Shawnigan Lake School - Yearbook (Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia Canada)

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Shawnigan Lake School Magazine « SPEECH DAY » IN view of the fact that 1937 Avas the year of the Coronation of His Majesty King George VI, we made some alterations in our Annual Speech Day routine. On the Friday evening we gave an exhibition of physical training, the whole School taking part, on the football field. After this, the end-of-term service was held in the Chapel, the capacity of the Chapel being taxed to the uttermost by the large number of people who attended. After the service, with the School buildings outlined in coloured lights and the flag-pole dressed in coloured lights, the boys had a parade of illuminated boats. This, in conjunc- tion with fireworks let off from a raft in the middle of the lake, made a very effective display on a perfect evening. On the Saturday a cricket match against Mr. M. C. Ellis ' team occupied the morning and part of the afternoon, during which parents were able to see over the School. At three o ' clock everyone collected in the Gymnasium. After Mr. C. W. Lonsdale had given an account of the School ' s record for the past year, the prizes were presented by Colonel A. F. M. Slater, who then spoke : I appreciate the honour which has been accorded me today as being a tribute paid by the School to the memory of my son Mike. I feel it is as Proxy for him that I now stand here, in turn to pay tribute to the School which meant so much to him and which did so much to help fit him to face life. The letters we received from so many people with whom he came in contact show appreciation of his character and of his sense of sportsmanship and comradeship. In so doing they indirectly pay tribute to the influences which helped to form his character and his s ense of sportsmanship. One of the chief of those influences, and possibly the most important, Avas his association with Shawnigan Lake School. My family and I appreciate that fact with deep gratitude to yonr Head and to the School. In behalf of my son I give you a toast, ' The School, ' and I will try and give you some idea of what your School stands for. Shawnigan Lake School, as you probably know, is regulated on the same principles as those of our big Public Schools in England. Speaking at a recent commemoration service at one of our Public Schools in England, the Dean of Rochester said these words : ' The Public Schools of England hold a place in national life which gives everyone who passes through them a starting-place of which they might not only be proud but, in a sense, humbly thankful. For the privilege is not of their making. It is not of their deserving, but has been handed down. It is a stewardship — something to be held in trust — and they could not be proud if they were not fully conscious of the responsibility. ' Those words therefore apply equally to your School — it also is a trust to be handed down.

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Shawnigan Lake School Magazine CHAPEL NOTES OF the services held during the Michaelmas term of 1936 only- three require mention. The Remembrance Day service saw a full chapel with the girls from Strathcona present and many visitors. On November 22nd we were honoured by a visit from our Visitor, the Bishop, who preached at Matins. On the last evening of the term a successful carol service was held. The Rev. H. T. Archbold, joining the staff at the beginning of the Easter term, was of considerable assistance to the Chaplain. Con- firmation service was held on February 28th, when seven boys of the School and eight girls of Strathcona were confirmed by the bishop. The services on Quinquagesima and Ash Wednesday were held in the Big School ; an epidemic of measles , occurring simultaneously with a heavy snowfall, made it inadvisable to go out to chapel. An event of the summer term was the Coronation Service, when there was a full chapel and the Governors were present. At a special service on the last Sunday evening of term a memorial tablet to E. M. Slater was dedicated by the Rev. G. G. Reynolds, father of the head boy. Again the chapel was crowded and, with the special music, the service was an inspirational ending to the school year. i in Memorxam E. M. SLATER T is not our usual practice to write a memorial notice for every Old Boy who dies, but this year we feel that we must say a few words about the death of an Old Boy who was Cap- tain of Cricket, Captain of Football, who Avas holder of the Featherweight Boxing (1928), Welterweight (1929) and Middleweight (1930), who was a School Prefect and finally Head of the School. The reason we wish to write this is be- cause Police Sergeant Mike Slater of the Shanghai Munici- pal Police, at the age of twenty-three, died, not demanding his rights in a difficult world, but doing his duty single- handed. He was shot by bandits in Shanghai on New Year ' s Eve, 1936, and was buried with full military honours. He worthily upheld the traditions learned in his early home life. He was loyal and faithful, and put Duty before his rights or his pleasures. A bronze memorial tablet has been placed in the Chapel by his parents, who hope, with us, that his life may be an example to all our boys, present, past and future, to give of their best without expectation of material reward and to play for their side and not for themselves. — 7 —

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Shawnigan Lake School Magazine It may be of interest to some of you to know how our Public Schools of England came into being. England had in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a number of Grammar Schools endowed by philanthropic individuals for the purpose of providing free education for poor boys. The education of boys whose parents were well-to-do or whoi belonged to the aristoc- racy was provided by tutors and by Palace schools. With the break- down of the feudal system these schools, i.e., these old Gramar Schools admitted paying pupils, and so popular did some of them become that their status of free schools was all but lost. Nine of them took on the character that caused them later to be called ' The Great Public Schools. ' That is, Public in the sense that they prepared boys for the service of the State, and that enrollments were not entirely drawn from local sources, but rather from a wider area. ' The Great Public Schools ' included Winchester, Eton, West- minster, St. Paul ' s, Merchant Taylors, Shrewsbury, Charterhouse, Rugby and Harrow. In those schools we have the beginning of our Public Schools in England. Winchester was the first, founded originally as a grammar school in 1382, over 550 years ago. Eton came next, founded by Henry VI in 1410, and somewhat naturally became the school to which sons of the aristocracy went. Harrow and Rugby, founded as local free Grammar Schools, came in time to draw boys not only from all England, but also from every region under the British flag. These Great Public Schools developed a distinctive type of character training both through their sports and through the train- ing in manners which boys received from the traditional esprit-de- corps of their particular school. And there we have probably the most potent reason for the popu- larity of the English Public School system of training shown collect- ively by the numerical growth of such institutions and individually by the esprit-de-corps of individual schools which has become traditional. The meaning of tradition, or, at any rate, one meaning is ' The transmission of any opinion or practice from forefathers to descend- ants by oral communication, without written memorials. ' The esprit-de-corps of a school is the trust to which the Dean of Rochester refers, and which is so important to foster and encourage in order that it may be handed down. The responsibility for this rests on parents and on Old Boys as much as it does on the governing body, on the Head Master and his staff ' , and on the boys present at the School. This is the stewardship as far as an individual school is concerned.