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Nevertheless, Mr. Schmalhausen was driven from the school system of New York, and with him Mr. Mufson and Mr. Schneer. The offense of Mr. Schneer was that he had given to some of his pupils a list of books, with comments on their contents in the somewhat flowery style of a young man who takes great literature with sudden and intense seriousness. There were two hundred books listed, and a committee of the Schoolmasters’ Association undertook to mark ten of them which were especially offensive. One was Eltzbacher’s “Anarchism”—which turned out upon investigation to be a work opposing Anarchism, written by a non-Anarchist; poor Mr. Schneer had been trying to save his East Side Jewish boys from the snares of the extremists! Another was Romain Rolland’s “Jean Christophe,” one of the greatest novels and noblest works of culture of our time. A third was listed as “Sinclair’s ‘The Divine Fire.’” No one could guess why the committee should have objected to this eminently respectable novel; it occurs to me that Mr. Schneer’s failure to give the first names of his authors may have betrayed the schoolmasters into thinking that he had endorsed a book by my wicked self! I occasionally get letters intended for May Sinclair; so let me state that the author of “The Divine Fire” lives in England, and is not related to me, nor in any way to blame for my evil actions and writings—except that she occasionally writes me letters approving them!