Evening star., 1908-01-12
DR.. CHANCElLOR'S VERSION
CONDEMNS CHARGES UPON
WHICH He WAS DEPosED.
Declares Part of the Testimony Be-
fore Board of Education
Was False.

DR.. William E. Chancellor former su-
perintendent of public instruction de-
clares he will gladly appear before the
Senate investigating committee and tell
about the conditions in the local schools
as he sees them if called on to do So
This is borne out by statement which
ha gave out to d Star reporter yesterday
through Mrs. Chancellor. 1t was stated
that he was confined to his bed as the
result of exertion in the morning in at
tending to several business errands. When
asked what conditions in the schools he
would comment upon. if called before the
committee. he stated that he did not care
to discuss his testimony in advance of
the hearing.
In a recent interview DIR. Chancellor de-
elared that the charges against him upon
(which he was deposed We're false: that the
board of education had no evidence to sup
port some of them. and that some of the
testimony which he had heard of as pro-
duced in the hearing was false. He add
ed that he had not obtained the details of
the evidence produced against him.
When he was asked to present his side
of the charges which he declared to be
false. he replied: Il will only mention
one or two, but could talk about
the matter for fifty hours, if my
condition would permit. l was asked
few days ago how long it would take me
to dictate my deposition. and I replied
leo hours. One of the charges against
was that I disobeyed the orders of
the board of education. This referred to
my staying away longer on my vaca-
tion than | had permission. The truth
of the matter is. | was going to return
on the original date set, but one of the
officials of the board told NE none of the
supervising principals was in town. and
that if | did return there would be moth
ing for me to do.
"Other charges were te stified to that
were false, but / cannot take the time to
enumerate them.
Evidence was introduced al the hear
ing. saying was in Chicago one Wednes-
day morning at O'Clock. A little later
another witness for the prosecution said
was in Philadelphia late the night be-
fo:e and did not reach Chicago until the
following afternoon. This last statement
was true. But this Is just an instance
of the many times the witnesses for the
prosecution contradicted themselves.
Visited Every School.
Several supervising principals. testified
l had not visited their schools. when. as
d matter of fact, / visited every school
room in the city while ! was superin-
tendent, and some of them as manY as
fifteen times. But the most surprising
fact is that during that time / didn't see
but one supervising principal in the
SchoolroCms. II they didn't have time to
inspect the schoolrooms often. with only
about five schools in each division. how
could they expect me to visit the 1,7OO
teachers had to look after?
THE supervising principals are merely
clerks, and really don't have time to visit
their schools as they should. yet they
doing things they don't do themselves.
In fact, their testimony was given to
support a charge made. and not to show
where ! had really been deficient in my
work '-
Stuart's Action a Surprise.
Dr. Chancellor said that he was sur
prised that Mr. Stuart accepted the posi-
tion of superintendent, because, he said
he would not have come to Washington
if he had known Mr.. Stuart would accept
I'm fact. believe he is being used as
tool by the board of education" he added
DR.. Chancellor statedsh is recovering
from a recent illness and expects soon to
be ready to take an active part in his fight
against the board. He said that he sleeps
we'll In regard to his loss of voice when
he appeared before the board to testify
DR.. Chancellor said that two days before
he drove in from Maryland sanitarium
to his home in this city and that he took
cold. Previous to his appearance on the
witness stand. he added. he was COM
PEELED to sit in a cold room for over an
hour Consequently, he said when he
went onto the witness stand and wanted
to talk he was unable to.