Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-06-07
aa11rdster futellgenrer.
TUESDAY EVENING, JUNE 2, 1881.

TUESDAY EVENING. JUNE 2, 1881.
The 1illersville Revelt.
A more than slight suspicion must
pervade the community that DR..
Brooks ID not competent for the headship
of the Aillersville normal school. How
ever skillful he may be as a teacher,
and whatever his knowledge of the
things taught, the many disturbances in
the school sufficiently testify that he has
not the temper, tact and judgment inn
peratively required in the chief a large
educational institution. DR.. Brooks
does himself injustice in contin.
uing in position for which he is not
naturally fitted and the trustees of
the school do it and its students
injustice in maintaining DR.. Brooks
in a place he is manifestly not COM
petent to properly fill. The Millers-
vile students are not boys and girls, but
young men and women. Moreover, they
are preparing themselves to be teachers,
and consequently are naturally inclined
to that subordination to their teachers
which they know is necessary to the
proper conduct Of any school. This re-
be)lion, therefore, against the action of
Mr.. Brooks, nearly unanimous as it is, is
sufficient of itself to show that it has q
reasonable foundation and is not a child
ish ebullition. 1t does not, of course,
show that the students are altogether
right or Mr.. Brooks entirely wrong, but
it does show that they have fair cause
of complaint.
No one will have any difficulty in dis
covering this to be SO from the facts as
we print them. Briefly stated the case
stands thus Complaint was made in
one of the school publications OF a rule
which forbade any male to be in company
with any female on the grounds; the
teachers, however, not being subject to
this rule. Clearly there was reason for the
students objection to the rigorous appli-
cation of this rule, but this is not the
question which has caused the collision
between them and DR.. Brooks. He de-
clared on Friday to the assembled stu
dents that they would not be permitted
to unduly criticise his action that the
trustees had wished him to establish
rule to this effect, but that he had not
done SO in the kindness of his heart. On
Saturday evening, at a students gather
ing in the chapel, being an annual re-
union of the literary societies, the .prin-
cipal was sharply criticised by two of
the speakers for the Objectionable rule
and for his attempt to stife criticism of
it; ana for this they have been expelled
or suspended.
1t must be conceded that the authori-
ties of a school are empowered to enact
such rules as they please, the students
being at liberty to leave if they don't
like them. The rule as to intercourse,
however silly was therefore to be Obeyed.
And the trustees of the school might
have had the power to forbid criticism
of their action by q rule to that effect.
Such a rule, however, DR.. Brooks de-
clared to the students they had not adopt
ed. Himself he did not have the
power to enact it SO that they seem to
have had a right to speak their criti-
cisms unhindered by any properly estab-
lished rule.
However this may he certainly Prof.
Brooks would not, if he had been reas-
Onably sagacious and sensible ruler,
have thrust himself into a students
meeting and have searched among their
utterances for such as might be sufficient
ly disrespectful to him to require him to
demand their expulsion, rs necessity to
preserve his authority and smooth his
ruffled feathers.
We print what these students said
and our readers will agree with us, we
think, that most of it was very sensibly
said. Some expressions were probably
not as respectful to the principal as en-
tire good taste would have had them but
neither were they as abusive as they
might naturally have been expected to
be made, considering that it was the
right of free speech that was sought to
lie denied them right which is of all
others the most precious to the Ameri-
can mind. whether it be young or old.