-lovers, reputation-destroyers, hypocritical, black-hearted, green-eyed slanderers.... Corrupt, devil-possessed, vile debauchés.... Immoral, sin-loving, vice-practicing, underhanded sneaks.... Carrion-loving buzzards and foul-smelling skunks.

If anyone wishes to take charge of one hundred and seventy-six thousand school children under the Black Hand, he may learn from this how to train himself; for better remembering, I have put the directions into a poem:

Five days in the week

Teach Latin and Greek;

On Sundays, an hour,

Go listen to Brougher;

And seven days weekly

Obey Mammon meekly.