Maurice H. Cline: A principal with principles
You could always tell when Morris was enjoying a good joke. His deep belly laugh would begin in the soles of his size 12 Dacks and rumble up through his six-foot-four-inch frame. Morris’s great guffaw then usuallyended with a vigorous ham-handed slap to his right thigh.
Officially, Maurice H. Cline reigned as principal of Orangeville High School from 1941 to 1969. His friends and colleagues called him simply Morris. When askedwhat his middle initial “H.”stood for, he’d reply, “It’s justan initial, make it whatever name you want.”
The clickers on Morris’s heels served as his built-in early warning system. As he patrolled the cavernous high school halls, his distinctive Clydesdale-like clip-clop would be the signal that Morris was approaching. If you were doing something that you shouldn’t be, you had plenty of time to appear the picture of innocence by the time he arrived.
During my teaching career, I’ve worked with principals who acted more like CEOs of companies than school principals. One such colleague with a frosty attitude traditionally wore a three-piece, pin-striped suit with a gold watch chain draped across his ample paunch.
Morris wasn’t one of those formal types. He usually wore a non-descript suit, and more often than not was jacketless with his shirt-sleeves rolled up above his elbows as he tackled one of his many projects.
His friends describe Morris as a people person. He was a hands-on principal who taught physics and chemistry, and seemed to know everything that was going on in his school. Morris knew all the students by name and had taught most of their parents as well. Each year before the new school term began, he would visit the home of every farm youngster who was planning to attend his school in the fall. Morris would ask these students their aims in life, and before leaving he usually gave them any advice that he felt necessary.
Morris was a do-it-yourself person willing to take on almost any task. The fact that his father had been a blacksmith in the St. Thomas area probably instilled in Morris an appreciation of the value of manual labour. In addition to being principal and teaching science
classes, Morris taught students how to lay cement blocks and electrically wire a house. Morris dug out his own basement and I assume built its foundation. He installed a walk-in freezer and a photographic darkroom in this new addition. As an ardent shutterbug, Morris supplied images for the school yearbook, which he printed on his offset press. Following the birth of our daughter in 1969, Morris arrived uninvited and unannounced at our apartment door. He took a few photos of our new addition, waved goodbye and handed me a set of finished prints several days later.
Following his death in 1983, in excess of three thousand negatives and photographs were part of Morris’s legacy. The photos included aerial views of Orangeville
and shots of a large variety of activities in town. These historic images, which Jean Turnbull catalogued, are presently in storage in the Dufferin County Museum Archives.
Morris was a very ethical man who belonged to the Orangeville United Church and the Orangeville Rotary Club. He printed the Rotary newsletter, and would frequently add his own little personal editorial witticisms to stories before final printing. For his services as a Rotarian, he was flattered to receive the auspicious Paul Harris Rotary award.
Morris was a man most suited to his times, but I’m sure that he couldn’t function in our present educational climate. Morris would probably lock horns with teachers’ unions, the changed attitudes of parents and students, and the increased size of the present board of education.
Cline was not a saint, and I’m sure that he stepped on a few sensitive toes during his years in Orangeville, but as Jean, one of his original secretaries noted, “People will never know how much good Morris Cline really did during his life in Orangeville!”
Clare McCarthy (retired Department Head of Math) in The Orangeville Banner, Tuesday, September 30, 2008