Royal St Georges College - Georgian Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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'REPORT OF THE JUNIOR SCHOOL PRINCIPAL SUMMARY OF THE YEAR'S EVENTS MUSIC In a sense, the year began with the choir tour to Europe in June of 1983. We visited Germany, Italy, and France, and sang in Venice, Florence, Rome, and Paris. The choir continues to sing for public events as well as to support the choral tradition of the school in singing Friday services. In the instrumental programme, three sets of bands allow instruction at the appropriate skill and experience level. In addition, we offer an after- school junior band, jazz band, small ensembles and the new and growing area of computer music. Most of the boys in the instrumental programme also take private lessons once a week. Future plans involve expanding the string programme and the institution of instrumental trips such as the one planned for Ottawa this fall. In April 1983, St. George's College hosted, for the second year in a row, the Independent Schools Music Festival at Massey Hall. This event attracted 23 schools from across Canada and involved nearly 1,000 students. Mr. Demierre is to be commended for his outstanding job of organizing this event. We now pass the hosting of this event on to other schools. SPO RTS The physical education programme flourished as usual with regular classes for every boy, augmented by the many teams such as soccer, hockey, swimming, skiing, basketball, volleyball, tennis, baseball, and track and field which compete against other independent schools. The soccer team attended the invitational tournament at St. John's Kilmarnock in Waterloo in October and St. George's hosted a basketball tournament in February. The whole school turned out for a chilly Cross-Country Run in October and for the Track and Field Day in May. CULTURAL In February, the Junior School produced the play, Brother Francis, under the skillful direction of Mr. Stevenson. Also in February, the Junior School Open House was held with demonstrations of basketball, instrumental music, debating, and drama in both French and English. ln November, all the grades of the Junior School attended the ballet Romeo and Juliet at the O'Keefe Centre. Debating, again under the tuition of Mr. Stevenson, has been a highly active club in the Junior School. A large number of debates have taken place within the school, and the debating team has competed against many ol' tlte other independent schools in Southern Ontario. EDUCATION We continued the Norval Science Scltools for the eleventh year. By the time the Grade Iive's go tip next April, we will have held 75 Science Schools at Norval and over 750 different boys from St. George's will have at- tended. An Information Night was held in January to inform parents of boys in Grades 7 and 8 particularly of tlte changes to be implemented in vievv of the Ontario Government's decision to phase out Grade 13. In February, Dr. Ronald Clavier, a psychologist, spent three days discussing drttg education and drug abuse vvith all of the boys in St. George's. This was culminated on the third night with an opportunity for the parents to express their concerns and ask questions. SERVICE In May, the Junior School held a Walk-a-thon lo raise money for the Leukemia Research Fund. Over S6,300.00 was raised for this worthy cause. More information about the Walk-a-thon is described later in the Yearbook. ON TRADITION Tradition has a special significance for St. George's. While, in comparison to other independent schools, this college is a young one, its roots stretch back to the first English choir school founded by the monk Augustine in 597 A.D. 1 have often claitned that St. George's is the best school of the 19th century and such a tenet can only be founded on a reverence for tradition. Chesterton has called tradition the democracy of the dead g it is the conceit of tlte living that purports to have solutions, ansvvers, and techniques to apply to every societal institution. In education especially. there has been wholesale abandoning of traditional practices in the rush of enthusiasm for nevv ideas. ltt the 60's and 70's, the educational establishment rejected elemental approaches, only to retttrn to tltern in tlte back to the basics movement of tlte 80's thovvexcr much the Minister ot' Education chooses to call it forward to tlte l'tntdamentals l. Over 2000 years ago, Socrates made contributions to education that are as valid today as they vvere then. We forget tltat behind tts stretch cetttttrtes and millenia of experience. Obviottsly, ttot all of it is good. New ideas in educatiott attd tlte church tttttst be examined, bttt examined in the light of tradition NK e ignore the compelling evidence of tlte past .tt out peril. As Ogden Ntlsll has said: Progress nttyht have been all rigltt once, bttt it ltas gone on too long novv .

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