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This lady got her appointment; but presently she discovered that the head of her French department didn’t know any French; necessarily, her pupils discovered it also; and that made her unpopular with her superior. She was refused promotion upon the ground that she was “a non-conformist.” She told me of her adventures in trying to get something explicit from the examiners; she called several times upon Examiner Smith, the same gentleman who debated with me at the Civic Club. Mr. Smith was in a hurry to catch a train, and asked the lady to tell him her story while he was washing his hands in a lavatory. She was so fastidious as to think that was not quite a courteous examination!

I talked with a young man, who had been for many years in the system, and with whom they had not been able to find fault; his ratings had been “double A” from the beginning of his career. But what chance had the system to hold an energetic man, who saw all promotion depending upon favoritism and graft, and saw himself condemned to a subordinate position, taking orders from pompous ignoramuses? The desirable positions in the system are few—the Board of Estimate sees to that!—and the struggle for them is tense, and the way of promotion is the way of intrigue. Here were people giving courses to teachers, instructing them how to pass examinations for promotion—and then these same people conducting the examinations! Here were examiners with agents out touting for them! (You see, they teach what is called “salesmanship” in the New York schools; and evidently, they practice what they teach!) My young friend went out into the business world, and is making a good living. He explained the difference this made in his life; when he met business men, he was an equal among equals, but as a teacher he had had to tremble before a board of examiners who could not have passed one of their own examinations.