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

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We have no morality in the matter. We will be grateful for anything, providing it is provocative of the thrills and novelty we seek. And please do not consider any such insipidity as taking a hike to the country or a trip to Bear Mt. They are commonplaces, don’t you see? For instance, a séance with a medium would have been a glorious suggestion—or something more unusual. But this is only a sample of the many possible things that would lend color and individuality to our days.

So we who are merely young, appeal to you, a little naively perhaps, but with stern sincerity, in the hope that you who have passed through our stage of evolution may sympathize with us and may be able to help us in the way that we wish to be helped.

To me this letter is like a flashlight thrown suddenly upon the minds of the young people. Our whole problem of education is summed up in it; and I ask again: Would you know what to answer. I, for my part, would tell these lads to find one of the big strikes which are always going on, say in the clothing trades of New York, and attempt to read the Constitution and so come into contact with the realities of the class struggle. But, of course, a teacher who gave that advice would cease to be a teacher. Those who hold their jobs and get their promotions in the system are those who follow the mimeographed formulas, and see that the pupils read the required number of words per minute. The result is a newspaper item from the New York “Times” of May 26, 1922; I quote the first paragraph: