The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-06-21


tionalism, am the most tragi-comic
figure (figurehead, if, you willy. My
holy functions are clerical, tho not in
the religious sense. l don't know ex-
actly what honorable purpose l am sup
posed to serve. take orders and give
them. / mark and remark. l originate
nothing. l inspire nobody l am not
conscious of large liberating social
aims (tho on appropriate occasions 1
pretend to be.) l am not even inter-
ested in stirring social problems.
pretend to scholarship, but l have
none. am so pre-occupied with the
routine of administration and sheer
externals that l find little time for
favorite recreations and no time or
disposition for keeping abreast of mod
ern scholarship.
l talk virtue day in and day out, but
sadly l confess that l have read very
few books on Sociology or Anthro-
pology or Economics or Philosophy.
Nor have l ever deeply analysed the
social forces that corrupt our Amer
lean life
am a great success with my teach
ers, for they know even less than /
do (tho at first blush such state
ment will sound like wild exaggera-
tion) l coax or fiatter or wheedle or
bully them into respecting me. l snap
the whip of marks above their heads,
and they learn to dance to my synco-
pated music.
l exact obedience by furnishing and
humiliating eccentric originality. Nat
urally. My superiors act no more gen.
erously than do. My teachers fear
me. fear my superiors. And so on
up the mount of glory
Oh, if a principal could only see
his minds reflections in the mirror
of truth, he would flee to a monastery
to expiate his sins of omission. But
principals are VIGOROUSLY afflicted
with opthalmia. They can't see their
own manifest shortcomings. Why
should they? Where ignorance is bliss,
tits folly-to be ignorant!
l happen to be principal with con-
science. know how very little 1 ac-
complish. Whatever originality does
flourish in the school system flourishes
in spite of the official killjoys What
do we principals know about child ma
ture? What do we know about defec-
tive children? What do we know
about child geniuses? eve usually
class them with detectives, too). What
do we know of the personal life of our
children, of their struggles at home,
their poverty, their dreams, their dis
couragements, their thwarted ambi-
lions, their daily drudge environ
ments? What do we KNOW?
We hold monthly conferences so in
tolerably wearisome and pointless that
the sermons of superannuated priests
seem by contrast inspiring Why are
our conferences so deadening, so
stuffy, so sterile? For the simplest of
reasons. WE HAVEN'T THE COUR-
AGE TO DISCUSS THE VITAL
PROBLEMS OF OUR DAY AND GEN
GRAFTON
We haven't the courage to defy our
meddling and antiquated superiors
whose hostility to the fundamentals
of sincere democracy has brought the
school system to it's present unbeliev-
ably low level If we were men of
vision and courage, we would use
these conferences as laboratory per-
iods for. the frank discussion of every
issue that troubles the consciences
and minds of the common run of men.
Especially would we seek light and
wisdom on the eternally vital subjects
of economic quality, the sex life of
boys and girls, the deep problems of
evil, the history of exploitation, the
analysis of class struggles in society,
the profound meanings of evolution,
the function of revolution in acceler-
ating-in short, no theme revelant to
the philosophy of amelioration of the
common lot would escape our sincere
analysis. The school as the labora-
tory of an informal philosophy of
everyday life: that strikes me, in
sympathy with modern aspiration. as