Confidence in the educational system of New York is not increased by the spectacle of the president of its City College belaboring students with an umbrella like an irate old beldame charging a group of plaguing boys, nor by the action of the Board of Education in calling policemen to protect it from its own teachers. The City College is busy meting out discipline because a crowd of pacifist students blocked the path of the president--and of course the inevitable "distinguished visitors"--on the way to review a drill by the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Certainly some of the City College students were guilty of rowdyism, but the cure for that scarcely lies in chastisement with a presidential umbrella. The Board of Education was equally unhappy in its strategy. Its fairness in dismissing a teacher had been questioned by a large number of his fellows. He had been dismissed allegedly for incompetence and falsifying his attendance record. As to the truth of the charges we have no knowledge, but the fact that the victim is chairman of the Teachers' Committee to Protect Salaries raises at least some unfortunate suspicions. Many teachers asked for a public trial for the victim--a reasonable request--and when this was refused by the board, began a demonstration. Here again the limits of decorum may have been passed, but surely it was stupid for the board to call policemen with clubs to cope with an outburst of indignant emotion, and still less wise to suspend two of the protesting teachers. To grant the public trial asked for would do more to restore morale among teachers and students than stubbornness and punishment. Policemen's clubs and presidential umbrellas are no longer believed to have much educative value. --The Nation.