The Americans are in the habit of speaking very disparagingly of their official class. I never heard one speak in any other tone on this subject. If the canon, that whatever all men, at all times, and in all places, affirm must be true, is to be accepted, then this class in the United States occupies a position of very bad pre-eminence. No one is spared. ‘The President is a Judas Iscariot who has sold his country. Senators, and representatives, are a set of log-rollers and wire-pullers, who make, on an average of the whole body, £6,000 a year out of their votes in Congress. Judges receive such small salaries, that they must also receive bribes. Every town councillor (if that is the right title), every exciseman, every customhouse officer, every tax assessor, or collector, is open to conviction, if the argument used be the dollar. They work quick, for they know they have only four years for making their fortunes.’ These are the mildest terms in which they inveigh against what they call the universal rottenness, from top to bottom, of the official class throughout the Union. On this very dangerous and delicate ground a stranger can only act the part of a reporter. He cannot give any comment, or even have any opinion of his own. I feel, however, that I should be guilty of foul ingratitude, if I did not give the results of my own experience and observation with respect to one class, at all events, of American public servants. I saw much of the superintendents of schools, and was everywhere struck with their devotion to their work, and with their ability. As far as I could judge, the public are well and faithfully served by these officers. And as the superintendent in each city is practically, though not theoretically, the doer of all that is done in the general management, and is responsible for the condition of all the schools in the city, his office is, in fact, second in importance to none. [Sidenote: _How they speak of those in Authority._]