The difficulty with him was that he was an ignorant and credulous man. His lack of culture caused him to embrace all sorts of socialistic bosh, and whenever he put it into his stories, he ruined them. But when he set out to tell a simple tale, he always told it superbly. Upton Sinclair's assumption that it is the aim of the public school to fan the intelligence and to produce large numbers of alert and curious youths of both sexes is foolish. The state maintains its control of elementary education, not primarily to reduce illiteracy and turn the eyes of the plain people toward the stars, but to make sure that they are not taught anything that is subversive.
Public education is thus a police measure.
The goal it moves toward is perfect standardization, perfect discipline, perfect imbecility. Mr. Sinclair denounces it bitterly because it is succeeding. He is a romantic fellow, and life is constantly shocking him. But he has written instructive and amusing book. In 1925 H. L. Mencken reported the Scopes Trial for the Baltimore Evening Sun .