In the late spring and summer of 1918, the Creston Review newspaper was filled with editorials and tidbits of news, mostly written by C.F. Hayes, the editor of the paper, about a controversy at the Creston School. It started with a principal who refused to be fired, and ended with the forced resignation of a school trustee. When all those articles are put together, it makes a fine piece of drama. For today’s daily dose of history, we present…
The Broussonian Brouhaha
or,
A Lesson in the Fine Art of Selling Newspapers: A Dramatic Comedy as presented in the Editorial Columns of the Creston Review.
The Cast:
Charles Brousson, Principal of Creston School.
Messieurs Crawford, Cherrington, and Jackson, School Trustees.
C.F. Hayes, Secretary to the School Board and Editor of the Creston Review.
Some Parents.
The Setting: Creston, during the summer of 1918.
Scene 1: May 30, 1918. Principal Brousson is at his desk at the school.
Brousson (reading a letter): Sir: At the May meeting of the trustees I am instructed to write you asking for your resignation as Principal of the school. This action is unavoidable owing to your services having been unsatisfactory during the term. (Brousson exists hastily, evidently much perturbed.)
Scene 2: July 13, 1918. The annual school meeting.
Brousson: Sirs, throughout the year the school has run smoothly. There have been good order and industrious study. The pupils have seldom been as well prepared for their examinations as this year. I demand an explanation – why have I been dismissed? Especially when the High School Inspector, after watching me teach for a whole afternoon, gave me an excellent report?
Hayes: An “excellent” report? Here is the report (brandishing it, and reading): “Canadian history well taught; geography very fair; class backward in grammar and literature. Pupils work well, but are backward in some subjects.” (Tossing the report aside) Why such shallow phraseology? If his work is excellent, why not say so? They did with two other teachers at the school! And don’t miss that final sentence!
Crawford (to Brousson): Ever since you have been at the school the discipline has been disgraceful. Look at that row last spring when three or four boys were expelled.
Brousson: Is it not right to stop smoking at the school? And besides, they were suspended, not expelled.
Hayes (aside): Instead of administering the corporal punishment that a red-blooded principal would hand out under the circumstances, Mr. Brousson transfers his responsibility on to the parents. Is he afraid of these boys?
Crawford (to Brousson): You’re fired…
Cherrington: …and you can get out.
Brousson: I refuse to resign!
Hayes (aside): Mr. Brousson does not care to accept a gentleman’s request to resign. This request has always been accepted as a notice to leave by all previous teachers.
Parents: I move for the immediate reinstatement of Principal Brousson! Hear, hear! Let’s have a ballot! Hurrah! (The motion passes 50-2)
Parents: I call for the immediate resignation of Trustees Crawford and Cherrington! They contravened the School Act by selling goods to the school!
Hayes (angry): Trustee Jackson also sold goods to the school throughout his just-expired three-year term. True, he is not in business now, but surely a crime committed in January is still a crime in July? Why not call for his resignation, too?
Jackson: For the past year my trade with the school board amounted to $11 odd. Through Trustee Crawford and Trustee Cherrington, the Creston Mercantile’s account was over $250. Can these two gentlemen assert that they did not seek business for their firm out of dealings with the school?
Hayes (fuming): What sort of a piker are you to complain of the other fellow getting the lion’s share? You certainly were never known to refuse any of this trade you could handle! They’ve only done, for a short time, what you’ve been doing in a more direct way for three years! Invariably, the little thief gets the longest jail term!
Parents: Call the question! Crawford and Cherrington to resign! Hear, hear! Mark your ballots for the motion! (Motion passes 40-8)
Hayes (aside): Without further form or ceremony, they would have hung the culprits first and tried them after! What a performance for citizens who gathered to hear school matters intelligently discussed!
Scene 3: August 19, 1918. A meeting of the school board. Brousson and Hayes are present.
Hayes (to the audience): The knockout blow in the school controversy may be looked for any day now. Inspector Calvert was here a couple of days this week, looking over minute books, interviewing trustees, and receiving a delegation of Broussonians. The Inspector gave the trustees to understand that they had acted entirely within their rights. One ray of hope still glimmers for the Broussonians, however: Does the request the Board served on the ex-principal in May, asking for his resignation, constitute a legal notice of dismissal?
Crawford (entering with a letter): Gentlemen, the letter from the School Inspector has arrived. (Opening it and reading) Sirs: The department of education finds that the trustees were quite justified in their reasons for dismissing Principal Brousson. However, the request for his resignation on May 30th was not a regulation dismissal, which must be served before the end of May. Therefore, the trustees are ordered to reinstate Principal Brousson.
Hayes (erupting): What? The ex-principal is deemed worthy of dismissal, but he gets to stay because the trustees were too late in putting the skids under him? Because they extended to him the gentleman’s privilege of resigning, instead of being dismissed outright, which he refused to accept? We’re stuck with this delectable pedagogue?
Cherrington (taking the letter and reading): Further, Mr. Crawford, being the shareholder in a company that has done business with the School Board, is disqualified as a trustee. No charge is made that Mr. Crawford used the position for the firm’s benefit; nevertheless, he is ordered to resign.
Crawford: My resignation will be turned in tomorrow.
Hayes (furious): The most damnable feature of the whole mix-up is the raw deal handed Trustee Crawford! Up rise the Broussonians, and in the crudest, most un-British and discourteous fashion demand his head! Why such unseemly haste to discredit a permanent citizen who gives of his time and means, and has done something in every possible direction to make the Valley a bigger and better place to live in?
Jackson: I move that Principal Brousson be reinstated immediately.
Hayes (gloating): Trustee Jackson fails to get a seconder for his motion. And why should he? In the ex-principal we have a johnny-come-lately who would pull his freight tomorrow if he had $5 a month higher salary offered to him! He is a non-entity in the public life of the community in every direction – religious included!
Brousson: I certainly intend to remain, even under these circumstances.
Hayes (to the audience): Considerable space has been taken in this paper to accommodate the school controversy. Editors have a weakness for seeing to it that letters on public questions do not go unanswered. It’s good for business – and people like it, judging by the demand there has been for Reviews this past month.