The expedition was another gratification to Selma—­who had become possessed of her free pass.  She felt that in visiting the state-house and thus taking an active part in the work of legislation she was beginning to fulfil the larger destiny for which she was qualified.  Side by side with Mrs. Earle at the head of a delegation of twenty Benham women she marched augustly into the committee chamber.  The contending factions sat on opposite sides of the room.  Through its middle ran a long table occupied by the Committee on Education to which the bill had been referred.  Among the dozen or fifteen persons who appeared in support of the bill Selma perceived Mrs. Hallett Taylor, whom she had not seen since her return.  She was disappointed to observe that Mrs. Taylor’s clothes, though unostentatious, were in the latest fashion.  She had hoped to find her dowdy or unenlightened, and to be able to look down on her from the heights of her own New York experience.

The lawyer in charge of the bill presented lucidly and with skill the merits of his case, calling to the stand four prominent educators from as many different sections of the State, and several citizens of well-known character, among them Babcock’s former pastor, Rev. Henry Glynn.  He pointed out that the school committee, as at present constituted, was an unwieldy body of twenty-four members, that it was regarded as the first round in the ladder of political preferment, and that the members which composed it were elected not on the ground of their fitness, but because they were ambitious for political recognition.

The legislative committee listened politely but coldly to these statements and to the testimony of the witnesses.  It was evident that they regarded the proposed reform with distrust.

“Do you mean us to understand that the public schools of this State are not among the best, if not the best, in the world?” asked one member of the committee, somewhat sternly.

“I recognize the merits of our school system, but I am not blind to its faults,” responded the attorney in charge of the bill.  He was a man who possessed the courage of his convictions, but he was a lawyer of tact, and he knew that his answer went to the full limit of what he could safely utter by way of qualification without hopelessly imperilling his cause.

“Are not our public schools turning out yearly hundreds of boys and girls who are a growing credit to the soundness of the institutions of the country?” continued the same inquisitor.

Here was a proposition which opened such a vista of circuitous and careful speech, were he to attempt to answer it and be true to conscience without being false to patriotism, that Mr. Hunter was driven to reply, “I am unable to deny the general accuracy of your statement.”

“Then why seek to harass those who are doing such good work by unfriendly legislation?”

The member plainly felt that he had disposed of the matter by this triumphant interrogation, for he listened with scant attention to a repetition of the grounds on which, relief was sought.