Trinity College School - Record Yearbook (Port Hope, Ontario Canada)

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6 TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD is in the courage and enthusiasm he showed on one occasion during, his guidance of Uppingham. and there is an inference to be made ' Early in March, 1878, Vppinghani was threatened with a typhoid epidemic: immediately the Easter vacation was announced, and the School was faced with disintegration. But no! Thring in the short space ut' three weeks had moved his School of 300 boys, 30 masters and families to Borth in Wales under the greatest difficulties, But Headmaster. Assistant Masters and some boys toiled with a will to mould the Hotel and other buildings of healthy Borth to the shape of their needs. The chronicles tell of the enormity ui tne enterprise and interfused is a spirit of romance that never fails to stir a. loyal heart. For a year they lived in exile, the whole Schoo1's heart beat- ing as one, no ephemeral sentiment but a solidarity of purpose and a loyalty to Headmaster unexampled till now. Gentlemen, since the days of Arnold and Thring, but one Head- master has shown the constructive power of these latter, Dr. Salud- erson of Oundle. Have we another as our leader? Those of us who saw our Headmaster on that terrible day witnessed his fortitude un- der a crushing blow, those of us who met him on the succeeding days and felt inspired by his courage and enthusiasm for reconstruc- tion and keeping alive the spirit of T.C.S., those, I say, knowing also his work in the past, will agree that Dr. Orchard is a. gentle- man and a great Headmaster of the quality of Arnold, Thring and Sanderson. . Cf'-

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TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL RECORD 5 x selves by the respect he showed to them, and of showing that he ap- pealed and trusted to their own common sense and conscience. Punishment by flogging he retained but confined it absolutely to moral offences and habitual idleness. Certain evils he recognized as ineradicable by external authority, and the remedy he could only see in a system of self-government among the boys: prefects and fagging. To this he attached great importance not only as an effic- ient engine of discipline, but as the chief means of creating a respect for moral and intellectual excellence, and of diffusing his own in- fluence through the mass of the School His greatest prayer to the boys, whom he put in authority, was: What we must look for here is first, religious and moral principles: second, gentlemanly conductg third, intellectual ability. The name of Edward Thring is coupled with that of Thos. Arnold in naming two great educators who made a clearly defined improve- ment in Public School Education in England during the XIXth. cen- tury. From the matter in the great man's diaries we would gather that he resembles Dr. Arnold in his policy as to punishments. Each succeeded to a remarkable degree in establishing a greater intimacy between master and boy and instilling that wonderful respect for self and School. But I doubt very much if invention and reform are to be more accredited with their success than their personalities. Ou the whole their systems made for better communities from their time on, but some schools have deteriorated .since then with the same prefect systems but lacking that personality that made Rugby and Uppingham. Yet, Thring lived for his profession and that alone. All his lit- erary efforts are based on his work as a schoolmaster, never seeking ecclesiastical preferment in the midst of what was to nlm more con- genial work. And these same publications contain more truth than all the text-books on the practice of teaching. The pursuit of know- ledge as such he depricated, and masters who were a, mummified paste of Greek and Latin verbs he detested. With his own school rapidly improving under? his guidance he continued to be pessimistic and thought the cause still lost, but he worried unduly over little things that, as he thought, marred the whole programme. Thus he continued until his death, always making the Supreme Good his aim which he felt neither Uppingham nor any other school would achieve. Now, where the life of Edward Thring touches us most closely

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