Having a night to think it over, the gang must have realized that this story would look just a little “raw” when told in “The Goslings.” So Floor-leader Pearse appeared next morning with a resolution excluding those representatives whose rights to seats had been questioned on the day before. But all the motions which had been passed by the shouts of these representatives were permitted to stand! The disfranchised delegates were directed to leave the hall; then they were reseated—the whole transaction occupying five minutes! Finally a superintendent of schools was elected secretary of the association, at a salary of fifty-five hundred dollars, and the public school system of the state of Wisconsin was safe for another year! Take this to any ward-healer or henchman of your local political machine, and see if he can “beat it!” CHAPTER XLIX THE DISPENSERS OF PROMINENCE We now ascend to the top of our great school pyramid, the National Education Association. This is the professional organization of the educators of the United States, and as such it possesses tremendous prestige and power in the educational world. You probably know very little about it, and may think that it has nothing to do with your local schools; but in this you will be deceiving yourself, for its influence is none the less strong because indirect. What the N. E. A. does is to set the standards of the school world; in its councils, open or secret, the thing called educational greatness is determined. Who are the “great” educators of America? Who are the ones that really know how children should be taught, and what they should be taught? Do you know who they are? Manifestly you do not; you have to be told who they are, and the function of the N. E. A. is to tell you. It is the dispenser of educational prominence and applause. The final test of greatness in the school world is to be invited to deliver one of the addresses before its annual convention; while to have your name added to the list of presidents of the organization is in the school world the same thing as it is in public life to have your name added to the list of presidents of the United States, which every school child has to learn by heart. You step out before this vast assemblage, amid a flutter of applause, and tens of thousands of teachers and sympathizers absorb your utterances, and carry them away to the farthest hamlets—this is what is known in America as “inspiration.” The local newspapers print your address in full, and the Associated Press sends a summary of it to its thirteen hundred leading newspapers. Thus, if you are a reactionary, you help to set backward the clock of American history, and to render the position of your capitalist employers secure. If you are not a reactionary, then you do not get within many feet of the platform at the N. E. A. convention.