New York City has 38,000 schoolteachers. Dr. Emil Altman is an excitable, potbellied little man who has charge of keeping tabs on their physical and mental condition. Few years ago he made national headlines when he charged that no fewer than 1,500 of the city's teachers were off their rockers, many of them "crackpots" (TIME, April 9, 1934). Ever since, Dr. Altman has tried with might & main to purge the crackpots.
He got the Board of Education to bring to trial and dismiss a teacher named Angela D'Auria, who had told her pupils that a janitor was sending up "fumes"...
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