Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/206

 had recently brought on from the West, and made superintendent of the schools, James MacAlister, a small, thin, homely and intelligent Scotchman, who was in the midst of a struggle to introduce certain important changes, possibly improvements, in both methods and curriculum. Encountering many difficulties and obstacles, accompanied with some criticism, as all men do who take hold of the problems of life with earnestness, he a few years later withdrew to take charge of the Drexel Institute. Alongside of Steel and MacAlister stood James Pollock, born in County Tyrone, Ireland, and the owner of a carpet mill in Kensington, and shares in banks and trust companies, short in stature, natty in appearance and scrupulously clean, with hair closely curled and parted in the middle. The first impression is that of a dandy; after meeting him, however, you soon discovered that you are up against a proposition. You probably conclude ere long that you never discovered more “sand” to the square inch of surface. He has developed into a bon vivant, and no one is better known at the dinners of the Five o'Clock and Clover clubs. His speeches are witty to the point of acridity, and many a man of extended fame has gone down before him in confusion. Set over against these idealists were a number of members who believed in the multiplication table and the alphabet and in learning to spell by putting letters together, who had faith in things as they were and had been when they, as children, went to school. Their leader was Simon Gratz, of a Jewish family long established in Philadelphia, slight in physique even to emaciation, and one of the cleverest and most astute of men. He had had long experience in this work and knew its details and the legislation affecting it better than any other person connected with it. Indefatigable, inexorable, intelligent and suave, there were few who cared to enter into controversies with him. He was likewise one of the Board of Revision of Taxes and, therefore, brought into relations with the judges, a member of the council of the 192