Beginning at page 224 is a study of the state and national machines of the school world; and whatever else you miss, do not miss the National Education Association, and how it was stolen from the teachers of America—there is no drama on Broadway to equal that for thrills. From 275 to 329 you will find a score of powerful Big Business organizations which have assumed to take control of our schools. From 330 to 349 comes the Catholic Church in relation to the schools—this in addition to details given in a number of cities. From 349 to 417 you will find a general survey of the school situation from the point of view of both pupils and teachers. The concluding chapters discuss “The Goose-step” and its critics, and developments in the college world since its publication. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE GOSLINGS _A Study of the American Schools_ ------- CHAPTER I LAND OF ORANGE-GROVES AND JAILS I begin this study of the American school system with Southern California, because that is the part of the country in which I live, and which therefore I know best. It is a representative part, being the newest and most recently mixed. We have all the races, white and black and yellow and red; but the great bulk of the population is of native stock, farmers from the Middle West who have sold or rented their homesteads and moved to this “roof-garden of the world.” It is our fashion to hold reunions and picnics for the old home folks, and there are few states that cannot gather thousands of representatives. We have the most wonderful climate in the world, and soil which is fertile under irrigation. Our leading occupation is selling this soil and climate to new arrivals from the East. We are eager traders, and everything we have is for sale; you can buy the average house in Southern California for two hundred dollars more than the owner paid for it, and I know people who have sold their homes and moved several times in one year. Also, we have struck oil, and this sudden wealth has fanned our collective greed. We boast ourselves “the white spot on the industrial map.” Hard times do not touch us, we build literally whole streets of new houses every week, and labor agitators are banished from our midst.