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

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It happened once that Henrietta met Mrs. Tildsley at a reception, and there was a discussion. “If you don’t like the way the schools are run, why do you stay?” asked the superintendent’s wife; to which Henrietta answered: “I stay because I am not willing to leave the children to Dr. Tildsley.” To me she said: “I have enlisted as if for a war. I am furiously patriotic; I believe in the future of America with all my heart and soul, and I am going to make freedom a reality here. I am going to stick to the death.” She did this.

We were sitting on the little roof-garden of the Civic Club one spring evening, and there were six or eight teachers in the group. I could not see their faces in the darkness, but I could hear their eager voices, their murmurs of assent to Henrietta’s statements. With a pencil and pad I noted down in the dark one after another of her sentences: “Tight mindedness and fear are the occupational diseases of teaching.... In the business world there is no such thing as unquestioned obedience; that belongs only in teaching.... There is more kowtowing in our schools than anywhere else in the world.”