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| James H. Hoose |
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| William H. Clark, President, Cortland School Board. |
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| Cortland Normal School. |
SUPT. DRAPER AND DR. HOOSE.
Letters That Explain Themselves—Dr. Hoose
Hits Back.
The
following correspondence explains itself and will be interesting reading to every
reader of the DEMOCRAT:
ALBANY,
July 28, 1891.
Dr. JAMES
H. HOOSE, Thousand Island Park, N. Y.,
Sir: At
the time of our convention at Toronto, in which you suggested that it would be
unpleasant for you to continue in the Cortland school a portion of the year,
under all the circumstances, I advised that you should consider the matter further
and see me again before leaving, but for some reason we did not again meet. What
you then said impressed me as having much force, and subsequent developments made
it even more clear that, if there is to be a change in a principal there, it
should take place prior to the opening of the school.
My views
of the law touching the relations of the Board and Superintendent, as declared
by the Court of Appeals in your case some years ago, and my knowledge of all
the facts as they exist, have led me to advise you that a change was inevitable
in a little time, at least. I have been anxious to defer it long enough to
enable you to secure a suitable position elsewhere, and have intended to hold
the resolutions of the Board without acting upon them, for some time, even to
the close of the fall term if need be, in the belief that by that time, there
would be an opening for you elsewhere, and the difficulties of the situation would
be largely removed. But it becomes clear that this is not practicable. You saw
it earlier than I. The fact that there is to be a change is gaining publicity through
different channels, and will of course make it disagreeable for you to remain
there. I had hoped that the unpleasant relations between yourself and the board
would become modified, but the hope is not realized. You tell me that the Board
treats you unfairly, and the Board claims that you have misrepresented the facts
and given out that you had defeated and overthrown their action, and that you treat
the Board and its members with contempt. Again, there are to be several new teachers,
and some consequent readjustment of work and it is also true that whoever is to
be principal of the school hereafter might better be upon the ground while the
work upon the new building is in progress.
It,
therefore, seems to me best that the change take effect at once, and I write to
advise you to send in your resignation and relieve me from the necessity of
approving action which formally removes you from the position. I am sure that
this will be wiser for you and it will be more agreeable for me. If you act
upon the suggestion, I shall, as I nave said to you, be very glad, so far as I
now know, to call upon you for such extra assistance in conducting the
institutes as we may need, until you become located to your satisfaction. I am
Yours
very respectfully,
A. S.
DRAPER, Superintendent.
CORTLAND,
N. Y., August 3, 1891.
Hon. A. S. Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction,
Albany, N. Y.
DEAR SIR:—Yours of July 28, calling for my
resignation has received attention. The letter very gravely misapprehends the spirit
and tenor of the talk which I had with you at noon, Saturday, July 11, in Queen's
Hotel, Toronto. My clear understanding with Hon. Charles R. Skinner, Deputy
Superintendent of Public Instruction, had with him at noon June 30 last, in the
Cortland House, Cortland, immediately after the close of our (43rd)
commencement exercises, was the same as that which I had with you in your
office, A. M., of June 25th last. It was explicit, and to the effect that I
should not resign my position under the request of the board made on me June 1
last, as I stated in my answer to the board, made June 8, that if a business
proposition came to me, offering a good situation, I was to accept it—provided it
was satisfactory to me, and to the entertaining of which I was a voluntary party;
and that until such an opening came matters in Cortland were to remain as they
were. Mr. R. B. Smith of the board, who was present at the board meeting held
in the afternoon of June 30, says that Mr. Skinner placed the above
understanding explicitly before the board at that meeting. You conveyed to some
friends of mine who were in your office July 3, the idea that you had in mind a
very valuable and desirable position for me. I approached you in Toronto in
order to learn what business proposition you had in prospect for me, and I
suggested that if I were to be offered, soon after the opening of next term, a
situation which I might be induced to accept, that it might be as well for our
school to open in September without me.
You responded that you were tired of the
trouble at Cortland; that you had left Albany
hoping to hear nothing more of the case while away; and you asked me if I was
tired of it also, querying if it would not be very unpleasant for me to open
the school next term, to which remarks I answered "no"
immediately—for I recollected instantly your remarks made to a friend of mine
in your office May 20, and repeated to me there June 25, touching the social
life of unhappiness which you thought we must have in Cortland, owing to school
troubles; it was explained to you that our social life in Cortland was exceedingly
pleasant, for our friends were very cordial as well as very numerous. Your
conversation at Toronto continued to the effect that members of the board had
told you I had boasted of my victory, thus humiliating them before the public, and
that you had promised them you would assign me to another position in time;
that I should be on the lookout for a position elsewhere; that a teacher in a normal
school should have due notice given when demanding his resignation—a time which
I had not had; that you had concurred to remove from our school, only a few
days before, a teacher who had had ample notice from the board, and should
therefore have resigned; that my relations with the Department had been always
of such a loyal character that I was entitled to proper consideration therefor;
that the majority of the board were your appointees and you had not lost
confidence in them; that you had no situation to offer me, except that which
was conditional and temporary; and that my ultimate choice rested between
accepting from you this temporary work, or eventual removal; that I could think
over this matter and see you again on the following Monday, July
13. As I
had said to you on Saturday that I had not boasted of a victory or done
anything to humiliate the majority of the board; as I was no party to your
promise to the board; as you had no business proposition to make to me, other
than a temporary one; as I had stated explicitly to you June 25, that I should
not entertain a temporary business calculated merely to lure me to resign, and
as the only matter to think over was that of the choice of alternates for me, I
had therefore nothing further to say on the subject, and did not see you again
at Toronto.
Permit me to say that your conversation at
Toronto, July 11, and the contents of your letter of July 28, are in striking
contrast to all of your talks with me down to about the time when it began to
be apparent that members of the board had received an assurance that you would
concur with a majority of the board. The following instances exhibited the
unfolding of the case:
INSTANCES DURING
1886.
I met you first in your law office in
Albany, January 28; you were a candidate for the office of Superintendent of
Public Instruction; I said incidentally that we had earned in the school at Cortland
the right to live in peace in the future; you answered that you were sure we
were entitled to enjoy peace. All the Cortland friends of the members of the
"old board" and myself—as well as ourselves—advocated your candidacy,
and you gave assurances of active co-operation for preserving and promoting
peace and prosperity in our school, should you be elected. You were elected;
and no one of the friends who aided you then has been placed by you upon the
board—nor have any of their recommendations been honored by you. Instead, your
appointees are those who were active to promote the candidacy of others during
that canvass, they are those who were pronounced in the opposition to the
"old board" and to myself in the controversies of 1880-2; when we
resisted and overthrew in the Court of Appeals the illegal power that was
assumed by one of your predecessors.
INSTANCES DURING
1887.
At commencement at Cortland,
June 28, during public remarks you said that our school was "second to
none in the State in its management.'' At the meeting of Normal principals held
in New York, in the American Museum of Natural History, I expressed to you
after dinner, October 19, solicitude for judicious appointments when you should
fill the vacancies then existing in our board. You intimated that you should
make your appointments upon political advice, but that you should not do
anything that should disturb the present order of things in Cortland; you would
act for peace and prosperity. The latter part of November, I was told that you
had said to a Congressman and an Assemblyman that no appointments to the board
should be made that would not be acceptable to me. November 21, Judge Duell and
a friend saw you in your office; upon return home, they said that you assured
them you "should not do anything to unsettle affairs" at Cortland.
Formal notice reached the board December 17, of your first appointments. These
two appointments were ominous of subsequent trouble, for the appointees had
been in the forefront of opposition to the board and myself in 1880-2.
This act of yours raised in my
mind the thought that you purposed ultimately to remove me, and the idea of my
leaving the school arose in my own mind as well as in the minds of friends. But
the idea was dismissed after a time, for the first time I saw you thereafter—at
an institute at Canajoharie, December 22—when I expressed deep solicitude as to
the outcome, saying our people were disappointed and anxious over your action,
you asked me to see you in Albany to talk over the situation; and you said that
you would see that no harm came to me from your appointments, and that I need
not worry for you would take care of me. Articles appeared in the press of last
December, entitled "Hoose Must Go," indicating the effect upon the public
made by your appointments.
INSTANCES DURING
1888.
An Assemblyman told me,
January 10, that Superintendent Draper said to him that the conditions of his
appointments (of Dec., 1889) were that they should raise no issue on the
principal, but should work in harmony with him, for no attacks upon him will be
permitted, as "Dr. Hoose is too valuable a man to be disturbed."
At the meeting of School
Commissioners, Binghamton, I saw you the first time since our meeting at
Canajoharie. You called me into your room in Hotel Bennett, in the evening of
January 19, and stated to me that your appointments had been made at the
instance of a State Senator; that there was a distinct understanding between the
Senator and the appointees that in no way were they to enter the board for the purpose
of reviving old issues or to make trouble for the administration, and that you
had refused to make the appointments until these conditions were agreed to by the
appointees; that, hence, I need have no fear of trouble from them. This assurance
you repeated to me January 20, adding the remark that I should rest entirely free
from anxiety because of our board. Alluding to a prediction of trouble made in
a recent issue of an educational journal, you remarked that you saw no reason
why the paper should state that, as the appointees would cause no trouble. At
the meeting of the State Teachers' Association, Watkins, at your hotel, in the
evening of July 5, you said "I will not leave you in a hole," when I
explained how the majority had passed, May, 26, a resolution calculated to
embarrass the administration of school work—as is fully explained in my answer to
the board, made June 8, 1891.
At the meeting of Normal
principals, Buffalo, October 16, in the Genesee House, you asked me if there was
any "blood in the cloud" at Cortland, referring to the acts of the
majority towards the administration— you had non-concurred October 2, in the rules passed May 26. In the evening of October 16, during a
stroll about Buffalo, you said to me in effect that you would stand by me in every
way; that I had an established reputation in my profession; and that I should
be defended by you as long as you should remain in office. October 26, an
alumnus of our school told me that a member of the majority of the board said
to him their policy was to curtail my power —a policy fully exhibited in my
answer of June 8. At Syracuse, at the meeting of academic principals, I
explained to you, December 27, that members of the board were interfering with
my prerogatives as principal by giving over my head authority direct to the
students—a practice which must stop. You said that you did not "want any
fuss at Cortland," and that you would go to Cortland to meet the board and
myself, or you would meet us at Albany, to adjust the provinces of authority
between the board and the principal. These provinces had already been outlined
in your letter of October 2—see my answer of June 8.
INSTANCES DURING
1889.
At the meeting of School
Commissioners held in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, I said to you January 8, that I should ask
you to come to Cortland to meet the board and myself to stop the encroachments
upon my authority as principal, unless they ceased, for our students were
becoming demoralized by the interference; you said that you would meet us, if
wanted. In my office, in the forenoon of February 15, one of the majority
raised some point of administration that interfered with my official duties; I
suggested that you be invited to visit Cortland to settle the provinces of
authority; he said "It would not sound well to have that done — we could
agree;" he called again in the afternoon of that day and said that
hereafter they would deal with the students only through the principal. Another
member of the majority said to me March 19, that he wished only one head to the
school; that I should administer discipline myself. On April 23, one of the
majority said to me that he should write to you to visit Cortland to consult
about employing teachers before any nominations were made; he informed me April
25 you could not come until May 14. This same member informed me by letter May
2, that "The Superintendent has endorsed the Prang System (of Drawing) for
the State" — a matter that touched materially our work in school, and a
notice I had not known before. This showed an understanding on professional subjects
between the board and you that I had been ignorant of. Suddenly, the board
nominated two teachers May 4 —ten days before you could be present for consultation.
You were at the meeting of
Normal principals in Cortland, May 14. One of the nominees, being in town, did
not call on you, nor had I been called upon by said nominee. On the evening
train from Cortland to Binghamton that day, I suggested that perhaps I had better
leave the school, as the aggressive course of the majority touching my
authority and advisory province as principal might work ultimate injury to the
school; you answered that you did not want me to leave, but to stay, as I was doing good work here; I said that if there was a Normal principal
in the State more devoted to his work than I was, I should like to know him;
you said there was none. During this ride you suggested that you would summon
to Albany the nominee who did not call on you while in Cortland; I approved.
May 17, in the afternoon, the said nominee called upon me at my office, by
"request of the Superintendent." I wrote you May 17, that the conference
was satisfactory. You wrote May 18, the candidate "quite agreed that it
was a mistake that he had not called upon you previously, and gave me every assurance
that, if confirmed, he should cooperate with you in all ways for the advantage of
the school. In view of that fact, and of the contents of your letter, confirmation
will follow at once."
INSTANCES DURING
1890.
In January and February
nominations of teachers were made by the board. Your official course in those
cases was in direct variance to that taken in the case of May, 1889, although at the meeting of the Department of Superintendence,
New York, while we were walking from the hotel to the evening session,
February 18, you said to me, alluding to appointment of teachers, that I might
rest assured you would not see me "imposed upon." May 18, you made
two more appointments to the board. On December 2, I met at the school one of
the architects and assisted him in planning for a new building, and for
improving the present building—two other members of the faculty aided. This aid
was continued December 16-18, and on December 29. Our suggestions were
substantially embodied in the plans which were later adopted by the board.
INSTANCES DURING 1891.
Your fifth appointment to the
board became public about July 1. You wrote April 7, in answer to my letter of
April 4, that you were not responsible for the reports about you on the
streets; that "whenever the affairs of the Cortland school reached me
officially, I shall undertake to do what may seem to be best for the
institution." May 16, the majority began their attack on me, doing it in an unofficial
manner. This was the first notice received from any source that I was not
acting in harmony with the board. My official account of this was laid before
you May 20. You said to a friend May 20, that you had said you would concur with a
majority of the board; that you should think work elsewhere would be agreeable
to me, "say in some other Normal school of the State;" that whatever
your decision in the case might be, "no harm should come to Dr. Hoose."
Acting under your above suggestion about taking work elsewhere, I wrote to you
May 21, that "if you appoint me to a place where I can pursue my
professional labors, the case here can be adjusted amicably and speedily, so
far as I am concerned." You answered May 26: "I know of no position
at present to which I could appoint you, provided your relations to the
Cortland school were severed, but so far as anything has transpired, I should
have no hesitancy in doing so or in approving a nomination made by the local board
of any State Normal school, if a suitable opportunity should present
itself." June 1, came the request of the board that I resign, and my
refusal, June 8.
On June 20, a committee of
prominent citizens of Cortland and the president of the Alumni Association of
the school appeared before you in your office, representing through numerously signed
petitions the citizens of Cortland and vicinity. The alumni and students of the
school all protested against the violent action of the board, and asked you to
non-concur in these attacks on members of the faculty. An extensive
correspondence to the same effect enforced this request of the committee and
petitions. You wrote me June 23, if I did not wish to see or write you on the
action of the board, saying, "I feel inclined to act without much more
delay." With friends, I called on you at your office June 25; you assured
us that there was nothing laid against me. In a subsequent interview with me
that day, you said that you had exacted assurances from your appointees of May,
1890, that they would enter the board to act in harmony with me; you spoke of
several plans you had considered that would place me in more agreeable work
elsewhere in the State; that you had been asked a year ago to remove me that
you had declined to have anything to do with the case, but that you had agreed to
act with a majority of the board. I said that I should not resign under the attacks
of the board—I would be removed first; that I would entertain a business proposition,
if a satisfactory one were offered to me.
In conclusion: Referring to
your letter of July 28:
(1) You alluded to your
"views of the law touching the relations of the board and the
superintendent." Reviewing incidents and past acts, it appears that you stated
May 20 and June 25, that you had promised to concur with the majority in their
acts; that the majority refused, May 16, to meet you to investigate the nature of
the differences and to adjust them; that you positively refused, May 20, to meet
the board and myself to investigate the case, after you had as positively
promise to hold such a meeting; and that you removed early in July one of our
faculty, because the board asked you to do so. The legitimate inference from
the above, is that your views of the law are direct and simple, to wit—that the
business of the Superintendent is to concur with the majority, because they
wish you to do so; and that this view of the law lies under cover of the words,
"immediate supervision," as they exist in the decision of the Court
of Appeals.
The case is reported in 89 New
York Reports, "The People, ex rel., Neil Gilmour, Superintendent, etc.,
respondent, vs. Frederick Hyde et al., appellants." The
"holdings" refer explicitly to the employment and discharging of
teachers, and that this can be done only by concurrent action. Relating to the
Superintendents act of attaching a condition to the contract of hiring, e.g.
"to continue during the pleasure of the local board and the Superintendent,"
the Court says: "We think it clear he had no right to attach such a qualification.
The exercise of such power by him would substitute the caprice of either of the
branches of the appointing power for the joint act of both, as the instrument of
removal, and deprive the teacher of that certain tenure of employment which the
law has provided in his behalf." * * * "The Legislature intended that his employment and its
continuance should rest on the conjoint action of an immediate and a remote
authority, and not on the pleasure of either acting by itself." On the matter
of dissensions, the Court says: "If the local board, upon whom the
responsibility of immediate supervision is devolved, shall mismanage the
school, the entire board or any member of it may be removed by the
Superintendent, with the concurrence of the Chancellor of the University."
* * * "Such a construction of the statute preserves to the school the benefits
of an independent local supervision, while it enables the Superintendent to
arrest a perverse or pernicious course of management before it has impaired the
usefulness of the school."
This decision was supposed to
be in the interest of permanency of tenure of office; but your construction of
it practically converts it into an article that destroys permanency, thus
virtually nullifying the decision of the court. It surpasses my powers as a
layman to understand how these explicit provisions of the decision contain explicit
or implicit, mandatory or permissive provisions, under which a superintendent
may promise to concur with a majority of his own creating, to remove a teacher without
cause and without an investigation, or to understand how the majority of a board
can, under the newly promulgated "due notice" theory, and at its sole
pleasure, implicitly attached to its every act of hiring teachers, a virtual
condition of removal and that, too, without cause and without an investigation.
An investigation in tribunals seeking justice brings the disagreeing parties
face to face—a privilege denied by you.
(2) I am in no way responsible
for the publicity of the reports that there is to be a change of principals at Cortland—hence it is not disagreeable for me
to remain there.
(3) I disclaimed at Toronto
any acts of boasting to humiliate the board.
(4) I have done nothing to
increase this unpleasant feeling which the board entertains toward me—unless it
be my refusal to resign as requested, June 1.
(5) Your own official decision
in my favor cited in my answer of June 8, answers satisfactorily your words,
"you tell me that the board treats you unfairly."
(6) I am entirely unconscious
of any act of mine calculated to treat the board and its members with contempt.
My rule of life is to treat all associates and officials with becoming inspect.
But mark the contrast: Since the close of last term numerous changes have been
made in the faculty; no word touching these has reached me from the majority,
or from you—notwithstanding you said to me June 25 last, no associate teacher
ought to be employed without the approval of the principal—a course universal with
us until the advent of the majority into the board. This treatment towards me can
have only one construction—that the majority have been acting against me with
your knowledge and consent.
(7) To adjust teachers to
their work is neither a new nor a difficult task to me.
(8) It would be no difficult
work for me "to be upon the ground while the work upon the new building is
in progress"—especially as I assisted to elaborate the plans.
(9) You ask me to resign. I
opened the Cortland Normal school March 3, 1869, twenty-two and a half years
ago—sixteen years before you came to your present position. The prosperity and
efficiency of the school are history. As recited before, twice during your
administration of five years I stood ready to leave the school, because of your
appointments of men upon the local board that you knew were inimical to my
administration; but your course persuaded me to remain.
It is too late now to ask me
to resign. I cannot do so with honor to myself, to my friends and to my cause.
Without a single exception, my friends in state and nation, who have
communicated with me on the subject approve my fixed purpose to decline to
comply with requests for my resignation. You offer "to call upon" me for
temporary work if I will resign. I am not seeking this or that place; I am a
candidate for justice; I am an advocate for the inalienable right of the
teacher to enjoy his reputation and position, except for just cause duly
established. Except under the conditions made with Hon. C. R. Skinner, June 30,
I respectfully and firmly refuse to resign my position as principal of the
Cortland Normal School.
I have written at this length,
because in case of injustice to a public man, his ultimate court of appeal is
the public.
Respectfully submitted,
J. H. HOOSE, Principal.
Dr. Hoose and Supt. Gilmour:
Dr. Hoose and Supt. Gilmour:
