The School for Scandal

“ The 'squire's portrait being found united with ours, was an honor too great to escape envy. Scandalous whispers began to circulate at our expense, and our tranquillity was continually disturbed by persons who came as friends to tell us what was said of us by enemies. These reports we always resented with becoming spirit; but scandal ever improves by opposition. ”

“ When I came away, I went to the man for my money again; you want your money? says he; yes, says I; for what? says he; why, says I, no man shall jocky me out of my money; I paid my money to see sights, and the dogs a bit of a sight have I seen, unless you call listening to people's private business a sight. Why, says he, it is the School for Scandalization.—The School for Scandalization!—Oh! ho! no wonder you New-York folks are so cute at it, when you go to school to learn it; and so I jogged off.
JESSAMY My dear Jenny, my master's business drags me from you ”

“ In the face of such reports, the scandal must be instantly suppressed. She arranged, therefore, that a careful watch should be kept on the school, and if anyone were seen going out or returning in a surreptitious and unorthodox fashion, the occurrence must be immediately reported, so that she could act promptly and catch the delinquent. She said nothing about the affair to the girls, as she did not wish to put them on their guard, but Miss Edith and the mistresses were instructed to use extreme vigilance. ”

“ Yes a Tale of Scandal is as fatal to the Reputation of a prudent Lady of her stamp as a Fever is generally to those of the strongest Constitutions, but there is a sort of puny sickly Reputation, that is always ailing yet will outlive the robuster characters of a hundred Prudes. ”

“ many a wretch has rid on hurdles who has done less mischief than these utterers of forged Tales, coiners of Scandal, and clippers of Reputation. ”

“ I will relate only one particular occurrence which I had to encounter at this school, and which, but for a mere accident, would have fixed upon my character an indelible stain; and I am especially induced to notice it by the circumstance of its having been grossly misrepresented by the venal part of the public press. I believe it appeared either in one or both of those sinks of corruption, those stews of falsehood, those unblushing vehicles of calumny and lies, the Morning Post and the Courier, viz. "that Hunt, when a boy, was turned out of a school for robbing one of his schoolfellows." ”

“ It is a convenient phrase, but beyond it there is the conspiracy of silence. Schoolmasters prefer to deal with straight issues. They dislike the subtleties of action and character which are of such charm to the psychologist. They like to say, 'This is an offence.' Finer shades of meaning trouble them. At least that is their official attitude. And so it has come to be generally accepted that public school morality resolves itself into one main issue: that is, the corruption of a small boy by a big one. ”

“ It is something understood by all teachers that anyone who opposes the principal will find herself “transferred,” or lowered in ratings, or will have hard classes, or longer hours with no more pay. Said one to me: “Any teacher who brings charges against a principal is ruined. It matters nothing what the charges are: stealing school funds, or beating the pupils, or offensive advances of a sexual nature. All that happens is the principal denies the charges, and the matter is dropped; a teacher’s testimony counts for no more than the testimony of a Negro in the South.” ”

“ Deception in regard to your lessons is not viewed, as it should be, in the light of a serious moral delinquency. An ingenuous youth, who would scorn to steal, and scorn to lie anywhere else than at school, makes no scruple to deceive a teacher. Is honesty a thing of place and time? I do not say, I would not trust at my money-drawer the boy who has been cheating at his lessons, because a boy may have been led into the latter delinquency by a false notion of right, which as yet has not affected his integrity in matters of business. But this I do say. Cheating at school blunts the moral sense ”

“ But even with all this wise precaution, the unprepared and the unqualified have sometimes entered the outer courts; and when compelled at last to reveal their character, have turned to rend their teachers, and have done their utmost to destroy the School and demoralize mankind. ”

“ Somebody—not the Trojan—took that book into the examination, and left it in the desk where it was found. When we can show who did that, we’re far on the right road. They say murder will out, and if that’s so, I guess crookedness will out, too. It’s what we’ve got to bank on, while we work as hard as we can to discover the truth and the whole truth. And, meanwhile, we won’t be helping anybody by fighting and making the scandal worse than it is. ”

“ Sometimes I wish every promising radical kid in the country could get himself into some scandal that would cut him off for life from any chance of being received by this damned respectable upper class! ”

“ Once a teacher's connection with a listed organization is shown, her views become subject to scrutiny to determine whether her membership in the organization is innocent or, if she was formerly a member, whether she has bona fide abandoned her membership.
The law inevitably turns the school system into a spying project. Regular loyalty reports on the teachers must be made out. The principals become detectives; the students, the parents, the community become informers. Ears are cocked for tell-tale signs of disloyalty. ”

“ If they advocate sabotage, violence and crime, they may 409be dealt with by the law, but they may not be dealt with by school boards or superintendents for political ideas which they hold, or for political activities outside the class-room. ”

“ There is good evidence that the amount of immorality among what are known as the higher classes is every year increasing. Every now and then a scandal in high life comes to the surface; but the great mass of corruption is effectually hidden from the general public. ”

“ Has any one ruined himself, and done all he could to corrupt others by dissipation, drinking, seduction, and a course of irregularities? Nay, has he returned from a prison, after an ignominious atonement for some violation of the laws? He is destitute of character, and can not be trusted; but presently he opens a school, and the children are seen flocking to it; for, if he is willing to act in that capacity—we shall all admit that he can read, write, and cipher to the square root—he will make an excellent schoolmaster. ”

“ Of lamentations, despair, and repentance, scarcely a trace, but innumerable imprecations, plans of revenge against enemies without, project of future burglaries and murders, and advice for the sound instruction of criminals.
Although the Modern School has demonstrated the uselessness, nay the injuriousness of prison, it has no desire to leave society suddenly unprotected and the criminal at large. Nature does not proceed by leaps, and the Modern School aims at effecting a revolution, not a revolt, in Penal Jurisprudence. ”

“ This is highly gratifying to residents in the precincts of the University, but even to them it is now and then not altogether comprehensible. Nor is it only questions concerning the University as a whole which appeal to the external public; even college business and college scandal sometimes assume an unnatural importance. Years ago one of the tutors of a certain college was subjected to the venerable and now almost obsolete process of 'screwing up,' and some young gentlemen were rusticated for complicity in the offence. ”

“ For as you established your own ethics, she would still be there to see that your ideas were carried out. Granted she is a scandal-monger. But scandal is the sewer-system of society: the dirty work must be done somehow. Mrs. Grundy is your scavenger. Americans don't talk scandal, but I fail to see how they will keep their homes clean without it. The scandal-mongers may be inspired by no lofty motives, but they make a wonderful unpaid detective force. Sheridan was not a philosopher. ”

“ BEERMANN. God knows, it is not the business of the police to provoke this enormous scandal. All authority will be destroyed. It will shatter the respect of the masses for the people higher up.
STROEBEL. But this scandal was provoked— [knocking on the diary with his finger] —by these very people.
BEERMANN. If a man once in a while goes into a certain room—that is no scandal. It only becomes a scandal when the story is made known to every Tom, Dick and Harry. That's what must be prevented! ”

“ His voice had a quaver. He was explaining as he would explain to a child. “All the timber interests are behind me. See what it means if I am turned down? A scandal would do it. It’s the petty scandal that kills a man in this State quicker than anything else—scandal or a laugh! I can’t carry that girl out of the woods and declare her to be my daughter. ”

“ The teacher, therefore, who wishes that his instructions may have the force of principles, must endeavour to bring the truths he inculcates, into such constant notice, that they may become habitual motives to the will. In a school where there is no order, no subordination, a boy may read lessons of obedience, and self government, day after day, without having any impression made upon his mind. Has he learned to steal and to tell lies; occasional punishment will not be sufficient to enforce the principles of truth and honesty. ”

“ And in this free Republic, everywhere, with bribe and threat, the authorities are invoked to force its bloody and filthy pages into the hands of innocent school girls to pollute with superstition, lust, and cruelty their young and tender minds. ”

“ I shall before long show you how at this same DeWitt Clinton High School there has been established with official sanction an elaborate system of espionage; a teacher drawing full salary devotes the greater part of his time to training pupils to spy upon other teachers, and when these pupils bring reports of unorthodox ideas and utterances, the pupils are praised for a meritorious service. ”

“ Scandal is the prime executioner; when scandal strikes it lays the naked truth bare to the bone—stark, hideous, undeniable. It takes a brave woman to stand firm in the face of scandal. Some totter and fall at the first blow; others struggle to their feet and survive. ”

“ Not I, but every man in the land who keeps the run of current news answers that the perpetrators are at large, and are turning up every moment to do the same thing without being arrested, tried and punished. Has the power of the government been rigorously exerted to arrest this disgraceful scandal? ”

“ We always thought that the beating of scholars—a practice once very common in schools—for such trifling offences as whispering and looking off the book, was a gross outrage, and the parent knowing and allowing it was in our opinion as guilty as the schoolmaster. ”

“ Nothing at times so startles us as our own words. As the girl uttered the word "scandal," she rose frightened as though it faced her and began to walk excitedly backward and forward. Scandal had never touched her life. She had never talked scandal; had never thought scandal. Dwelling under the same roof with it as the master passion of a life and forced to encounter it in so many repulsive ways, she had needed little virtue to regard it with abhorrence. ”

“ He hangs himself, and at once scandal springs up, bell-mouthed, to shout the thing to the world. The name of an innocent girl is dragged in; my name is dragged in; innocent people suffer for the foolish act of a thoughtless boy. ”

“ Parties may go on declaiming, but it is not easy to say which party has excited most riots, which has published most libels, which has propagated most slander and defamation? Verbal scandal has been propagated in great abundance by both parties; but there is this difference, that one party have enjoyed almost all public offices, and therefore their defamation has been spread among the people more secretly, more maliciously, and more effectually. ”

“ The very fact that they might do as they chose, and were put upon their honor to uphold the reputation and dignity of the school, usually acted as an incentive to them to do so, whereas the eternal surveillance and suspicion of the average school acts as a mighty inspiration to circumvent all regulations. ”

“ No history or other textbook shall be adopted for use or be in any district school, city school, vocational school or high school which falsifies the facts regarding the War of Independence or the War of 1812 or which defames our nation's founders or misrepresents the ideals and cause for which they struggled and sacrificed, or which contains propaganda favorable to any foreign government. ”

“ Then the storm burst.
“Am I to have you thieving, besides your dirt and bad work and bad behaviour?” the headmaster began. “Not content with being the worst-behaved and dirtiest class in the school, you are thieves into the bargain, are you? ”

“ If after all, however, a school must be resorted to, let it, if in your power, be as little populous as possible. As 'evil communications corrupt good manners,' so the more numerous the assemblage, and the more extensive the communication, the greater the chance of corruption. ”

“ Every enlightened idea was banished from the schools and expunged from the school-books. Only men for whose extreme reactionary spirit the police could vouch were appointed to the professorships or to other offices. ”

“ They realised that a dangerous propaganda which had involved hundreds of immature youths in a network of criminal conspiracies had tended to the subversion of every principle of authority, at the expense of the parent at least as much as of good government and public peace. ”