It fell to my lot while in the city last year to take part in a public debate with some of the school officials at the Civic Club. To my statement that Tammany was running the schools, Examiner Smith rejoined that all promotions in the system depended upon civil service examinations—he knew, because he did the examining. But when he was pinned down, he admitted that the twenty-six district superintendents, the eight associate superintendents, and the thirty high school principals were all excluded from the civil service list; and here, of course, are the prizes for which everyone is striving. At that very moment the schools were in an uproar because of the appointment to a superintendent’s position of Mrs. Grace Forsythe, a Catholic lady who had not even high school qualifications; also of Margaret McCooey, sister of one of the Tammany bosses. Milo MacDonald, a Catholic, had been appointed principal of a high school from the rank of ordinary teacher; Henrietta Rodman told me of another teacher, a Catholic, who took the examination for elementary principalship and failed, and was appointed to a high school principalship. Other cases have happened since. These are a few out of scores of cases that were detailed to me. I was told of a Catholic who took an examination, and then was permitted to withdraw his papers and write up a new set at home. It is a matter of record that Mr. Somers, member of the board of education—a super-patriot, who called the Teachers’ Union treasonable—let off a clerk of the school board who had been proven guilty of misappropriating funds; also another who was charged with letting people get copies of examination papers in advance, and of selling information to candidates. Both these people, Catholics, got off with a fine of a few days’ pay, and both are still in the system.