THE MAKING OF 
 AN AMERICAN 
 SCHOOLTEACHER 
 
Class ^SiXZi" 
 
 Book ' Cy .df^ 
 
 Gopyright N° 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/makingofamericanOOcris 
 
The Making 
 
 of an 
 
 American School -Teacher 
 
 By 
 
 FORREST CRISSEY 
 
 Author of "A Country Boy," "Tattlings of 
 Retired Politician," etc. 
 
 C. M. BARNES COMPANY 
 CHICAGO 
 
LIBRARY ©f CONGRESS 
 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 NOV 14 1906 
 
 Copyright Entry 
 
 CUSS CC XXc.No, 
 
 / 6 n 7 
 
 COPY B. 
 
 Copyright 1906, by 
 CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Copyright 1906, by 
 C M. BARNES COMPANY 
 
 
PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 
 
 A few words only are needed to introduce this 
 little book. If it has any quality of helpfulness, 
 it will speak for itself better than any preface 
 could do. 
 
 It was first published serially in the Saturday 
 Evening Post and merits, it is believed, a more 
 permanent form, especially as it touches upon 
 problems of Public School Administration that 
 are of universal concern. 
 
 It will interest some readers to know, others 
 will readily recognize the fact that this book is 
 the life-story of Mr. E. G. Cooley, head of the 
 Public School System of Chicago and one of the 
 foremost educators of America. He has under 
 his charge 259 schools, 5,800 teachers and 280,000 
 pupils — truly a great responsibility. Mr. Cooley 
 has had a rare career — a career still unfinished, 
 but rich in suggestion to all who have a care for 
 the processes by which a real education is de- 
 veloped. 
 
THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN 
 SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 HOW THE PRAIRIE BOY CAME OUT OF THE 
 TALL GRASS. 
 
 At the start the School-Teacher was simply the 
 Prairie Boy. His forebears were fighters and 
 trail-breakers of the staunchest Puritan stock. 
 The old Massachusetts Reports say that thirty- 
 three of them fought in the Revolutionary War. 
 Springfield, Massachusetts, was the original set- 
 tlement from which they sent out generation after 
 generation to the wide fields of the adventurous 
 West. 
 
 Abner, the great-grandfather of the Prairie 
 Boy, started westward in 1806, and was one of 
 the founders of the first settlement in Western 
 New York. The grandfather, named Elias, was 
 an Abolitionist of the extremest type. He had 
 a large family of boys, and five of them started 
 westward before they were twenty-one years of 
 age. The one who was destined to become the 
 father of our School-Teacher spent his youth in 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 New York State working in a sawmill — a busi- 
 ness which his father had followed before him. 
 He walked across the State of Ohio and did not 
 make a permanent stop until he reached Straw- 
 berry Point, in Eastern Iowa. Here he put up a 
 little one-room shack of the flimsiest sort and se- 
 cured a patch of land on the Maquoketa River 
 for the site of his mill. It did not seem to occur 
 to him that a change to a new country might 
 call for a change of occupation. His first big 
 task was the building of a brush-dam across the 
 river to furnish the mill with water-power. The 
 story of this sawmill enterprise sharply illustrates 
 the bulldog tenacity of purpose that characterized 
 both the father and the son. 
 
 The first spring freshet after the sawmill had 
 been put up swept away the dam as if it were a 
 mere brush-heap. Three times the dam was re- 
 placed, and the sawmill enterprise was only 
 abandoned when its owner's Abolition blood be- 
 came stirred by the appeals for recruits which 
 swept the country at the outbreak of the War. 
 
 One night, in 1863, the father returned home 
 from the village late and with a face of unusual 
 seriousness. 
 
 " Well, I've enlisted," was his terse announce- 
 ment. 
 
 The mother cried with abandon for the greater 
 
 6 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 part of the night. But, after that, she faced the 
 situation bravely and without complaint. Every 
 article of property that could be spared was sold 
 at once, and before the soldier marched away 
 with his company, he saw his little family moved 
 into a small house in the village. 
 
 At this time it began to dawn upon the Prairie 
 Boy that his mother had but one thought and 
 purpose in her life and that the way to spell it 
 was S-C-H-O-O-L. However, he is now keenly 
 awake to the fact that she had many other cares 
 and interests beyond keeping him in school and 
 that she was a woman of the true pioneer type, 
 possessed of uncommon abilities. The soldier re- 
 ceived in " county scrip " one hundred dollars of 
 bounty money, which was promptly discounted at 
 one-half its face value for cash. Although the 
 volunteer received only thirteen dollars a month, 
 he managed to send home ten dollars of this 
 amount — and sometimes all of it — every thirty 
 days. 
 
 When he returned, after the close of the War, 
 his thrifty wife presented him with a house and 
 lot in the village and three hundred dollars in 
 cash. It is true that, after the soldier became a 
 lieutenant, his wages were slightly increased, but 
 the industry and good management of the mother 
 were responsible for the fact that she was able 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 to take good care of her little family and also put 
 by something for the future. As the Prairie Boy 
 was only five years of age when they moved in- 
 to the village, he was, of course, unable to be of 
 any practical help about the house. There was, 
 however, one thing which he could do, and that 
 was to hold the candle in the woodshed, evenings, 
 while his mother sawed the wood for her fire. 
 Even then, this rough and awkward toil gave to 
 his mother a touch of heroism in the eyes of the 
 little candle-bearer. The second day after they 
 came into the village, the Prairie Boy was sent 
 to the town school. Every small happening of 
 that day was photographed upon his mind and is 
 often recalled by him now. The village school 
 did not have a summer term, and quite naturally 
 the Prairie Boy looked forward to the summer as 
 a time of play and vacation. He was doomed to 
 disappointment, however, for at once, after the 
 close of the village school, he was sent out to the 
 nearest country school where the " summer 
 term" was in progress — and he was kept there, 
 too, until the close of the term. 
 
 The Prairie Boy was only six or seven years 
 of age when he began his career as an earner. 
 His first employment was that of dropping corn 
 for a farmer who lived close to the edge of the 
 village. Soon he learned how to handle a hoe 
 
 8 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 and later to husk corn. All his earnings were 
 turned into the family fund. The day when he 
 was given a large, red penny " for his own " 
 stands out in his memory with sharp distinctness. 
 With splendid recklessness, he spent it for a stick 
 of striped candy. 
 
 When at last the father returned from the War 
 he became an insurance agent and did a thriving 
 business, keeping a horse and riding the country 
 for miles about. His new vocation brought him 
 in contact with nearly all the men of the coun- 
 ty, and as a result he was elected supervisor and 
 given other proofs of his neighbors' regard for 
 him as one of the " bright " men of the com- 
 munity. Altogether, affairs in the home of the 
 Prairie Boy had never seemed so promising as 
 in those first years following the War. 
 
 No occurrence in all his boyhood was more 
 painful to the boy than an incident in this period 
 One evening, at the close of family worship, after 
 the father had arisen from his knees, he slipped 
 an arm around the shoulder of the boy and 
 slowly said to him : " Ed, something happened 
 down at the post-office this evening that gave me 
 a great deal of gratification. One of our leading 
 citizens said to me that he regarded you as one 
 of the best little boys in this town." 
 
 Instantly the cheeks of the Prairie Boy flushed 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 red as a maple-leaf after a frost, and the fires of 
 shame seemed to burn him from head to foot. 
 If his father had said that the leading citizen 
 had denounced him as a scamp and a rascal, the 
 shame that would have followed could not have 
 equaled that which he felt on being called " one 
 of the best little boys in town." 
 
 Up to this time, the only book in the house, 
 besides the Bible, was a bound volume of 
 Godey's Lady's Book — a popular magazine of 
 that period. One day something happened which 
 proved of far-reaching importance in the life of 
 the Prairie Boy; the township Library Associa- 
 tion disbanded, and the books were distributed 
 among those who had helped start and support 
 it. The insurance agent's share in this distribu- 
 tion was a volume of Rollin's Ancient History, 
 beginning with the successors of Alexander the 
 Great. By daylight and candlelight the boy fol- 
 lowed the fortunes of the successors of Alexander 
 with all the intensity that the lad of to-day feels 
 in the heroes of Henty's pages. 
 
 Here were fighters and philosophers who 
 breathed greatness and who lived in an atmos- 
 phere of fierce and exalted heroism. Of all the 
 great figures which stalked through the pages of 
 Rollin, Eumenes was easily first in the affections 
 of the Prairie Boy. The unflinching loyalty of 
 
 10 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 this great leader to his ideals, his superiors and 
 his associates caught the impressionable imag- 
 ination of the lad, stirred his blood and soaked 
 into the fibre of his being. With an intensity 
 of interest hardly comprehensible to the school- 
 boy of to-day, the Prairie Boy reveled in the 
 sieges of Athens and of Rhodes; the exploits of 
 the Achean League; the hand-to-hand combat be- 
 tween the Roman Legion and the Macedonian 
 Phalanx; the dramatic story of the siege of Syra- 
 cuse, with the genius of the great mathematician, 
 Archimedes, pitted against the whole Roman 
 army; and the tragic romance of Antony and 
 Cleopatra. 
 
 The father was so proud of the lad's achieve- 
 ment as a " solid reader " that he mentioned it at 
 the post-office. 
 
 Like the other post-office gossip, it soon be- 
 came public property and circulated throughout 
 the entire community. A somewhat well-read 
 farmer, by the name of Jacques, was among those 
 who heard of the boy's scholarly acquirements. 
 The next day he appeared at the office of the in- 
 surance agent with a copy of Josephus in his 
 hand. 
 
 " That," he remarked, " is for your boy. If he 
 likes Rollin, he will surely like Josephus. Tell 
 him it is a present from a man who likes to run 
 
 ii 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 across a boy who has a natural taste for good 
 reading." 
 
 After he had devoured Josephus and reread his 
 favorite portions of Rollin, his historic thirst was 
 still unsatisfied, and he borrov/ed a copy of Plu- 
 tarch's Lives from the son of the local Baptist 
 minister. Here was another feast as much to 
 his relish as those which had preceded it. 
 
 But his reputation, at the age of eleven, of be- 
 ing " the greatest reader in Strawberry Point " 
 brought other grist to his mill. The next offer- 
 ing was from an eccentric uncle and was in the 
 shape of a huge sheep-bound volume of Shake- 
 speare's Complete Plays. His bent for history 
 guided him to Julius Caesar and the other great 
 historical dramas. Here was history " in the do- 
 ing," not in the recounting — history with the life- 
 blood of action. 
 
 A thin, limp copy of Walter Scott's poems also 
 came into his hands about this time and charmed 
 him with its romance and vivid descriptions. His 
 taste for poetry was awakened by Scott, and his 
 eye fell covetously upon a paper covered copy 
 of Milton, in the window of a general store. Two 
 years passed, however, before he had fifty cents 
 he could spare for the purchase of this volume. 
 But its reading repaid him for the months of en- 
 vious waiting. 
 
 12 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 From Scott's poems to his novels was a natural 
 step, and these were about the first books of 
 fiction which the Prairie Boy read. The reading 
 of these great romances was distributed over 
 some four years, from the time he was thirteen 
 until he was seventeen. He read them in his 
 attic room, out under the trees, and wherever he 
 went. 
 
 When the Prairie Boy reached the age of fif- 
 teeen years the son of the Baptist minister per- 
 suaded him that he should make any sacrifice 
 necessary in order to attend the State University 
 at Iowa City, to which place the minister was 
 going to educate his lad. This argument was 
 particularly effective when accompanied by the 
 suggestion that the best scholar and the greatest 
 reader in Strawberry Point certainly ought not 
 to shop short of a college education. 
 
 For several years the vacations of the Prairie 
 Boy had been put in at hard work, the results of 
 which had been carefully saved. First he worked 
 on the railroad, then being built through Straw- 
 berry Point, as water-boy, and later as the driver 
 of a scraper. Also he had contrived to pick up 
 odd jobs, and in the autumn had found profitable 
 employment in the harvest-fields. His thrift and 
 activity resulted in an accumulation of two hun- 
 
 13 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 dred dollars in cash, which he was at liberty to 
 spend for an education if he so desired. 
 
 As the delights of knowledge were spread out 
 before him by the preacher's son, a bargain was 
 soon struck with the minister himself, whereby 
 the Prairie Boy was to be boarded throughout his 
 University course for $2,50 a week, and was to 
 have free passage in a buckboard, drawn by a 
 pair of mustangs, over the one hundred and 
 twenty-five miles of dirt roads between Straw- 
 berry Point and Iowa City. Two days were re- 
 quired to make this trip, and it was the boy's 
 first venture out into the world. 
 
 The University and preparatory school had 
 been in session for five weeks when the two boys 
 entered. The Prairie Boy had just begun the 
 study of algebra, had never looked into physics, 
 chemistry or science of any kind, and had never 
 seen a man or woman who knew Latin or Greek. 
 It was, therefore, arranged that he should have 
 a chance to do extra work to " catch up " in the 
 preparatory school. He was innocent of geom- 
 etry, and University algebra was decidedly be- 
 yond him. In spite of all these handicaps, how- 
 ever, the end of the first year gave him a record 
 of 100 in Latin, and he was even with his class 
 in the other studies. 
 
 He did not then understand just how he was 
 
 14 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 able to accomplish this feat, which astonished 
 both his teachers and his fellow-students; but in 
 after years he realized that it was largely because 
 he had become used to digesting the strong meat 
 of solid reading, and because of the intensity with 
 which he concentrated all his energies upon the 
 thing in hand. Having read only solid books — 
 most of them great books — his reading sense had 
 not been pampered and weakened by feeding on 
 stuff " written down " to the childish level. 
 
 He had escaped the mushy baby-foods of the 
 modern "juveniles" — a few flakes of history 
 sweetened with the syrup of fable or folk-lore— 
 and had cut his intellectual teeth upon the bone 
 and sinew of real literature. His capacity to get 
 interested in books which held and captivated 
 men of intellect and culture had never been un- 
 dermined by a diet of " reading made easy," and 
 he had no shrinking from the mental effort re- 
 quired in the mastication of literature made for 
 men. 
 
 Whatever the Prairie Boy read he gave him- 
 self to it with a whole-hearted intensity which, 
 for the time being, shut out all else and made the 
 thing described by the writer so distinct that he 
 could " see it." But he was not in any sense a 
 bookworm or a recluse. His physical strength 
 and energy, as well as his necessities, forbade 
 
 i5 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 this. Soon after his arrival, he started out to ex- 
 plore the town. One morning, while scouting 
 about on the edge of the village, he discovered 
 a pile of cordwood two hundred feet long. In 
 less than an hour from the time he had encoun- 
 tered it, he had made a contract with the owner 
 to saw the wood into stove length, at $1.25 a 
 cord. 
 
 Thereafter every morning and evening saw him 
 doing an hour's stunt with the bucksaw which 
 he borrowed. Somehow he did not miss the 
 gymnasium or the ball team so long as the wood- 
 pile held out. And his engagement with the buck- 
 saw, his lessons and his incidental reading took 
 the edge off* his energies and he had little appe- 
 tite for hazing or " scrapes " of any sort. 
 
 When the spring term came to an end, and he 
 took passage for home, he was bubbling with 
 enthusiasm for a college education. He had 
 tasted first blood and thirsted for more. Almost 
 he admitted to himself the possibility of finally 
 going to one of the great Universities in the 
 East. 
 
 Urged on by the incentive of providing himself 
 with the sinews of war for a full college course, 
 he lost no time in hustling for work and quickly 
 " hired out " as a farm-hand at twenty dollars a 
 month. He continued at this until the coming of 
 
 16 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 harvest. Crops that year were heavy and the call 
 for harvesters was uncommonly keen. Farmers 
 freely offered two dollars a day, and the Prairie 
 Boy was not long in arriving at the conclusion 
 that it was harvest-time for him, as well as for 
 the farmers, and that he must make the most of 
 his opportunity. After the crops of the farmer 
 for whom he worked had been harvested, he said 
 to his working-mate: 
 
 " Chris, you and I can earn more than the rest 
 of these fellows; but we'll never get more if we 
 don't ask for it. You have a horse and buggy 
 and we can go through the county and get three 
 dollars a day where the common drifters get two 
 and two-and-a-half." 
 
 " All right ; we try it," responded the good- 
 natured German, and they soon struck out 
 through the country. 
 
 Before evening of the first day out, they came 
 to a big farm with sweeping fields of prime grain 
 ripe for cutting. 
 
 " Yes," said the farmer, " I need you, and I'll 
 pay three a day — but you'll have to earn it, you 
 bet!" 
 
 They were out at sunrise and bending to their 
 task in the wake of the old-fashioned reaper. 
 The field was smooth and level, the horses strong 
 and brisk walkers, and the machine new and in 
 
 *7 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 perfect trim. Every condition was right for set- 
 ting the binders a pace — and the ethics of the 
 harvest-field forbade them to fall behind in the 
 race. 
 
 As noontime approached, the windrow of grain 
 that fell from the clicking sickle of the reaper 
 seemed to writhe and squirm before the eyes of 
 the Prairie Boy; the landscape grew dim and 
 blurred, and each time he bent to his bundle the 
 thought came to him : " I'll topple over this time, 
 sure; I can't straighten up — not once more! " 
 
 When one hundred and ninety acres of small 
 grains on the Davis farm had been harvested and 
 the farmer handed out sixty-three dollars to the 
 Prairie Boy, the lad felt richer than the owner 
 of the crops and the land — for he had saved 
 nine-three dollars from the season's work. By 
 the time he reached home, however, he had fig- 
 ured out his financial situation and faced the fact 
 that, considering the clothes he must buy, he was 
 far short of enough. 
 
 In a discussion of the Ways and Means Com- 
 mittee at the supper-table, the evening of his ar- 
 rival home, the father suggested : 
 
 " Why don't you stand the examination, get a 
 certificate and then go after the trustees of Dis- 
 trict Number Ten? " 
 
 He took the examination and secured the cer- 
 
 18 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 tificate and the school. There was nothing, how- 
 ever, in this first attempt at school-teaching to 
 indicate that the Prairie Boy would one day be 
 recognized as one of our leading educators. 
 
 When he returned to Iowa City, at the opening 
 of the spring term, the familiar buildings of the 
 University looked marvelously good to him; he 
 was no longer a "greenhorn," but a returning 
 student who had established himself with a circle 
 of teachers and students. As he had missed two 
 terms, he promptly arranged that he might make 
 up lost ground. 
 
 At the close of the spring term he went back 
 to Strawberry Point and to the hay and harvest 
 fields, where he made the best wages going — . 
 but not quite so much as he had made the pre- 
 vious summer. His educational ardor was still 
 uncooled and the fall found him once more " at 
 the seat of learning," but this time in the Uni- 
 versity proper. 
 
 As the term advanced, he began to grow more 
 interested in the social side of school-life; to 
 awaken to the fact that there were girls in the 
 world and that it was pleasant to associate with 
 them. Then he was beset by secret doubts of 
 the practical value of a college education. 
 
 The coming of the Christmas vacation found 
 him in a mood approaching home-sickness and he 
 
 19 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 yielded to the impulse to " go back and see the 
 home folks." He packed his belongings and sur- 
 prised his mother by appearing unannounced at 
 the family table. But a still greater surprise was 
 in store for the good woman whose secret dreams 
 for the future of the Prairie Boy had exceeded his 
 own. With his usual abruptness, he announced 
 that he was not going back to college. 
 
 It was not so easy as he had expected to find 
 a good position, and his hunt for employment 
 ended in his apprenticing himself to the local 
 wagon-maker for five dollars a month and board. 
 
 One day the young partner in the business 
 called to the Prairie Boy: 
 
 " Ed, there's the Methodist preacher's girl over 
 there on the corner. Ain't she a clipper? The 
 last Conference sent the old man back here. I'm 
 going to keep company with that girl." 
 
 " Yes," quietly answered the Prairie Boy, going 
 back to his bench. But, as his jack-plane purred 
 along the edge of the oak board in the vise, he 
 said: 
 
 " I'll see if you do ! I always did like that girl." 
 
 After the shop was closed that evening, he 
 bought a new necktie and a fresh box of paper 
 collars and " took a scrub." Then he attended the 
 Methodist sociable, paid his best attentions to 
 
 20 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 the preacher's daughter, and had the satisfaction 
 of being accepted as her escort home. 
 
 Five dollars a month spending-money might 
 have sufficed a youth of retiring habits in sleepy 
 old Strawberry Point, but this limitation soon 
 began to pinch the lively Prairie Boy, especially 
 as he felt if necessary to meet the social pace 
 which he knew his rival for the favor of the 
 preacher's girl was ready to set. He was deter- 
 mined not to lose the advantage he had gained 
 at the start of the race through any failure to 
 make the contest interesting, and this meant more 
 money. For him to think was to act, and he at 
 once put the case before his father, who had gone 
 into the prosperous business of selling sewing- 
 machines and organs. 
 
 " You've got the makings of a good business- 
 getter in you, and I'll give you twenty dollars a 
 month and find you," said the father. 
 
 The offer was instantly accepted. The Prairie 
 Boy did not realize then that this simple step 
 from the wagon-shop to the sewing-machine 
 wagon meant his matriculation in the College of 
 Hustle. For the next three years he constantly 
 whetted his wits by contact with the hard trading 
 instincts of the farmers and villagers. 
 
 When once he had won the girl, he had deter- 
 mined upon an immediate marriage " without any 
 
 21 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 waits or frills," and to this end he started again 
 for the preacher's home. 
 
 In the little town he traded one sewing-machine 
 for a cook-stove, another for a dining-table and 
 a scanty outfit of furniture, and, partially on the 
 strength of these negotiations, secured the con- 
 sent of the preacher's daughter to an immediate 
 marriage. Their wedding journey was made 
 from Asbury Church, where the girl then lived, 
 to Dubuque, in a lumber-wagon loaded with their 
 household goods. From Dubuque they went by 
 rail to Strawberry Point. 
 
 Shortly after he had assumed the responsibili- 
 ties of a family, a thunderbolt of disaster struck 
 his little home. A certain clause of the contracts 
 upon which his father and himself had sold hun- 
 dreds of sewing-machines was attacked in the 
 courts, and the case appealed to the Supreme 
 court. That it could be adversely decided had 
 hardly been considered by the agent, so sure was 
 he of his cause. But the highest tribunal ruled 
 against him, and this decision involved a judg- 
 ment which stripped the father of all his savings 
 and swept the son out of the best job he had ever 
 held. The young man at once fell back upon his 
 bucksaw and began to " cultivate the backache " 
 at a dollar and a quarter a cord, while looking 
 for better work. Soon he was given his old place 
 
 22 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 in the wagon-shop, making wheels at $3.50 a 
 set — wheels which are in use to-day ! 
 
 In the fall he took a leave of absence from the 
 shop because he could earn more in the harvest- 
 fields. Here he met an old farmer, out on the 
 Hard Pan, who said: 
 
 " We want you to teach our school. The big 
 boys have turned out two or three teachers, but 
 I don't think they'll be able to ride your neck." 
 
 The Prairie Boy took the school — and a skir- 
 mish and a pitched battle settled the question of 
 his supremacy. 
 
 The following summer the creamery movement 
 reached the dairy country of Iowa, and the base- 
 ment of an old tavern in Strawberry Point was 
 converted into a butter factory. Here the Prairie 
 Boy found employment at seven dollars a week, 
 because of his ability to do the hard physical 
 work involved in handling four thousand pounds 
 of milk a day by main strength. The owner of 
 the creamery was a school-trustee, and, when the 
 teacher of the grammar-grade left, he said to the 
 buttermaker : 
 
 " We've come to the conclusion that a young 
 man of your muscle ard grit is needed to handle 
 the boys in the grammar-room. They're a lively 
 crew, but you can manage them — and the salary 
 is thirty dollars a month." 
 
 23 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 The man of the milk-cans replied that he was 
 too hot-tempered to make a good school-teacher; 
 but this excuse only seemed to increase the eager- 
 ness of the trustees, and he finally yielded to their 
 wishes. 
 
 In the course of his first year in the village 
 school, an incident occurred which proved the 
 turning-point of his life and resulted in the re- 
 covery of his lost educational impulse. One day 
 the school was visited by the County Superin- 
 tendent of Schools, William Ewart, a cousin of 
 William Ewart Gladstone, the great English 
 statesman, who was then at the height of his 
 career. The superintendent's call in the grammar- 
 room was short and his comments few. At the 
 close of school, that day, the young teacher asked 
 the principal: 
 
 " What did the old man have to say about 
 things in my room? " 
 
 " Well," responded the principal, " he said you 
 were a rough specimen of a schoolmaster, but, if 
 you knew how much native ability you had, you'd 
 wake up and begin to dig." 
 
 This comment gave the teacher of the grammar 
 department a jolt which si ook his mental founda- 
 tion. " A rough specimen of £ school-teacher ! * * * 
 Wake up and begin to dig ! " These words stayed 
 with him day and night until he was thoroughly 
 
 24 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 aroused. Out of his broodings came a purpose, 
 and finally he wrote to the superintendent a 
 letter which was to do for him more than he 
 dreamed. 
 
 Then he said to his young wife : " We're going 
 to have a house—- a home of our own ; and I'm go- 
 ing to build it with my own hands, too." 
 
 25 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 II. 
 
 A NEW GRIP ON A LOST AMBITION. 
 
 The young teacher now begain to look at life 
 from a new viewpoint. He was awakened to the 
 recovery of a lost ambition, to a soberer sense of 
 responsibility to others and to himself, to a 
 broader, surer grasp of the value and the duty of 
 doing a man's work in the world. 
 
 He wrote to the County Superintendent for a 
 list of books which would be helpful to a young 
 teacher who had made up his mind to try to make 
 something of himself. The answer to this request 
 was kindly and stimulating, and the list of books 
 recommended was solid and well chosen, includ- 
 ing such volumes as David A. Wells' Natural 
 Philosophy and Green's Shorter English History. 
 
 Part and parcel of this new impulse to build 
 broader his mental structure was the determina- 
 tion to build a house of his own. He had saved 
 sixty-five dollars from his earnings and his wife 
 had come into possession of one hundred and 
 fifty through her family. These sums were suffi- 
 cient to make the initial payment on a village lot 
 
 26 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 and to buy the stone for the foundation of the 
 house, the lumber being bought on credit. 
 
 In those days " sun-up " was the signal for the 
 School-Teacher to leave his bed and hurry to the 
 site of his future home, where first he dug the 
 foundation ditches and then tended mason while 
 the underpinning was being laid. Union hours 
 were not then known in Strawberry Point. Get- 
 ting out the foundation-beams according to the 
 crude working-plans he had drawn was a simple 
 matter, but, when he came to cutting joist and 
 rafter, he confessed himself " stumped." Quickly 
 he called to his aid the friendly village carpenter, 
 who sawed him a pattern of each of these timbers. 
 Vacation was at hand and he hired as a helper, 
 at fifty cents a day, one of his schoolboys. 
 
 When the house was barely " sheeted up " and 
 only one room in a half -habitable state, the family 
 partially moved in — the cooking being done on a 
 rough " arch " of field-stone out of doors, while the 
 baby and the two-year-old were swung in home- 
 made hammocks. Even the hardships, obstacles 
 and calamities of that season of house-building 
 seemed only to add to the joy of the task. When 
 a stray dog snatched the family beefsteak from 
 the skillet, the School-Teacher and his plucky 
 wife laughed over their loss, and when his mis- 
 takes as a builder drove him to a seat on the fence 
 
 27 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 to "study the thing out," he felt a glow of un- 
 familiar happiness. 
 
 His hardest problem was the building of the 
 cornice, and in this he made so many mistakes 
 that, when he reached the rear of the house, his 
 finishing lumber was exhausted. Again he con- 
 sulted his carpenter friend, who said: 
 
 "Just put on a dutchman and let it go — it's at 
 the back, anyway." 
 
 " The dutchman," or patch, was put on, and it 
 has ever since stood in the School-Teacher's eyes 
 as the most individual touch about the house of 
 his own building. 
 
 The unfinished attic was dedicated to his per- 
 sonal use as a den in which to continue the other 
 and longer task of building upon which he had 
 entered. A tacit understanding was established 
 that, once in his retreat, he was not to be dis- 
 turbed. This practice of having some room in 
 which he was safe from intrusion became a fam- 
 ily institution and guaranteed him a sustained 
 pitch of application to study otherwise impossible. 
 However, he could not shut out himself, and at 
 times the spring smells, the shout of happy 
 youngsters and the varied calls of the great out- 
 of-doors world were irresistible; his books were 
 dropped, and he fled the house, taking the short- 
 est cut to the pasture-lot where he knew the 
 
 28 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 boys were playing baseball. And what a wel- 
 come they always gave him ! This struggle with 
 the impulse to get with the boys in the sports of 
 the open field was one of the hardest of his life. 
 At last, however, he learned how to hold steady 
 and say no to himself. 
 
 Every month he added to his library of solid 
 books, particularly in the line of science, and, in 
 the long night hours, almost literally ate out the 
 heart of every one of them. His associates in 
 the school noted the change in him, and particu- 
 larly the principal saw that his growth was like 
 that of the corn in the rich gumbo soil of the Iowa 
 prairies. One day, in the School-Teacher's fourth 
 year in the grammar-room, the principal said to 
 him: 
 
 " Ed, I'm going to resign for a place in Dakota. 
 You're an abler man than I am and I'm going to 
 do all I can to get you elected principal." And 
 although this unexpected promotion was given 
 him, it was offered with the understanding that 
 he might not be called upon to do more than 
 "finish out the term." 
 
 " They've cut the cloth rather wide for me," he 
 told his wife, " and expect me to teach half a 
 dozen classes, including rhetoric, physiology, 
 solid geometry and natural philosophy in which 
 
 29 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 I've never had a day's schooling — but I'm going 
 to tackle it, just the same ! " 
 
 He taught these branches and kept a close eye 
 upon the elementary-rooms, and still found time 
 in which to play a little ball with the boys. At 
 the end of the term he was re-elected principal 
 and his salary was raised to sixty-five dollars a 
 month. 
 
 The next summer brought him in contact with 
 a new American institution, the " county insti- 
 tute." Here he touched shoulders with men from 
 the outside world of scholarship, men who were 
 forces in the educational world. One institute 
 conductor was the superintendent of the Cresco 
 Schools, another was a Princeton man named 
 Webb, who took long walks with him and talked 
 of Tyndall, Huxley, Spencer and Mill, and lent 
 our teacher the famous old series of " red backs " 
 edited by Doctor Youmans. Here was new meat 
 for his midnight feast, and for months he reveled 
 in Spencer's Study of Sociology, TyndalPs Forms 
 of Water, and Huxley's Man's Place in Nature. 
 Best of all, as they strolled under the stars, those 
 nights of the county institute session, the Prince- 
 ton man gave the " rough specimen of a school- 
 master " a fine sympathy and a gospel of encour- 
 agement that carried far into the years to come. 
 
 30 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 " I didn't have as good a chance as you have," 
 the School-Teacher was told. 
 
 His new stock of books kept the School- 
 Teacher digging for two years and his study of 
 Mill converted him to the doctrine of free trade — 
 and he did not hesitate openly to defend his 
 change of faith. Finally, in 1884, he bolted the 
 Republican ticket and flaunted his Democratic 
 colors in the face of the community, who re- 
 garded this defection as " rank heresy." Al- 
 though re-elected to the principalship, the feeling 
 which his political " brashness " had stirred up 
 in the minds of the trustees resulted in his being 
 shut out of the board meetings and by being gen- 
 erally snubbed by these local dignitaries. But 
 he had the boys with him as a solid support and 
 his usefulness was unimpaired. 
 
 When the " fair-week " vacation came in Sep- 
 tember he decided to pay a visit to his institute 
 friend, Professor Weld, at Cresco, who was recog- 
 nized as the ablest of the local educators in that 
 part of the State. On the train he met several 
 other teachers, who said " So you're after the 
 Cresco place, too?" His protests that he did not 
 understand their question were answered by an 
 incredulous laugh. 
 
 But a still greater surprise was awaiting for 
 
 3i 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 him when the kindly old scholar at the head of 
 the Cresco schools confided to him: 
 
 " I'm going to leave here at once for a better 
 position, and there is not a teacher of my ac- 
 quaintance I'd rather leave in my old place than 
 yourself." 
 
 " That's out of the question, sir," responded 
 the School-Teacher. " I'm not equal to it. You 
 know I've never had but one term in college, and 
 I'm a * rough specimen of a school-master ' at 
 best. No; I can't even consider being a candi- 
 date for the place." 
 
 " Come downtown with me, anyway," said the 
 Cresco principal. " There's going to toe a board 
 meeting." 
 
 Outside the board-rooms a man suddenly 
 grasped the hand of the School-Teacher with a 
 grip that told of comradeship. The look of sur- 
 prise on the face of the local principal was met 
 with the explanation from his townsman : 
 
 " We've met at more ball-games and free-trade 
 discussions, Mr. Weld, than you ever attended. 
 When it comes to baseball and Democratic mass 
 meetings we're the champion pair of fans in 
 Iowa." 
 
 The School-Teacher waited in the drug-store 
 for the board meeting to close, but he had little 
 more than settled himself when he was summoned 
 
 32 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 to appear before the board, where he was in- 
 formed that he had been elected principal to fill 
 the vacancy, at a salary of one thousand dollars 
 a year. Only after being urged by the fellow 
 baseball fan and by the retiring principal did he 
 consent to accept, on condition that he could 
 secure a release from the board at his home 
 school. 
 
 That night he caught a wild freight back to 
 Strawberry Point, and next day placed the situa- 
 tion before the astonished school trustees of that 
 place. As most of them had made no secret of 
 their hostility to him, on account of his change of 
 political beliefs, they were not in position to re- 
 fuse his request for a release, and this was 
 granted. 
 
 It was a strange situation which the school- 
 master faced, the following Monday morning, 
 when he sat at the principal's desk and looked at 
 the blackboard on which was written the list of 
 studies that had been personally taught by his 
 predecessor. Of the eight classes in the list, five 
 were studies in which he had never heard a 
 recitation as a pupil! These unfamiliar studies 
 were astronomy, zoology, chemistry, physiology 
 and physics. 
 
 Although recognizing the crisis which con- 
 fronted him, he did not for a moment entertain 
 
 33 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 the idea of showing the white feather by shifting 
 these recitations upon his assistant. What should 
 he do ? He must think and act at once ! Quietly 
 he borrowed from pupils the text-books of those 
 studies and left the room. Hurrying to the 
 " office " in the basement, he spent the two hours 
 and a half before the first of his recitations in de- 
 vouring the day's lesson in each of these books. 
 Then he called the first class — in astronomy — and 
 heard the recitation in a manner which evidently 
 aroused no suspicion as to his unfamiliarity with 
 the study on the part of the pupils. Then the 
 next class came forward, and the same tactics 
 carried him safely through the ordeal. 
 
 After school he bought the entire set of text- 
 books and shut himself up in his room in the 
 hotel. There he wrestled with them until about 
 two in the morning, when things began to swim 
 before his eyes. But he must still have hours 
 more of study before he could feel safe for the 
 ordeal of the morrow. Knowing that nothing 
 would brush the cobwebs out of his eyes like a 
 walk in the open air, he went down to the street 
 and began his exercise. The only public place 
 in the town which showed a light at that hour 
 was the station. Naturally he gravitated there 
 and formed an offhand acquaintance with the 
 night operator, who entertained him for a half- 
 
 34 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 hour with tales of the humors of life as seen by 
 the man at the telegraph key. Then, rested and 
 alert, the School-Teacher returned to his books 
 again and wrestled with them until four o'clock 
 in the morning. With occasional variations, this 
 program was repeated night after night by the 
 School-Teacher until his first year at Cresco was 
 finished — and even after that. 
 
 Chemistry was the hardest of the new studies 
 he was obliged to master. It was suggested by 
 the students that the former principal had enter- 
 tained the class with experiments. 
 
 "All right," responded the School-Teacher. 
 " We'll also have a few explosions." 
 
 After school that day he bought a few chem- 
 icals, retreated to the basement of the school and 
 started in to work out some of the simplest ex- 
 periments he could find in the book. When he 
 emerged from the experience he had verified his 
 own words — a fact to which his singed eyebrows 
 bore eloquent testimony. In order to illustrate 
 certain planetary movements, in the astronomy 
 class, he made from barrel-hoops a rude "ap- 
 paratus " which served as an admirable object- 
 lesson and delighted the pupils. 
 
 His only relief from the high pressure of his 
 hand-to-mouth mastery of six sciences was found 
 on the ball-ground. Here he established himself 
 
 35 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 as a comrade with the boys and they became his 
 loyal supporters from the start. 
 
 After three months, at the end of the " unex- 
 pired term," he was re-elected for three years at 
 a substantial increase of salary. This was a sur- 
 prise to him, for the struggle had been so close 
 that he had felt no certainty as to the final result. 
 His fear had been so acute that he had never 
 been able to bring himself to return to Strawberry 
 Point for even a Sunday. And the loyal wife 
 had told him : " Forget that you have a family 
 until you can get to where the fight is a little 
 easier." 
 
 While the fight was the hottest, however, he 
 struck a snag which cost him an immense amount 
 of labor, but brought out the dominant note of 
 his character as nothing else had done. Con- 
 cluding that the text-book of geometry used in 
 the school was behind the times, he sent for 
 Chauvenet's treatise and began to master it. Early 
 in this work he found a problem which he could 
 not solve. Night after night he struggled with it 
 and still it evaded him ; but the longer he worked 
 the more determined was he to solve it single- 
 handed and alone. For three months he kept 
 steadily at it. Later he learned that it should 
 have been solved by analytics and should not 
 have appeared where it was placed. He also dug 
 
 36 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 deep into Bledsoe's Philosophy of Mathematics 
 and the best books on trigonometry. 
 
 In his last year at Strawberry Point and his 
 first year at Cresco, Herbert Spencer became his 
 guiding star. But when a copy of Sully's 
 Psychology came into his hands his eyes were 
 opened to the fact that perhaps his great fetish 
 was not without faults. This doubt of Spencer's 
 infallibility disturbed him greatly. About this 
 time he met Professor George P. Brown, an able 
 educator from Bloomington, Illinois, who advised 
 him to write for light to William T. Harris, then 
 of the Concord School of Philosophy — a step 
 which marks the beginning of a peculiar friend- 
 ship with the man who later became the United 
 States Commissioner of Education. 
 
 The School-Teacher's irrepressible energy and 
 his eager capacity for progressive study brought 
 to him, in Cresco, a problem with which he has 
 ever since been forced, in a constantly broaden- 
 ing way, to carry on a running fight. Finding 
 that his teachers were content to drift along on 
 the strength of the attainments which had 
 brought them their certificates and their jobs, he 
 determined to arouse in them, if possible, an 
 aggressive interest in their work. To this end 
 he formed a reading circle and also a Monday 
 Club, to which those outside his teaching-force 
 
 37 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 were eligible. Page by page, John Stuart Mill's 
 Political Economy and Spencer's First Principles 
 and Social Statics were read and discussed, and 
 these discussions became recognized as a town 
 institution. Finally it was put into the contract 
 with teachers that they must do a certain amount 
 of progressive work, of study and research. 
 
 In a moment of restrospection the realization 
 came to the School-Teacher that he had been 
 teaching for ten years and that he had covered 
 a line of studious reading broader and deeper 
 than the courses of most freshwater colleges. 
 This determined him to try for a life certificate 
 before the State board of examiners, which in- 
 cluded the members of the Normal board. He 
 passed well and thought little more of the inci- 
 dent. But the examiners soon after suggested 
 that the Normal board needed him; he became a 
 candidate and was elected. Here he was brought 
 into close association with the foremost edu- 
 cators of the State and his horizon was imme- 
 diately broadened. His reading, too, took a turn 
 in the direction of pedagogy. 
 
 Acquaintance with the geologist and botanist 
 of the State University also added a fresh scope 
 to his investigations ; he made a summer field trip 
 with this friend, bought a compound microscope 
 
 38 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 and became deeply engrossed in these studies, 
 especially geology. 
 
 Next to his re-election for another term of three 
 years, the most significant happening of his Cresco 
 experience was his first tilt with the school-book 
 problem — but not his last! Returning from a 
 series of county institutes he was met by a repre- 
 sentative of the " School-Book Trust," as it was 
 commonly called, who informed him that an ar- 
 rangement had been made with the board to 
 " clean up the old stuff " and give the school an 
 outfit of new text-books in nearly all of the im- 
 portant branches. 
 
 " You'll have to guess again/' said the young 
 principal. " I'm not going to use text-books of 
 which I do not approve." 
 
 Then the agent intimated that he guessed the 
 board would settle that — in fact, had settled it — 
 and the best thing the principal could do was to 
 " be good." That was the signal for a school- 
 book fight which made Cresco famous and the 
 name of its school-principal known beyond the 
 limits of the State. After the book-agent and the 
 School-Teacher had made a personal canvass of 
 the town, the former found his sharp practice 
 overthrown and his " slate " smashed. But this 
 was not the end of the fight — only the beginning. 
 Soon he found himself called upon to advise the 
 
 39 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 County Board of School-Book Adoption, with the 
 result that the "trust" arithmetic, readers and 
 speller were thrown out. Educational men from 
 outside the State came to him on the text-book 
 question, and among them was a man from Au- 
 rora, Illinois. 
 
 Directly as a result of this, the School-Teacher 
 received an invitation to become principal of the 
 East Side Aurora High School at a salary of 
 $1,700 — a position which had been filled by men 
 who had become college professors and presi- 
 dents and State educational officials. He took the 
 position in August, 1891, and soon found himself 
 facing a new phase of public-school politics: the 
 Boss with a pull. 
 
 The first morning, at the stroke of the study- 
 bell, the delinquent son of the Boss began to 
 make trouble. He had evidently been a disturb- 
 ing element in the situation before and was 
 astonished that he could not at once override the 
 authority of this new principal. Two weeks later 
 he was caught cheating in an examination, was 
 suspended and left school. Then the Boss, whose 
 position in the big car-shops gave him a grip 
 upon a large body of voters, started out to " get " 
 the School-Teacher. The " car-shops crowd " 
 elected the president and three members of the 
 Board of Education — but the Boss could not con- 
 
 40 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 firm his charges of partiality and the fight re- 
 sulted in an increase of salary for the principal. 
 Three months later one of the School-Teacher's 
 supporters on the board died and a special elec- 
 tion was held to fill the vacancy. The car-shops 
 candidate was elected and the board stood at a 
 practical tie. Then came the spring election and 
 a fight which passed into local history. The prin- 
 cipal was completely vindicated, having buried 
 the opposition and the Boss. 
 
 With a prospect of clear sailing ahead, the 
 principal finished his year— -and a pleasant year 
 it was, because of his attendance upon the Uni- 
 versity Extension lectures and the sessions of the 
 Evolution Club in Chicago. At the latter gather- 
 ing he met Professor Thurston, principal of the 
 La Grange schools, and many kindred spirits. 
 At La Grange, which is midway between Aurora 
 and Chicago, was formed a philosophical club, 
 which the School-Teacher invariably attended. 
 After the close of the school year the young prin- 
 cipal found himself in the most novel situation 
 of suffering from an embarrassment of riches, be- 
 ing simultaneously elected to the head of the 
 schools in Duluth, Aurora and La Grange. 
 
 Professor Thurston had been urging upon the 
 School-Teacher the advantages of a university 
 degree and had recommended him to fill the va- 
 
 4i 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 cancy at La Grange caused by his own resigna- 
 tion. " Now," he wrote to the School-Teacher, 
 "you can come here, take your university work 
 and at the same time earn a good living and care 
 for your family." Although the Duluth position 
 paid a much higher salary, the La Grange offer 
 was accepted. The following summer the School- 
 Teacher matriculated in the University of Chi- 
 cago, taking work with Dr. Dewey in Ethics and 
 Psychology, and a course in English with Pro- 
 fessor McClintock. In the following autumn Dr. 
 Harper wrote him, inviting him to come in and 
 consider the opportunity of working out a degree. 
 He gave President Harper a list of his work, 
 both public and private. 
 
 For this showing he received credit — on pass- 
 ing the examinations — for three years of college 
 work. He had been going to college without 
 knowing it while digging away in his attic den 
 at Strawberry Point and in his Cresco retreat! 
 But one year's work must be done in residence. 
 
 In January he began a course at the Univer- 
 sity to complete his work for a degree, carrying 
 on the work in a class held after his school at 
 the University from 4 to 6 o'clock. His work 
 was on his old favorite, John Milton. During 
 the Summer term of nine weeks he took a class 
 in English, one in Pedagogy with Dr. Dewey, 
 
 42 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 and two classes in French. In addition to this 
 he took another course in French, passing an 
 examination in it after about a week's work. He 
 received three credits in French for his work 
 during the nine weeks together with his work 
 in the other studies. His work brought him not 
 only his bachelor's degree but also a scholarship 
 in English, Here was the harvest of his "mid- 
 night oil" with increase of many fold. 
 
 Then he took up advanced work and attempted 
 to keep the same pace. But he had reached the 
 breaking point and his mind refused to follow the 
 recitations. The warning that he must relax and 
 let the doctor's degree wait could not be ignored. 
 He could no longer force himself, after a day's 
 work as principal of a large school, to ride forty- 
 six miles to the university for recitations, return- 
 ing long after the children were abed, and pre- 
 paring his work before they were up in the morn- 
 ing. 
 
 With the vacation came a call to go into the 
 Ohio school-book fight as the representative of 
 a Boston publishing house — at two hundred dol- 
 lars a month and expenses. The award was to 
 be made August 17, and he had about two months 
 in which to work for the prize. He felt that 
 his first month's work had made an impression, 
 but his firm indicated failing faith by suggesting 
 
 43 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 that he get a horse and buggy and work the 
 country districts. He refused, saying he would 
 win the city " adoptions " or nothing. He stuck 
 to the towns, and when the contest was over, a 
 competitor summed up the situation by saying: 
 " The greenhorn agent has made one of the big- 
 gest killings on record in the State of Ohio." 
 His competitors did not realize that he had taken 
 a postgraduate course in hand-to-hand trading 
 out in the tall grass of the Iowa prairies and that 
 he knew the inside of school-book fighting from 
 experience on the other side of the contest. But 
 best of all, he returned to La Grange with rugged 
 health and a keen appetite for study. 
 
 Meantime, the scholarly E. Benjamin Andrews, 
 who had resigned the presidency of Brown Uni- 
 versity to become superintendent of the Chicago 
 Public Schools, was learning the heart-breaking 
 game of school politics. The principalship of 
 the Normal School had become vacant through 
 the resignation of Colonel Francis Wayland Par- 
 ker, who enjoyed a national reputation as a 
 teacher of teachers, and Doctor Andrews was 
 struggling with the board to find a worthy suc- 
 cessor to this pedagogical authority. One day 
 a friend, an alumnus of Brown, called upon Doc- 
 tor Andrews to talk over old times. The con- 
 versation turned upon the Normal principalship. 
 
 44 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 " There is a man out at La Grange who has the 
 real stuff in him. He's up on philosophy and has 
 a degree from the University of Chicago. I be- 
 lieve that Dr. John Dewey would back him — 
 and perhaps Doctor Harper, too. But of course, 
 you've got to consider the politics of such a 
 move. Don't overlook the fact that this man 
 was the Democratic candidate for county super- 
 intendent of schools and ran far ahead of his 
 ticket. There are a lot of Democrats on your 
 board and they're not going to knife him on that 
 account. Think it over." 
 
 " I've already named my man, and I shall have 
 to stand by him," responded Doctor Andrews, 
 " but I think he's already beaten. Have your man 
 come and see me." 
 
 The School-Teacher responded to the summons 
 and was induced to enter the contest. He saw 
 three members of the Board of Education, but 
 his experience was such that he wrote a letter 
 asking not to be considered further. Meantime, 
 the political waters had been much troubled and 
 a new situation had developed. The answer to 
 his letter was : " You will make a mistake to 
 withdraw as a candidate. Just stick and say 
 nothing." He stuck — but on condition that he 
 should not be expected to run after any more 
 board members. The Normal committee had 
 
 45 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 seen Doctor John Dewey and learned from him 
 the notable record made by the School-Teacher 
 in the University, and particularly in philosophy 
 and pedagogical studies. The forty-six-mile bi- 
 cycle rides had come to a harvest, and in No- 
 vember, '99, the School-Teacher was elected prin- 
 cipal of the Cook County Normal School. 
 
 Here was a sudden elevation to a position be- 
 yond his largest dreams in the old Iowa days. 
 He took the news home with a light heart. But 
 when he placed the matter before the La Grange 
 school trustees they resolutely refused to release 
 him — and he would not leave without an honor- 
 able release. A committee from the Chicago 
 Board interceded — but to no avail. This was a 
 dramatic moment for the young educator from 
 the tall grass. He faced the fact that he stood 
 to lose a position to which all of his ambitions 
 called him. When he went back to Doctor An- 
 drews he said: 
 
 " It's no use. My people refuse to let me off, 
 and I've got to stick. So you'll have to elect 
 some other man in my place." 
 
 Then came a turn of affairs which gave the 
 School-Teacher greater satisfaction than his orig- 
 inal election. It was a letter from Doctor An- 
 drews, the president of the Board of Education 
 and the chairman of the Normal committee, say- 
 
 46 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 ing that they proposed to re-elect him at the end 
 of his La Grange engagement and that he should, 
 in the meantime, visit the Normal School as fre- 
 quently as possible to familiarize himself with its 
 workings. This he did, and he attended the meet- 
 ing of the Chicago Board at which the report of 
 the Normal committee, recommending his re- 
 election as head of the Normal institution, was to 
 be acted upon. 
 
 But the fates had not yet tired dealing sur- 
 prises to the young from Cresco. When the 
 Board met to concur, Dr. Christopher, one of 
 the Normal School committee, arose and nomi- 
 nated him Superintendent of Schools to succeed 
 Dr. Andrews, who had wearied of school politics 
 and resigned. 
 
 Then came the balloting — and finally the an- 
 nouncement of his election to the hardest school- 
 teaching job in America. 
 
 47 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 III. 
 
 AN ATTEMPT TO SMOKE THE POLITICAL 
 PESTS OUT OF THE PUBLIC- 
 SCHOOL SYSTEM. 
 
 Before he had scarcely caught his breath from 
 the surprise of his election, the School-Teacher 
 found himself assailed on every hand by the abid- 
 ing pests of the public-school system of Chi- 
 cago — the politicians. From the moment he first 
 opened his desk until the Board of Education 
 reconvened after the summer vacation, the hum 
 of the political pull was perpetually in his ears. 
 
 Never, since he had recovered his educational 
 impulse in the grammar-room of the little school 
 at Strawberry Point, had he thought of the 
 School-Teacher's position as merely a job. He 
 knew the plain and practical bent of his own 
 mind, and knew that his nearest friend would not 
 accuse him of being only an idealist; but it had 
 not occurred to him that there were any great 
 number of decent and self-respecting citizens in 
 the Middle West who held the position of in- 
 structing their own and their neighbors' children 
 as a political bone to squabble for — a mere piece 
 
 4 8 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 of political spoils, like an appointment as bridge- 
 tender or deputy oil inspector. 
 
 Whatever of idealism the School-Teacher had 
 with regard to American citizenship and the pub- 
 lic-school system received a severe jolt in those 
 vacation days which he had dedicated to getting 
 hold of the reins of the school administration 
 and securing a near and practical view of the 
 big problems with which he must deal in a re- 
 sponsible way. Instead of finding his office fre- 
 quented by teachers, principals, district superin- 
 tendents and Board members eager to consult 
 with him on measures for the interests of the 
 school children, he awoke to the fact that fully 
 one-half his time was being demanded by poli- 
 ticians inside and outside the ranks of teachers, 
 who came to ask for appointments, transfers and 
 promotions and to impress him with the " back- 
 ing " which they were able to bring. 
 
 The school-teacher as a job-hunter, as a cog 
 in the City Hall "machine," as a side partner 
 with the district boss, the ward-heeler and the 
 precinct captain was a new species to this edu- 
 cator from the tall grass of the Iowa prairies. 
 He was, for the moment, stunned by the force 
 and volume of the current of political pressure 
 which was turned upon him; but soon he began 
 to pull himself together, and when the members 
 
 49 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 of the Board of Education returned for the first 
 meeting prior to the opening of the schools he 
 had digested this revelation of public-school poli- 
 tics and was prepared to act. 
 
 He realized that it is a far cry from the prin- 
 cipalship of an eight-room school in a little prairie 
 town to the administrative head of an educational 
 system composed of 259 big schools, 5,600 teach- 
 ers and 280,000 pupils. The task of grasping a 
 situation of this magnitude with the determina- 
 tion to establish a new order of things might 
 have staggered a man of slighter physique, of 
 weaker will and less energy ; but the bulldog an- 
 tecedents of the School-Teacher and his long 
 training in the School of Hard Knocks stirred 
 him to grapple with the emergency without loss 
 of a moment. And his opportunity came with 
 the first gathering of the clans. 
 
 At this time nominations for appointment, 
 transfer and promotion in the teaching and super- 
 vising force were made jointly by the superin- 
 tendent of schools and the members of the dis- 
 trict committee — each district having a com- 
 mittee composed of two or three members of the 
 Board of Education which did its work in secret. 
 
 Just before the first meeting of a certain dis- 
 trict committee its two members called upon the 
 School-Teacher to arrange for the nomination of 
 
 50 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 a list of principals and head assistants in their 
 district. 
 
 " I'm new to this situation and I must have a 
 chance, gentlemen," replied the School-Teacher, 
 " to talk this over with the superintendent of your 
 district." 
 
 The members of the district committee smiled 
 tolerantly and gave an offhand assent to this sug- 
 gestion. The district superintendent had been 
 asked who were the best persons to fill the places 
 in question and the list was in the desk of the 
 superintendent of schools. But he was again con- 
 sulted and his superior was satisfied that the 
 recommendations were good ones. 
 
 The afternoon before the session of the big 
 school management committee, the two members 
 of the district committee and the district super- 
 intendent suddenly appeared before the School- 
 Teacher and submitted a list of nominations al- 
 most wholly different from the one already in 
 possession of the head of the school system. 
 
 " Are these your recommendations ? " the dis- 
 trict superintendent was asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir. You see " 
 
 But his stammering explanation was inter- 
 rupted by the members of the district committee, 
 who pointed to the bottom of the list, and said : 
 
 " There's his signature in black and white." 
 
 5i 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 At this moment a messenger appeared and 
 summoned the School-Teacher before the school 
 management committee. As he went into the 
 room he slipped the recommendations just de- 
 livered to him under the stack of papers which 
 he carried in his hand. This, his first important 
 committee session, seemed to drop easily into the 
 commonplace until all the documents in his pile 
 save the last had been disposed of; then very 
 quietly he remarked : 
 
 " Here is a list of recommendations signed by 
 the district superintendent and by the district 
 committeemen, but not by myself. I know noth- 
 ing about them and can make no recommendation 
 on them." 
 
 Instantly the chairman of the school manage- 
 ment committee reached for the list and put his 
 " O. K." upon it, as upon all the other reports, at 
 the same time declaring the session adjourned. 
 
 "What's the meaning of this?" suddenly in- 
 quired Chester M. Dawes, a keen lawyer and a 
 son of the late United States Senator Dawes, of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Briefly the School-Teacher explained to the 
 railroad lawyer the incident which had dictated 
 his course regarding the last list of nominations. 
 
 " If I had known the circumstances," said 
 
 52 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 Mr. Dawes, " that recommendation would have 
 been held up." 
 
 When the School-Teacher found the district 
 superintendent he asked: 
 
 " What did you mean by giving me one set of 
 nominations and the district committeemen an- 
 other?" 
 
 " They insisted upon their list," was the reply, 
 " as they always do, and although their list was 
 enough to make angels weep, the pressure they 
 brought to bear made me feel that I must concur. 
 But what can you do ? " 
 
 " I can stand out and make a fight," answered 
 the School-Teacher, " and that's just what I'm 
 going to do, too." 
 
 " Then I'll stand with you," responded the dis- 
 trict superintendent, " and do all I can to 
 straighten the thing cut." And he did. 
 
 Then followed lively sessions with the district 
 committeemen, the chairman of the school man- 
 agement committee and Chester M. Dawes — ses- 
 sions which made school history in Chicago be- 
 yond the realization, at the time being, of those 
 who were concerned in the fight. A truce was 
 called by an agreement that the report in con- 
 troversy was to be withheld from the full ses- 
 sion of the Board of Education. 
 
 After one meeting of the Board had passed 
 
 53 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 without action upon the matter, the represent- 
 ative of a big city boss, who controlled and dic- 
 tated conventions, called at the office of the su- 
 perintendent of schools and "read the riot act" 
 to the School-Teacher, informing him that the 
 name of a niece of the Big Boss was on the list 
 and that it " must go through." 
 
 " I'll see the president of the Board about it," 
 declared the emissary of the politician. 
 
 He did — and the president sustained the super- 
 intendent of schools. The war was on, and the 
 man from the tall grass started in to smoke out 
 of the school system the pest of the professional 
 politicians. 
 
 Just before the close of the next session of the 
 Board of Education, the School-Teacher arose 
 and made the request that the Board go into 
 executive session for the purpose of listening to 
 a statement which he wished to make. The presi- 
 dent requested all outsiders and members of the 
 press to leave the room, and for the first time in 
 its history the Board was convened in secret ses- 
 sion. The School-Teacher realized that he faced 
 a crisis at the very beginning of his administra- 
 tion. 
 
 He related his experience with the case in 
 hand, and he asked that a ruling be made on the 
 method of formulating lists of nominees for ap- 
 
 54 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 pointment, promotion and transfer which should 
 not only guide the superintendent of schools, but 
 should also be binding upon the members of the 
 Board of Education. His talk opened the eyes of 
 his hearers, and, after a sharp fight, a rule was 
 adopted which left him free to make his recom- 
 mendations direct to the big school management 
 committee, where they should be heard and dis- 
 cussed in open, before the public and the repre- 
 sentatives of the press. 
 
 This was a long step in the direction of free- 
 ing the public schools of Chicago from the coils 
 of the boa constrictor of political influence, and 
 district committees have never since been con- 
 sulted regarding nominations. 
 
 At the same meeting Chester M. Dawes intro- 
 duced the resolution which has since borne his 
 name and will always entitle him to the grati- 
 tude of those who have the real interest of the 
 pupils of the Chicago public schools at heart. 
 In essence this resolution made it mandatory up- 
 on the superintendent of schools to report to the 
 Board of Education the name of every person — 
 whether a member of that Board, a teacher or an 
 outsider — who in any manner sought to influence 
 the nomination for appointment, transfer or pro- 
 motion of any person to a position in the teach- 
 ing or supervising force of the public schools. 
 
 55 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 This resolution was resented and resisted by 
 a part of the Board, but a majority sustained it 
 after a fight of about two months. Perhaps it 
 was voted for by some members who did not fully 
 realize the effectiveness of publicity as a pre- 
 ventive against the pull evil. At one meeting 
 fourteen of the twenty-one members of the Board 
 were reported as having pulled for various nomi- 
 nees, and their names were printed in the news- 
 papers in connection with the transaction. The 
 names of many " distinguished citizens " were also 
 published, from time to time, in the " pull list," 
 and the people of Chicago began to arouse them- 
 selves to the fact that the public schools were be- 
 ing used, and had long been used, as a rich pre- 
 serve for pot-hunting politicians and profession- 
 al job-seekers. This hunting-ground was espe- 
 cially tempting to those politicians and citizens 
 who had women relatives and friends whom they 
 wished to " place " on the public pay-roll. 
 
 Although this smudge of publicity helped to 
 drive back the political pests, the School-Teacher 
 realized that he had won only the first fight in 
 the long battle against politics in the public 
 schools and that the pressure of influence was 
 always there and ready, on the instant, to take 
 advantage of the least non-resistance, the slight- 
 est relaxation, on his part. He realized, too, that 
 
 56 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 he must keep pushing ahead in his campaign, or 
 he would lose the ground he had already gained. 
 Not only this, but he must fortify and protect 
 each position gained so that it would be fairly 
 safe from future assault from the political con- 
 tingent. In this effort he was sustained by a 
 majority of the Board and by the mayor. 
 
 There were bosses and ward-heelers obtuse 
 enough to ask why he was so afraid of " a little 
 politics " — had not kissing always gone by favor, 
 and should not a man of influence take care of 
 his friends? Was there anything sacred about a 
 job in the public schools that it must be filled by 
 divine inspiration? To these questions the 
 School-Teacher laid down the law that public 
 schools exist for one purpose alone — THE BEST 
 GOOD OF PUPILS; that all other considera- 
 tions were secondary and insignificant, and that 
 political influence in appointments was bad for 
 the pupils because it did not PROVIDE the best 
 teachers, KEEP the best teachers, PROMOTE 
 the best teachers, or get the best work out of the 
 entire teaching and supervising force. In a cer- 
 tain school, for example, one teacher — and a 
 woman, at that — openly defied the principal and 
 challenged him to report her to the superintend- 
 ent, adding, significantly, that, she could pull 
 more votes in the Board of Education than he 
 
 57 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 could. Then, too, the School-Teacher fought pol- 
 itics in school matters not only because it brought 
 poor teaching and supervising timber into serv- 
 ice and destroyed discipline, but also because it 
 forced the teachers to think more of cultivating 
 their pulls than their pupils, and it continually 
 occupied the time and energy of the school ex- 
 ecutives which the good of the children demand- 
 ed should be spent in dealing with practical edu- 
 cational problems. 
 
 Never since he first laid down this platform 
 has the School-Teacher deviated from its simple 
 lines. The politicians and their followers had 
 long been accustomed to think that the public 
 schools EXISTED FOR THE TEACHERS. 
 The School-Teacher's declaration that they exist- 
 ed solely for the pupils seemed a strange doctrine 
 « — a bold and blatant heresy which marked the au- 
 thor as a " reform crank." But the pupils sat up 
 and took notice. 
 
 The next advance movement of the School- 
 Teacher was for the securing of a permanent and 
 well-fortified merit system which should make 
 promotion automatic on the basis of efficiency in 
 the school-room and of progressive scholarship. 
 Of course this movement was beset by political 
 snags, but the people had experienced an 
 awakening with regard to their schools, and at 
 
 58 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 last the politicians on the Board were com- 
 pelled to yield to the public sentiment. After 
 more than a year of steady work for his 
 measure, the School-Teacher marked another 
 mile-post in his career by securing the adoption 
 of a merit system which placed the appointment 
 and transfer of all elementary teachers, kinder- 
 gartners and teachers in positions not involving 
 special qualifications on the basis of scholarship 
 and efficiency in the school-room. Appointments 
 and transfers were made, and have ever since 
 been made, from this merit-list. So far as the 
 list of those eligible for appointment is concerned, 
 the merit-list is an open book and is kept on the 
 public counter in the office of the superintendent 
 of schools, where all comers may freely examine 
 the roll of eligibles and note the relative standing 
 of the applicants for appointment. 
 
 And how is this merit-list filled? Briefly, thus : 
 Old teachers who have dropped out of the service 
 and desire reinstatement are the only ones put 
 on this list without " cadet " or probationary 
 service; they are marked according to their old 
 record. Experienced teachers from outside the 
 city are admitted to the eligible list after an ex- 
 amination for scholarship and a satisfactory pro- 
 bationary service of four months as "supplies/ 5 
 their number of rank being fixed by a combination 
 
 59 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 of their scholarship and their efficiency marks. 
 The third class — and by far the most numerous 
 one — is that of graduates from the Chicago Nor- 
 mal School, which is maintained expressly as a 
 feeder and an inspiration for the teaching force of 
 the Chicago public schools. Although these 
 cadets are required to do a liberal amount of 
 actual supply-work in the class-rooms of the pub- 
 lic practice schools, they are also marked for 
 efficiency by the principals under whom they 
 teach while serving a four months' probation. 
 These marks, together with their scholarship 
 marks in the Normal School, determine their 
 standing on the merit-list, which is revised twice 
 a year. All supply-teachers are assigned, auto- 
 matically, from the merit-list, and no teacher is 
 regularly employed in an elementary position 
 who has not been tried by this probationary 
 process. 
 
 An important evolution from this merit scheme 
 was worked out by the School-Teacher and 
 adopted by the Board of Education. It marked 
 another significant step toward more complete 
 protection from political interference. This is 
 called the salary-grouping system. It classifies 
 all elementary and high-school teachers and prin- 
 cipals into groups, and provides that promotions 
 from group to group must be based, first, upon 
 
 60 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 efficiency of service in the school-room, as marked 
 by the supervising force, including principals 
 and district superintendents; second, on the evi- 
 dence of their progressive scholarship shown by 
 examinations, by work done in universities, col- 
 leges, certain recognized correspondence schools, 
 or by study under direction of the Chicago Nor- 
 mal School. Upon a combination of their effi- 
 ciency marks and their proofs of progressive 
 scholarship depends their progress from one 
 salary-group to another. 
 
 The opponents of this plan contended that 
 length of service should be the determining factor 
 in salary increase, but the School-Teacher said: 
 " To permit teachers to advance from the mini- 
 mum salary paid to the highest limit, without let, 
 hindrance or interruption — -save that they con- 
 tinue efficient enough to avoid dismissal — abso- 
 lutely ignores the real purpose for which the 
 school exists — the welfare of the children in the 
 schools — and suggests the necessary effort to get 
 into the system and then letting the clock do the 
 rest." He finally scored a victory over the clock- 
 watchers and secured a rule requiring progressive 
 scholarship. This forced the teacher who secured 
 salary promotion beyond a certain point to keep 
 alive. 
 
 In detail the scheme is this: A teacher is re- 
 
 61 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 garded as permanent after three years of satis- 
 factory service ; up to the end of the seventh year 
 of service the clock is allowed to do the work 
 and the salaries are automatically advanced prac- 
 tically fifty dollars a year. Then teachers must 
 show cause why they should be passed into the 
 next group — a jump which calls for a consider- 
 able salary-advance. The teacher is subjected to 
 a test on these points : " Is she a good teacher? 
 Has she kept up her educational processes and 
 methods? Has she kept up her interest in some 
 branch of study outside the limit of her regular 
 professional duties?" Her record for efficiency in 
 the school-room and her proof of study at the 
 Normal School or other recognized college or 
 school, give the answer upon which depends her 
 advancement into the next salary-group. If the 
 answer is satisfactory, the clock works again for 
 three years — each year bringing an increase of 
 salary until the maximum of one thousand dol- 
 lars, the top salary of the elementary teacher, is 
 reached. 
 
 One of the greatest elements in making pro- 
 gressive scholarship an easy matter for Chicago 
 teachers is the Normal Extension movement, the 
 credit for which rests, beyond question, with the 
 School-Teacher. It is his plan and its success 
 is one of his greatest achievements. 
 
 62 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 In a report to the Board, in 1903, he said : 
 " The Normal School extension work began in 
 October, 1902. This work was designed to fur- 
 nish teachers an opportunity to carry on regular 
 academic and professional work under the direc- 
 tion of instructors furnished at the expense of 
 the Board of Education, and at times and places 
 most convenient for the teacher. * * * 
 
 " It would be unwise to narrow the line of in- 
 struction given in the course in such a way as 
 to aim at preparation for the examinations only. 
 The extension work should aim higher, and 
 should undertake the all-important task of re- 
 inspiring the old teachers with interest and en- 
 thusiasm for their work, and equip them with 
 the most modern ideas as to the ways of doing 
 it. * * * It is generally known that teachers 
 under ordinary conditions reach the maximum 
 limit of their efficiency within five years after 
 they begin to teach. If they grow after this it 
 will be the result not so much of experience in 
 the school-room as of experience in the school- 
 room coupled with persistent study along the 
 lines of academic or professional work. * * * 
 It is almost certain that more than one-half of 
 all the teachers employed by the Board of Educa- 
 tion are engaged in some sort of active systematic 
 work looking toward self-improvement. The 
 
 63 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 city of Chicago has reason to feel sure that its 
 teachers are awake, and that they are growing." 
 
 Since that time the proportion of teachers who 
 have joined the " Keep Alive Club " — the Normal 
 Extension movement — has fully held its own and 
 perhaps increased. This summer the phenomenal 
 number of 731 teachers have asked for the Nor- 
 mal Extension course in August. 
 
 The School-Teacher's influence in the Normal 
 School itself has been strongly felt. He urged 
 that the regular course be extended in length 
 from one year to two years, and this was done 
 and departments for the training of kindergarten 
 teachers and teachers of domestic science have 
 been added. To bring the Normal School in- 
 structors into closer contact with the practical 
 work of actual teaching in the big class-rooms, 
 as contrasted with the small " experimental " 
 classes of Normal School, " the practice school " 
 heads of departments have been required to reg- 
 ularly visit the public school-rooms and report 
 upon the conditions encountered there. This con- 
 tact with teaching conditions " in the large " has 
 reached not only the Normal School instructors 
 and students, but also the students of the Nor- 
 mal Extension courses. 
 
 Reorganization of the system of school admin- 
 istration also imposed a heavy burden upon the 
 
 64 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 shoulders of the School-Teacher and opened an- 
 other means of placing further obstacles in the 
 way of the school politician. First, the number 
 of district superintendents was reduced from 
 fourteen to six, and later to four. In the old days 
 each district superintendent was practically su- 
 preme in his district. Now the assignment of 
 teachers, the making of transfers, and all kindred 
 matters are handled by these superintendents sit- 
 ting as a board, thus working together along the 
 line of a common policy to a common end. These 
 superintendents practically constitute a Board of 
 Equalization on educational matters, not only as 
 to the marking of teachers and principals for 
 efficiency and the transfer and dismissal of teach- 
 ers, but also on methods of teaching, matters of 
 discipline, the equitable distribution of school 
 equipment and supplies, the locating and build- 
 ing of new school-houses, the placing of kinder- 
 garten, manual training and domestic science cen- 
 ters and of playgrounds. All these matters were 
 once subject to the influence of local politicians, 
 but are now handled with reference to the needs 
 of the children and the good of the whole school 
 system, instead of being at the mercy of politi- 
 cians and citizens seeking to serve their imme- 
 diate ends. 
 
 65 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE FEDERATION FIGHT. 
 
 No problem with which the School-Teacher has 
 had to deal can be considered as more important 
 than that of the Teachers' Federation, because, 
 stripped of all disguises, the real animus of this 
 secret organization is to run the public schools 
 for the teachers instead of for the pupils. But 
 this statement is altogether too generous; it 
 should be qualified by the clause : for the teachers 
 who belong to the Federation. Again, the Fed- 
 eration fight is significant to every educator, and 
 every public-school pupil in America because the 
 organization is being systematically extended to 
 towns and cities throughout the entire country. 
 And, finally, it is most important, because it is 
 the latest model and the highest type of the polit- 
 ical machine especially adapted to school politics. 
 It is warranted to show efficiency in the tightest 
 and most prohibitive situations where the old- 
 style political machine is powerless and obsolete. 
 
 The present power of the Teachers' Federation 
 is almost wholly due to the fact that, under the 
 leadership of two remarkable women, Miss Mar- 
 
 66 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 garet Haley and Miss Catherine Goggin, for- 
 merly school-teachers, it went out after certain 
 tax-dodging public service corporations in Chi- 
 cago, and, after an extended and sensational 
 fight, compelled them to disgorge considerably 
 more than $200,000 in evaded tax money. Of 
 this the school fund of the city received, on a de- 
 cision by Judge Edward F. Dunne, now mayor of 
 Chicago, $126,673.79. This was apportioned, by 
 the Board of Education, between the educational 
 and the building funds. As the Board indicated a 
 disposition to use this sum for current expenses, 
 instead of the payment of certain claims for back 
 salaries, the Federation, in the name of Miss 
 Catherine Goggin and 1,643 others, mainly Federa- 
 tionists, sued the Board for a total of $218,638=15. 
 Judge Dunne's decision on this claim released to 
 the litigating teachers the sum of $73,980. In the 
 words of the report of the president of the Board : 
 " This decision is based on the theory that when 
 the Board of Education elected teachers in June, 
 1899, said teachers so elected were entitled to the 
 salary then in force for the next ensuing school 
 year, and not simply to the end of the calendar 
 year, as was the custom of the Board for years; 
 and further, on the fact that the city council at 
 its meeting on April 4, 1900, in connection with 
 the passing of an ordinance entitled, 'An Ordi- 
 
 67 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 nance Making Appropriation for Corporate, 
 Schools and Public Library Purposes, for the 
 fiscal year from January i, 1900, to December 31, 
 1900/ adopted a resolution in connection with the 
 said ordinance which reads as follows : * A suffi- 
 cient amount of this sum appropriated shall be 
 expended in restoring salaries of experienced 
 school-teachers for 1900/ " 
 
 The new Board of Education passed a resolu- 
 tion instructing counsel for the Board — who had 
 already rendered an opinion " that the finding of 
 Judge Dunne's decision in this case is clearly er- 
 roneous as to the $73,980 and that it will undoubt- 
 edly be reversed on appeal " — to withdraw the 
 appeal and disburse the money to the litigating 
 teachers. This move was but recently carried 
 through and the money has lately been paid to the 
 litigants. 
 
 The Teachers' Federation has been doing busi- 
 ness ever since its attack upon the corporate tax 
 dodgers on the capital of its victory in that cam- 
 paign, and its success in the "back salary" fight 
 has been the backbone of its standing with the 
 teachers. Upon this accomplishment it has syste- 
 matically set out to subjugate the school manage- 
 ment to its purposes and its control. It has syste- 
 matically assailed the Board of Education and the 
 superintendent of schools as tools of the " pluto- 
 
 68 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 crats " and " tax-doging corporations " ; it has 
 assailed the plan basing teachers' salaries on ef- 
 ficiency and progressive scholarship; it has de- 
 manded a schedule of salaries based on length 
 of service only; it has proposed to take the initia- 
 tive in the selection of text-books out of the 
 hands of the superintendent of schools and his 
 advisers and throw it into the hands of the grade 
 teachers ; it has demanded the " democratization " 
 of the schools by the creation of councils of teach- 
 ers having authority to deal with important ad- 
 ministrative and pedagogical questions as an ad- 
 visory body; it has repeatedly sent its lobby to 
 Springfield to oppose legislation for the better or- 
 ganization of the school system, including a bill 
 presented by the Board of Education, after its 
 adoption by the unanimous vote of the Board; 
 it has put up a cry against the " autocratic power 
 of the school principals," and it has consistently 
 labored for the unionizing of the public schools. 
 The Teachers' Federation is a secret organiza- 
 tion, so far as its rank and file, its methods and 
 purposes are concerned. In every school where 
 it has one or more members it has a correspond- 
 ent whose duty it is secretly and regularly to in- 
 form the officials of the Federation on all matters 
 believed to be of interest to them. The Chicago 
 Tribune recently contained a letter from the only 
 
 69 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 male teacher in the school where he is employed 
 stating that the correspondent of the Federation 
 in the school wields more power than the prin- 
 cipal. The " drag " of the Federation is such 
 that in all matters of discipline involving teachers 
 belonging to it, the power of the Federation 
 quickly makes itself felt. It is affiliated in Chi- 
 cago with the Federation of Labor. 
 
 These facts regarding the Teachers' Federation 
 are familiar to the citizens of Chicago ; they have 
 been frequently commented on in the newspapers 
 and in educational journals — perhaps nowhere 
 more intelligently than in the Educational Re- 
 view, of November, 1905, in an article written by 
 David Swing Ricker, the regular representative 
 of the Chicago Tribune at the meetings of the 
 Board of Education. 
 
 One of the latest phases of Federation activity 
 is a plan to abolish the efficiency and progressive 
 scholarship test in the matter of promotions and 
 to raise the salaries of thousands of teachers who 
 have declined to stand the existing promotional 
 tests. On this score the Chicago Chronicle, of 
 July 21, 1906, makes this terse editorial com- 
 ment: 
 
 " Everything the school-teachers do is for the 
 purpose of getting more money. No sooner had 
 the proceeds of the lawsuit against the State 
 
 70 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 Board of Equalization been distributed among 
 them than they started an agitation for increased 
 pay. They want a new schedule which will give 
 them about ioo per cent more salary than they 
 get at present. 
 
 " This is the immediate and premeditated effect 
 of Mayor Dunne's appointment, stuffing the Board 
 of Education with the socialistic partisans of the 
 Teachers' Federation. Nobody in this city be- 
 grudges an able and faithful school-teacher a 
 liberal salary, but the Chicago teachers are al- 
 ready better paid than the teachers anywhere else 
 in this country, and as for those teachers who be- 
 long to the Teachers' Federation they ought to 
 be kicked out of the schools altogether." 
 
 The Chicago Record-Herald has an editorial, 
 of the same date, remarking: 
 
 " M am opposed to the promotional examina- 
 tion,' said President Ritter of the School Board. 
 ' I feel certain the teachers neglect the children 
 in order to prepare for the promotional tests. 
 Frankly, I do not know of any plan I will indorse 
 as a substitute, but I am convinced the present 
 system should be materially modified — if not 
 eliminated altogether.' 
 
 "This interview with its confession of igno- 
 rance indicates a purely destructive policy. But it 
 is no more destructive than the policy that was 
 
 7i 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 outlined in a report of a substitute that was print- 
 ed at the same time. Under the substitute efficient 
 teachers would advance with clock regularity, 
 and efficient teachers would be all teachers 
 against whom no charge of inefficiency or unfit- 
 ness had been proved. 
 
 " That, of course, means nothing but promotion 
 by seniority. Instead of a compulsory test for 
 advancement applicable to all alike, there is a 
 mere chance of haphazard accusations which no 
 one is likely to make except for personal reasons. 
 
 " So the president and the substitute lead us to 
 nothing at all. It is to be hoped that these are 
 not true signs of what the dispensation under 
 the new Board is to be. If they are, the progress 
 of the Chicago schools will be backward." 
 
 To indicate further the attitude of the public 
 press in Chicago regarding the destructive policy 
 of the reorganized Board of Education, which has 
 now become much more clearly defined than 
 when these editorials were written, let two other 
 newspapers speak for themselves. . 
 
 Here is a paragraph from an editorial in the 
 Chicago Tribune: 
 
 " It is said also that the program contemplates 
 the * democratizing ' of the management of 
 school affairs by giving the teachers more power, 
 and by abolishing regulations which are offensive 
 
 72 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 to some of the teachers because exacting of them 
 a high standard of efficiency. If such a program 
 were to be carried out, the schools would be de- 
 moralized and the children would suffer. The 
 teachers are not hired to give instruction to the 
 trustees as to their duties, but to teach the chil- 
 dren that are put in their care. The management 
 of the schools is placed by the law in the hands 
 of trustees and not of some Federated em- 
 ployees." 
 
 In its editorial utterances the Chicago Daily 
 News is noted for its mildness, its ultra-con- 
 servatism. But the following editorial, in its 
 issue of July n, has no uncertain sound: 
 
 " The mayor apparently has aimed to deliver up 
 the city's great system of schools to persons ad- 
 vocating the principles put forward by the lead- 
 ing spirits of the Teachers' Federation. He has 
 attempted to make of the school system a labora- 
 tory for the testing of the Federation's half-baked 
 ideas. He has subjected the city to the danger 
 of a general upsetting of responsible school man- 
 agement and the substitution of more or less im- 
 possible makeshifts. Mayor Dunne, the chief ad- 
 ministrator of the affairs of a community of two 
 million souls, has permitted himself to be a cat's- 
 paw of a few inflamed enemies of the best system 
 of school administration Chicago has ever had. 
 
 73 
 
THE MAKING OF AN 
 
 Having been weak enough to let down the bars 
 for them, he may be expected to shuffle and 
 dodge responsibility if his appointees get to Tun- 
 ing amuck in the interests of chaos and the 
 Teachers' Federation. His dodging will not help 
 him. He alone is responsible for the composition 
 of the new school board." 
 
 Referring to the scheme introduced by Dr. Cor- 
 nelia De Bey to " democratize " the public 
 schools, the Chicago Chronicle has this to say : 
 
 " Dr. De Bey, though one of the trustees her- 
 self, is on the Board, like some others, apparently 
 for the sole purpose of subverting its author- 
 ity. * * * As Trustee Dudley observes, this 
 contemplates a revolution. * * * The Board 
 has long since abdicated in favor of its employees. 
 No one can understand clearly what Dr. De Bey's 
 proposed system means, as it is almost unthink- 
 able in its folly, and therein lies the impudence 
 of it. * * * It is a brazen and insolent chal- 
 lenge to the Board to hand over its authority to 
 the teachers and make the trustees the employees 
 of the teachers instead of the teachers being the 
 employes of the trustees. This is equivalent to 
 proposing that the public schools, on which the 
 city is spending twelve million dollars a year, 
 shall be completely disrupted and the public- 
 school system abandoned. It needs no perspi- 
 
 74 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL-TEACHER 
 
 cacity to see that the whole infamous plot ema- 
 nates from the Teachers' Federation and Mar- 
 garet Haley and the socialistic influences with 
 which they are connected." 
 
 It is not to be taken for granted, however, that 
 all the appointees of Mayor Dunne who are 
 classed as " radicals " will lend themselves to the 
 revolutionary program and purposes of the 
 Teachers' Federation leaders; the chiefs of this 
 educational Tammany are bound to be disap- 
 pointed in some of the late recruits, for some of 
 them are too big, too conscientious and too fair- 
 minded deliberately to take part in the sacking 
 of the educational structure which the School- 
 Teacher and his supporters have erected and are 
 defending. 
 
 But if they do not have ears to hear the outcry 
 of the people and the press they can easily wreck 
 the educational structure, to the building of which 
 the School-Teacher has devoted six years of tire- 
 less work and a rare genius for educational ad- 
 ministration, 
 
 75 
 
HOV !4 im