Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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students. The Department of Education gave the first experiments their blessing, Because of the Pickering experiments they have since established training courses in conservation teaching for elementary school teachers Sixteen REPORT -Denny Burton And yet, when looking back In retrospect, I see in all the things I Did. Only part of what is free. And freedom counts but as a memory For I have done so little. Above the skies so azure- The love of life and spirit Bound here upon green hills XVithin each petal, a shaft of concrete Holding dear each thin tiny thrill Of rain on rocks and call of bird so wanton. And the spheres resound with notes Vnheard before, behind the bell Chiming with never fear of time. For there in that brown cup Hangs, what I know as God 's measure. Calling from the slates Upon broken shells of dust, I see the formula: IVherein all is given to Him, And I see all the things I did, And I have done so little.

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THE PI 0NEE PIRI T U'rDo0R EDUCATION has been a part of the programme at Pickering since its founding in 1842. The first students spent part of their time doing significant work on the farm at West Lake, the school 's original site. After the school was moved to Newmarket, Mr. A. S. Rogers insisted that a farm be added to the school property and that the farm be available to the students, Since 1927 this has been so. Under the direction of Mr, R. H. Perry ,grades 9 and 10 spent the afternoons of the spring term developing outdoor projects which ranged in variety from a golf course to a calf club. Many generations of students return to the school now to see the evidence of their efforts in the tree groves, the flower beds, the lily pond and the walks and paths about the grounds. In 1933 the school embarked on a recreational education experiment by taking the whole school into the Muskoka bush in Winter for skiing. For several years, when skiing was just beginning to be the popular outdoor winter activity which it is now, students learned to ski, learned to like the winter, found the exhilaration of roaming through the bush on snow. NVith the establishment of the elementary department in 19-10 the school launched another experiment in outdoor education for the boys of the Prep. On the school farm a pioneer village, Myerstown, was built. by the students who planned the project in the classroom and carried it out during the afternoons of the spring term. This was a complete and involved under- taking as the students planned and designed the structures, obtained by barter some of the materials and purchased others, organized a government along 'ttown meeting lines and took several years to complete the plan. The conservation of the resources of our country has become a matter of concern to the public generally and to educators in particular. In other countries a good deal of the conservation education is carried on in the elementary and secondary schools through school camping projects. A whole classroom is moved to a campsite sometime during the school year for a period ranging from a week to a month. The students are at school there under thc supervision of their classroom teacher. The classes are held out ot' doors for the most part and the curriculum is chieiiy natural science with the emphasis placed on conservation. Pickering undertook to experiment with this form of outdoor education in 1950. The feasibility of taking a class to the bush for a week has been proven. A number of state schools - elementary and junior high schools - have taken up the idea successfully. Through the excellent cooperation of the Department of Lands and Forests very able instructors provide the specialized leadership needed to make the projects worthwhile learning experiences for the Fifteen

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memoriam AVID CLAXTON, while fishing with friends along a swift Labrador river, died by drowning' on the fourteenth of June. David was two years embarked on a eareer in medieine - a c-areer ehosen through the knowledge that he eould help people, and chosen that he might best be prepared. He was twenty-two. The son of the Honourable Brooke Claxton, he was at Pickering' College from the fall of 19-16 until June, 19-19. liven those who barely knew David remember well the understanding and eoneern for others that marked him among his fellows. Those of us who lived on the corridors with himg worked with him and struggled with and against him on the playing field, are strangers to death because we are young, and to us it is unreal. To eoneeive of a friend having gone from usg not returning at some time, nor living elsewhere still, is beyond our thought, And in this we may eome me-loser to reality than in a eolder eoneept of the grave. lf there is truth in the poet 's thought, I am a part of all that I have met. then there is truth that David remains among us. For this quiet, and reserved young man left with all whom he met, and where he went, not only the memory ot' himself but a measure of his kind and temperate per- son. L 1-1 rr: David 010.71071 ' Setenzceh