Ashbury College - Ashburian Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

Page 16 text:

-V17 Ashbury House y School, Wellington Street 1 'ffafyf ' si Ashbury College, Argyle Avenue a5'1.,4fc4.r7 I 9 ao -' 1' 91 0 . A G49-:Q 651141 Jflfllwla - Q ,, currently underlining the need for a fresh programme of construction, plans for which are now being matured. For over half a century Ashbury has been operated as a non profit foundation, and its grounds, buildings and funds used solely for the beneht of the educational community of Canada, and above all, of Ottawa. For Ashbury is essentially an Ottawa School. Among its hundred boarders and eighty day boys are many from Montreal and from the farthest confines of our country, but its nucleus and its heart have always been in and of Ottawa. As Ottawa has expanded, so has Ashbury, and now, with the growth of Ottawa into a great capital city of world importance, the Roll Book of Ashbury College reflects, in its cosmopolitan aspect and the wide variety of background which it symbolizes, the metropolitan outlook of its native city. The broad View which such an enrolment, with its blend of race, religion and education, at once typifies and inculcates, may be taken

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HISTORICAL SECTION f ' -:'v4A,,,, iM Ashbury Xlanor House, lfngland The f0I10'1L'ilIg' text of .1 radio address delivered over CKOY on .lldrvb Xtln by fl. D. Brain, Esq., .-1.v.tixra11r Headnmxrer, 711.1-V .rppropriarcllv be reprodured here as .111 L'lL'L'07lIpdlIf7ll6lI1' to it plnotograplnit' record of the p!.nn'e.t .md fares of .-lxhlwzrrjv during the Si.'CZ'y-0716 years of its derrclopmelzf. SHBURY College has just celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. It was founded in 1891 by the late Dr. G. P. lYoollcombe, whose death in the vigour of his age we mourned last summer. lts development has followed a pattern common among the great independent schools of Canada. Mr. VVoollcombe's School, as it was First called, opened as a private enterprise in the Victoria Chambers, on the site of the Victoria Building. Success came rapidly, and in 189-1 premises were acquired at the corner of Wellington Street, where the ofliices of the Metropolitan Life lnsur- ance Company stand. lt was then known as Ashbury House School, after an ancient manor of the XYoollcombe family in Devonshire. The name of Ashbury College was assumed in 1900 after its incorporation as an educational trust, and a move to the property on Argyle Avenue now occupied by the lYindsor Arms. ln 1910 a further expansion transferred the School to the grounds in Rockclilfe Park. The nucleus of the present structure was erected, to be increased by the generosity of friends, until the buildings were completed by the addition of the Memorial lYing, dedicated to the Qld Boys who fell in the first Cireat VVar, and of the Headmastens House in 1926. Growing numbers are

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lhe School about lvlli. :X rgylc Ax cnue exhi- 1 P 4 41 Gym class at :Xrgvle Axenue. -. A- lllllbllf VND LA as the distinguishing characteristic of Ashbury College. and its major justification for existence. Cnhampered by bureaucratic restrictions. it is free to experiment in the combination of the best of Canadian. Ilnglish and American techniques with the mental stimulus afforded by its window on the world. Rigorous academic standards are enforced by the insistence of its parent body on the preparation of their sons for entrance at a high level to an unusually wide range of universities. These academic disciplines are tempered by a rich provision of voluntary activities. administered largely by the boys themselves through their Clubs-among which are the International Relations Club. the Debating Society. the Geographers. the Cercle francais. the Dramatic Society. the Classical Association, the Nlusic Club. and above all the Science Club-in which the inspiration provided by distinguished visitors and by tours to focal points of the city and surrounding country. combines with mutual inliuence of boys endowed with a broad selection of