At a School Assembly by Jesse Stuart

4.8

George Gallion is the new Principal of Kensington High School. He has taken over a school which is known in the district for its very bad discipline. In his speech to the pupils and teachers, which he made on the first school day, the Principal of the school told of some reforms which he wanted to introduce.

He went after the students and teachers to the Assembly Hall and walked onto the stage, from which his voice could be heard better. They didn’t have a loud-speaker. They had had one which a class in the school had bought themselves but it was broken.

“Pupils and teachers of Kensington High School,” he began in a loud voice that could be heard to the far corners of the Assembly Hall, “William Shakespeare, whom you will read in your classes, made a great mistake when he spoke of the schoolboy as a creature ‘creeping like a snail unwilling to school’. What he said then, about three hundred years ago, was true of the schoolboys of his day in England. But it isn’t true of the schoolboy or schoolgirl of the American schools. I saw you come to school today in buses, in cars, and some of you walking. And you all came looking happy to be at school again.”

Almost all the pupils were looking at the Principal, listening.

“Mr. Riddle, are you out there?” he asked.

“Right here, Mr. Gallion.”

“To my left there are two boys who are very busy looking at some coins,” the Principal said. “Since they do not want to listen and are more interested in their coins, will you please take these young men to my office. I will see them later.”

Then he continued, “This morning we are here, pupils and teachers, and I want to tell you a few things, ask you a few questions, and introduce you to your teachers.”

Then the Principal asked the teachers to stand up as he read their names.

“Now, the last one to be introduced is Mr. Riddle,” said the Principal. “Here he is standing before you, and you know him better than I do!”

Gus Riddle knew about everyone already. He had taught these pupils or had taught their brothers and sisters or visited their farms during the summer-months.

“Hurrah for Old Gus,” someone shouted, the pupils applauded, whistled.

The Principal held his hands up to stop them. “I want also to tell you,” he said, “that as we have not enough teachers, we have had to get help from you, so we could open this school today. So from you we have selected twelve student teachers, who will teach first- and second-year subjects. These are our unpaid teacher’s, who are going to help you, to help us, this school, the country, I want them to stand up.”

The pupils applauded and whispered to each other when the twelve student teachers stood up.

“I heard somebody, when I introduced Mr. Riddle, shout, ‘Old Gus’. That was very bad, you will not call any teachers by their first name. You will address them as Mr. Riddle, Miss Waters, Mrs. Walingford, and as for your student teachers, you will address them as Miss or Mister in the classroom as long as they teach you!

“Now this is your school and we all want it to be clean and in good order. There will be many jobs to do but only good pupils will do them, bad and lazy pupils will have much work to do in the classrooms, they will not have time for other things. You know, pupils’ work is honorable. You will never be given any job as punishment.”

“Now something more,” added the Principal, “and listen carefully to this. I’m not going to write rules and put them up on the bulletin board. You are not little children, many of you are young men and women, and the others will soon be. There will be no more chewing-gum or smoking in this school. And this applies also to teachers. Teachers will not be permitted to smoke or to chew gum either. The school is a clean place and we must keep it so.”

He looked at the small sea of faces looking up at him and added, “And now we will all go to our classrooms and begin our lessons. Good luck to you all.”