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

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The president of the City Teachers’ Club made herself obnoxious by calling a meeting of the teachers for four o’clock one afternoon—that is to say, after the closing hour of the schools. Mrs. Dorsey, desiring to forestall her, closed the schools at half past one that afternoon. Hitherto Mrs. Dorsey had maintained that the schools must never be closed for special occasions; but now she closed them, and called the teachers together at half past one to listen to an address of her own. Some teachers thought it was her idea that they should be tired out and go home before their own meeting at four o’clock!

But the dissatisfaction of the teachers did not abate. A hundred of the best had left, and three hundred more were refusing to renew their contracts for the coming year; so the business men realized that some concession had to be made. Manifestly, it would not do to let it come as a result of teacher agitation; it must be due to the loving concern of business men. Mr. Sylvester Weaver, head of the “education committee” of the Chamber of Commerce, was called in, and he organized a committee of leading citizens, including Harry Haldeman, president of the Better America Federation. Somebody had “put over” on the teachers a publicity agent, a gentleman with a big cigar in his mouth and a gold watch-chain across his waistcoat. He now advised the teachers to drop their agitation and allow the business men to handle it; let the grand committee retire and do some grand thinking. So for five weeks the teachers preserved an awed silence.