Читать книгу The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools онлайн

117 страница из 161

Dr. Tildsley came, and he also recognized the opportunity. He summoned Schmalhausen, and first pinned him down to the fact that he had written the “Whalen resolution”; then he set for this sensitive minded and idealistic young teacher an extremely cunning trap. You understand, Mr. Schmalhausen had not yet seen the criminal theme; and Dr. Tildsley did not let him see it now. He read him the first page of it—the first page being mild, and all the outrageous statements being found in the latter pages! So Dr. Tildsley trapped Mr. Schmalhausen into saying that he would merely make some minor corrections of expression in the theme; at least, Dr. Tildsley testified that that is what the young teacher said—Mr. Schmalhausen denied it. Later on Dr. Tildsley, consulting the rest of the gang, realized that his case did not look quite right, so he went back to the school, and read the entire composition to Mr. Schmalhausen, asking what would have been his action as a teacher in such a situation. Mr. Schmalhausen undertook to mark the theme as he would have marked it in the due course of his class work. His comments, written along the margin of the theme, were as follows: