Читать книгу The Goose-step: A Study of American Education онлайн

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The first step toward the intelligent study of American education is to consider the country in which this education grows. We are told upon good authority that men do not gather figs from thistles; we are also told that we cannot understand the cultural institutions of any country unless we know its economic and social conditions.

If you want to learn about America, the plutocratic empire, come with me and meet the emperor and his princes and lords; come to the Customs House in New York City, early in the year 1913. The memory of our busy age is short, so perhaps it will mean nothing to you if I say that the Pujo Committee of the House of Representatives is in session. They sit in a solemn row, eleven solemn legislators; and into the witness chair step one after another the masters of this plutocratic empire: J. P. Morgan senior, a bulbous-nosed and surly-tempered old man whom everyone in the room knows to be the emperor; George F. Baker, president of the First National Bank of New York, the second richest man in the world; William Rockefeller, brother of the richest man in the world; George M. Reynolds, president of the Continental National Bank of Chicago, the second largest bank in America; Henry P. Davison, Jacob Schiff—so on through a long list.