Appleby College - Argus Yearbook (Oakville, Ontario Canada)

Page 95 text:

Drama was limited, in ' 69 and before, to small one-act plays. When Mr. Davies introduced the Operetta and the three-act play a short time after that, it was en- thusiastically received by the boys in it and the audience who watched it. But it was not on the same scale as the Dramatic Society productions are now. This year, as well as a full length play, and an Operetta, the Junior School put on a fine piece written and directed by Mr. Boyd - something unheard of ten years ago. In the year 1912 the school ' s Dramatic Club presented its first performance called, All in Vain. The Club later became the Appleby Dramatic Society whose first stage appearance being an attempt on the Victorian farce, lei on Parle Francais , which, according to Raymond Massey, who starred in both the aforementioned plays, Nearly put an end to theatre at Appleby. There was a lady who came from Toronto one afternoon per week to teach art. There was no art lab - it was done in the classrooms. Art was not available to the whole school. There is now an adequate art lab and a full time art teacher who runs a very good art program available to students throughout the school. In 1969 there was one piano teacher who came in one afternoon a week to teach a handful of boys. Now, there are over 100 boys taking lessons in one instrument or another, as well as two full time music teachers on the staff. The Argus has changed im- measurably over these years and a Thursday Activity program has been incorporated which has at- tempted to foster interest in the Arts as well as other areas. There is a natural tendency to overexaggerate the fact that the school has grown greatly both physically and, it would seem from the comparisons mentioned in the H.M.S. Pinafore , 1968

Page 94 text:

Arts at Appleby By Graham Leggat It is difficult to readily answer tiie question What has been the development of the Arts at the school over the past ten years. Firstly, what are the Arts? By the Arts, one means, presumably. Art, in various forms such as painting, photography, sculpture, Music (both instrumental and vocal), and Drama, which is basically anything done on stage. It could also mean, to other people, such things as Debating, Dance and Creative Writing. It could even be stretched to include English class since this class should engineer a creative spirit and supply each with the tools of creativity. So, too, could it in- clude certain hobbies practiced during the week and Thursdays, such as the putting together of the Argus, a task whose successful completion necessitates people with a combination of talents in various areas such as writing, photography and a good aesthetic sense so that the book looks like a polished work and not some slap-dash scrapbook. Once one has narrowed down the field or at least come to some sort of workable definition of what con- stitutes the Arts, there is the question of how to judge development. The Arts are by nature subjective, (even something like English which has marks assigned). Thus there are disagreements over the quantity. So without an accepted guage it is hard to judge the development of the Arts. Having arrived at something of an intellectual impasse, the best thing to do is gel back on solid ground. There are some statistics; comparisons between the state of the Arts as they were ten years ago and as they are now. In 1969 there was one piano teacher who came in one afternoon a week to teach a handful of boys.

Page 96 text:

MUSIC T Arts. This does not mean that the School or the students in 1969 were pre-neolithic savages who wrote with crushed berries on papyrus and lived a primitive existence. There were, as there alsvays has been, opportunities. However, the school was small, 240 total enrollment as opposed to 380 present, and interest in the Arts was also small. There has not been an improvement in all areas either. For instance, in the 50 ' s Mr. Bott took a very good choir on an extremely successful tour of the U.K. (losing only one game). Since then it seems, despite the recent use of incentives, interest in the choir has almost died com- pletely. This lack of interest in the choir is indicative of another area which seems to have become worse. That is, the general attitude towards the Arts. Our school is, not suprisingly, a microcosm of society at large. There exists in society a closed-mindedness, a resistance to the Arts. It may be conscious criticism such as the pseudo tough makes - Painting is for faggots, man. or it may be the unconscious turning off that seems to occur in most English classes each time the teacher brings out the poetry book. In both, it is a fear of the unknown.