120	RAG-TIME   AND   TANGO
thinking to the slack-minded Socialism once prevalent among
a class of our school teachers. I do not know how the Duce
handles his schools; but the future of Fascismo will be
determined far more by the teachers working on their ado-
lescent material than by the visible_o proceedings of all the
adults that ever sang romantic songs and wore black shirts.
And where in the world is the school teacher a more powerful
agent than in the United States ? For the school is the one
factor that may weld that odd composite into a durable
amalgam, or the one solvent (if you prefer the usual image)
in the whole melting-pot. The teacher—and with the schools
I include the universities—may manage to infuse some
common quality into the offspring of Scot, Pole, Croat,
Czech, Portuguese, and Irishman that will bind the States
together, He may yet give them a common population in
addition to their existing community of flag and institutions.
And no one else can do it.
That is why I was always anxious to know more of
American education. For the school teacher is the Chief
Executive of the American future,
Here, as on other sides of American life, the European eye
is strangely blinded by the odd travesty of itself which
America has exported with so much vigour. Fiction and
movies have taught us to regard American universities as
fantastic establishments located on something enigmatically
termed a " campus/' where young men with large initials on
their chests indulge in exercises of incredible violence to the
accompaniment of still more incredible ululations. I soon
learned a little better; though my first illusions seemed to
derive some confirmation from a news item, which I once
discovered with appropriate alarm in a Los Angeles news-
paper :
"YELL LEADERS WILL GATHER
Southland Rooting Chieftains Invited to Convention at U.S.C*
To-morrow.
High-school cheer leaders from 114 Southern California
secondary schools have been invited to attend the annual