A Foot Ball Player

   In last evening b Argus outside columns appeared an article which has excited considerable interest in Ypsilanti and in certain circles in the city where Superintendent M. A. Whitney, formerly of the Ypsilanti schools is known.  The dispatch was as follows:

    Elgin, Ills.. Feb. 10. -- Superintendent Whitney, of the Elgin schools, and Principal Peirce are bruised because of a fight with Ben Landborg at the high school. After a stormy scene Whitney attempted to shove Landborg out of the room. Landborg is a quiet boy, but was center rush on the foot ball team and objected to being pushed. He hit the superintendent in the solar plexus. Then  Professor Peirce grabbed him around the neck; and attempted to strangle him. The lad threw the nervous little principal straight up in the air, and when the principal struck the floor he lay there. Then Landborg held Superintendent Whitney against the wall with one hand and planted hot shot in the region of the belt. He was an easy victor, only getting a rap on the eye himself. He then departed.

   Thursday of last week Charles Peterson, a member of the senior class, had a little paper, called the Elgin Weekly Reform, which is published by graduates, and has been scoring the faculty. One of the teachers captured it and put it in her desk. Later Peterson went to the desk and took it, for which Professor Peirce suspended him. Saturday the matter was reported to the school board, and they unanimously voted to expel him. Monday evening the class of '99 met and Landborg stated that only one side of the matter had been heard.

   Whitney is an athletic looking man weighing 200 pounds, who was superintendent of the Ypsilanti schools up to about three years ago. He had held that position for four or five years and was a man with strong friends and strong enemies. The school board was equally divided, standing three to three for and against him. His difficulties with the board arose over a variety of little matters, such as trouble over the taking of a school census, the discharging of a couple of men who were working on the new high school building, a jumping jack which someone sent a young lady teacher, etc. He was a good school man but carried an air of pomposity and lacked in diplomacy. Principal Eugene C. Pierce was formerly principal of the Charlotte schools, in this state, when D. A. Hammond, of this city, was superintendent. He is not the slight, slender man the dispatch would seem to indicate, as he must weigh about 175 pounds and was an excellent teacher. The episode will be read with interest.