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

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You shake your head and say: “I had no idea of such things; yes, Southern California must be very bad indeed!” But I beg you not to fool yourself in that way. Southern California is exactly the same as the rest of industrial America. In the course of this book we shall visit the Bay Cities of California, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley; also Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, in the far Northwest. We shall visit a number of cities scattered across the continent—Spokane, Butte, Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit; on the Atlantic coast we shall visit New York, Boston, Worcester, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington. We shall have glimpses of many towns, and of the rural schools in many states; also we shall not overlook the private schools and the big “prep” schools, where our youthful aristocracy is made ready for the gladiatorial combats and the social intrigues of college.

In all these regions we shall find the plutocracy in control of business and politics; and we shall find the very same interests, and as a rule the very same individuals, in control of the schools. Whether or not they use the methods of the Black Hand depends purely and simply upon one question—to what extent the subject classes are attempting to protest. If the subject classes make no protest, there is no violence by the master class. If the subject classes attempt to protest, then there is whatever amount of violence is necessary to hold them down.