The North Eastern Ensign at KellyGang 5/11/1872
BENALLA ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL
To the Editor of the North-Eastern Ensign
Sir,-The report of Mr School Inspector Geary, which you recently published, on his mock inquiry relative to the charges which the correspondent, the Rev Mr Egan, and his partisans preferred against me as teacher of the above school, contains such a wilful misrepresentation of facts that were I to pass it sub silentio, the public at a distance might conclude that the anomalous and ideal statements therein set forth were based upon promises correctly laid down. That no such impression may remain upon the minds of a discriminating public, I shall, with your per mission, analyse that remarkable document - when its injustice and onesidedness will at once become apparent.
It must be remembered that, when I got the "notice to quit" from the Christian and reverend correspondent; I immediately protested against the impropriety of the proceedings which were shadowed forth in that little scrap of paper - "We unanimously agreed to dismiss you!" and Mr Geary was expressly sent to Benalla to take evidence on the truth or falsity of the charges made against me; for the information of the Board.
I was notified that in inquiry was to take place on it day named; the correspondent and his associates, I presume, got a similar notification. After all this formula there was no investigation; the Inspector shirked his duty, and in an extremely unfair manner went about the township with the correspondent and Messrs M'Gillicuddy and Willis, and went to parties whom they imagined would have a hard word upon me, heard an exparte statement from a few who were entirely uninterested In the school, and upon this information wrote the report which inevitably sealed my fate. The report says, "For a long time the correspondent has been dissatisfied with Mr Fitzimons." I should like to know when his dissatisfaction commenced, and what really created it; it is scarcely two years since he assumed the correspondentship, and less than one, year since I took an active part in endeavouring to procure a resident priest for the district, and previous to this latter event I was unexceptionally good in the eyes of my reverend friend; so after all, Mr Geary, his dislike of me is not immemoriably retrospective - and he continues, "only recently held an investigation as to his having been frequently absent from school." What monstrous detraction and how unjust to me to say so ?
Father Egan says, in his verbose letter that appeared a short time since in the O and A Advertiser, that "he received a letter from a gentleman (?) in Benalla saying that I was absent for days from the school;" this was a grand discovery, the plot was now successful and only required to be triumphantly consummated. His reverence comes to Benalla with an impetuosity of spirit almost in credible, rushes to the school which was the assembling after dinner, and without any ceremony says to one of the girls, Mary Ann Moore, "Was the master away yesterday?" The girl hesitated, and tremblingly said, " Yes sir. "How long," he says. "Only half a day, sir." I interposed, and said, "Tis no use in your striving to humiliate me before those children. I was half a day away yesterday, while the school was taught by Mr Booth and Mrs Fitzsimons. My absence was unavoidable - there is no crime attached to it."
This remonstrance would not satisfy him; he went on with his unwarrantable interrogations. He said to a little girl (Polly Brown), "Does the master go to court every day to report the police cases?" "Oh yea," she answers, " he generally goes every day." This reply was noted down, although a swarm of voices cried out "No he doesn't," and to cap the climax of this uncalled for questioning he wanted to know you know, "Did the master call the roll to-day?" although it was marked before him on the table at the time. This then is the investigation to which the Inspector refers. I shall leave it to a discriminating public to say if such contemptible conduct are any of the characteristics possessed by gentlemen. The Inspector again says, "On one occasion Mr Fitzsimons was two days absent from the school during which time a Mr Booth was in charge." This is most incorrect, and how Mr Geary could be induced to write such a transparent untruth, even to gratify the propensities of a local committee would puzzle the sages to understand.
During the 10 years I was teacher of the school one half-day was the most I was ever absent during the time allotted to school hours, and then Mr Booth and Mrs Fitzsimons conducted it. It was Mr Inspector Geary who recommended Mr Booth to come to my school that he might learn the "art of teaching" previous to recommending him to a school. The report next says - "the parents complained to the correspondent, to Mr M'Gillicuddy, and to Mr Byrnes" This is utterly without foundation; neither one or other of them ever heard a complaint from the children's parents. If they did, why not come forward like men and substantive what they heard; instead of which, I believe, they went about in the most unfair manner, misleading the Inspector and getting him to make a report which is incorrect from beginning to end. I have always received the grateful thanks of the parents of the children for the high tone of morality that always pervaded the school, and for the very solid and sound instruction that imparted to their children.
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