Selwyn House School - Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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SELWYN HOUSE SCHOOL MAGAZINE .lack Segall and Harry Seifert are working together. Seifert was the best forward on the cub hockey team last winter. Ile is a lad of single purpose who always went all out and played every minute of the game with concentrated design and aim. Cheerful Segall worked hard to perfect his goalie technique. A save is a save, even if one does have to sit on the puck! Pierre Raymond, with the hashing smile and the equally flashing blades on thc ice, leans over to indulge in a contraband conversation with Molson. Poor Eric blushes with agonized embarrassment lest they both be caught. A prefect raps, thrusts his head like an ostrich into the room and announces that the llead wishes to see Buckley. A stir of interest ripples through the room. Perhaps it is only for a talk - perhaps worse! Brian slowly goes toward the awe-inspiring study door. liartholomew, of the sympathetic mind, gives him a eondoling pat as he passes by. As Brian closes the door behind him, a little breeze stirs a paper pinned on the wall. lt is a thank-you note from Patrick Blake to his Docs . They sent him some books and stamps to while away the tedium of staying in bed after a long illness. The French window at the back of the room closes with a bang, and McDougall and Matson rush simultaneously to reopen it. A pronounced thud as heads clash together! Ah! the master remembers these twog Matson, quiet and calm who always did his work wellg McDougall, the athlete, steady and reliable, but not one of the excitable ones, mind you! No sense in that, thinks Purvis. So, on this screen of memory the form master sees these lads again with their foibles and graces. It is much later now, for he has been quietly remembering a long time. The shades of early eventide are shadowing the room. They camouflage its oldness and clothe the walls in a dusk of mauve and dusty greys. The pedagogue arises, collects his chattels from the desk, and departs, gently closing the door bc-cause for a while the room belongs to the ghosts of Form IA. Down the stairs to the first floor in thickening twilight the teacher descends. He puts on his coat and leaves the building. Yes, he leaves the old red house to itself and to its ghosts. But they are friendly ghosts, and no one need be afraid. For every old school, when it is empty, is haunted by silent laughter and misty youth. And this brick building with its winnowed plaster cracks and its creaky floors may retieet for the summer on its contemplations of a grand life well lived. Because, you understand, this edifice houses boys and helps to make them into good men. What better purpose could it ever have served than this? I L. R. P. FOR M IIS Form IB classroom is probably the most strategically placed in the whole School, being opposite the Headmaster's Study and next to the office. Fortunately, the members of the Form pay far more visits to the latter than to the former - in fact, they regard the olliee as a home from home. and rare are the occasions when they are not to be found buzzing around Mrs. Ilowis and Miss Macaulay, like bees round a hive. l2Sl

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FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR 1946-1947 FORM IA THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL It. is june, the term is finished, and the boys of Selwyn House have gone home. The Good bye, Sirs have been shrilled, and the old Form One classroom seems ready to settle down to a somnolent summer. The form master enters the room, sits down heavily, and begins to clear out his desk. Through the open window sifts the muted murmur of the Sherbrooke Street trafhc and the terse calls of the Trafalgar girls on their tennis court. The afternoon sun streaks a variegated haze of chalk dust and dances on the floor in wanton delight. A lone fly wars against the window glass and then is quiet as he loses his futile fight. The masters glance envelops the room, and he ponders on the hundreds of boys who have squirmed here, labouring with Latin and arriving at odd arithmetic computations. He thinks of the passions of irate masters these walls have witnessed, and the sonorous orations on studious behaviour. Well, they've all finished their year and left their room for a new crop to occupy its space next September, and IA is just a memory. Now, there was a form for you! They weren't too bright and they weren't too stupid. -lust, I guess, an average cross section of boys as a whole. So, like a silver picture upon a screen, Form IA appears before him. There is Trott up in the corner plotting out, behind an open book. a new play for the defence on the hockey team. He lovingly fingers the third stripe upon his cub jersey, for he is the Senior Sixerw a sturdy, reliable boy. Sharing the seat with him is little Timmins, who will probably become Timmins I around 1952, after Nelson departs from the senior form. Billy, like Edward VII, will have to wait a long time! It is the arithmetic hour and the first period. In a rear seat quiet Carsley is doing his work with meticulous mode and method, and, when you catch his eye, he gives you a shy smile. Alexandor sidles in through the half-open door and sneaks to his seat. But alas! the stern eye of the master has seen him. May I ask why you are late again? VVell, sir, the alarm lever stuck, and I didn't get up in timef' There are subdued guffaws from the class, and Carlin as usual has some advice to offer which is quickly suppressed. However, he always bobs up again in a little while as bright as ever. Poole frantically waggles his hand and asks for a new pen nib, as the old one has just fallen into the ink well. fPen nibs disappear very rapidly in this formi Meanwhile, Marpole has whizzed through an example in multiplication and is stunned to discover that his answer is less than what he started out with. Something must have gone wrong, and he struggles back through the strange hieroglyphics in his exercise book. Bill Daly looks up and grins. Perhaps he is thinking of the good time he had on the cub hike to St. Sauveur. Bill was always a sweet-tempered lad. His seatmate, Peter Krohn, reaches beneath for a book, and the entire contents of their desk erupt onto the BOOT, where picture cards of hockey players and aeroplanes mix in clandestine confusion with the less interesting, ink-stained academic tomes. l27l

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FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR 1946-1947 The personalities of the class are interesting and diversified. Michael Dennis, like many another Maritimer, achieves prominence at the top of the Form with record-breaking weekly percentages, though Graham Nesbitt keeps him on his toes at the present time. Other leading scholars are Charles Maclnnes, Donald Mactaggart and Philip Cumyn, and all bring great distinction to the class. We like to feel that their arch-rivals, IA, cannot produce such master minds as these. just as surely as we feel confident they have no trio like jimmy Rose, john llfright and Harold Short so capable of taxing the patience and ingenuity of their learned pedagogues. John lVright, whose name completely belies him in the realm of scholarship, is the Forms star athlete and is constantly thirsting for the blood of IA. Unfortunately, as a Form, IB is not athletically minded, and great will be the day when IA is humbled at Soccer or Hockey. Charles Frosst has attained Scouthood and a good 'fscout he is, being always the first to volunteer his services in various ways. Andrew Spence's advent on the rink was one of the events of the year A Keep going, Andrew. Jack Fray is our most improved boy, Ted Rudel and Brian Buchanan have unfortunately been afllicted with various ills during the course of the year and we have not had them with us as much as we should have liked. Michael Wilsons shadow does not grow less, even when his elevator is not functioning and he has to climb seven flights of stairs! john Udd is settling in and keeps us well informed regarding the problems and progress of the New Ford Hotel in which we are very interested. Peter is the Darling of the class, but then - aren't they all? Leaving the reader to answer this question as he thinks tit, we shall draw these notes to a graceful conclusion. F. G. P. FORM A It is wonderful to be in Form A. We have such a delightful feeling of superiority, being, as we are, the top form in the junior school. Only too soon shall we be the microbes of the Senior School, so let us enjoy to the full our positions of importance while we may. We are all enthusiastic, whether in our lessons, our games, or our collecting of Dinky toys. Having concealed our latest treasured car from the piercing eyes of the Staff , we try to forget that it is just inside the desk and concentrate on Arithmetic. As the hour passes, the atmosphere becomes tense, as each one of us tries to finish our work before Besner or Duilield. No tricky long division or knotty problem can bathe these two keen workers. Following closely behind them are Archibald, Molson, Beattie and Frosst. Meanwhile Carrique and Porteous sit happily chewing their pencils. McNaughton. Choquette, and Robin MacKay can get stuck a dozen times a lessong but they do not sit back and let the problem win the day. No, out to the front they rush, indignant that figures could be so un- cooperative. One touch of the red pencil points out the slip. and sheepishly, they slidc back to their seats where all goes well W for a time. McGreevy and Gillespie go on fanciful tours in realms unmzithematical. Time and again they are brought back from their dreams to the cruel reality of Arithmetic. Marcus, nick-named the Tortoise , has kept steadily and silently on the caurse, and triumphantly finishes just as the bell rings. He has hidden depths of determination and good humour, and we suspect he will go far, always being as popular as he is now. l29l