Timmins High and Vocational School - Porcupine Quill Yearbook (Timmins, Ontario Canada)

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the 21 The PORCUPINE QUILL .l The lunch hours are not the same in On- tario as in Detroit. They have twenty minutes for lunch and eat it in the lunch room on the top door of the school. This shortens the school day considerably. For ten cents, students can have a scoop of potatoes with gravy, two slices of bread and butter, a piece of meat, a half pint of milk, and a dish of prunes or apricots, which would make any- one's mouth water. Another way in which the Detroit schools diier is in the wider range of subjects, which include Aeronautics, Automobile construction. Jewelry construction, printing and metal pat- ternmaking. 'Ihe organization of the School is different too. The High School and the Technical School students take Mathematics, English, and such subjects together and and separate for shop work and for certain High School Academic Subjects. There are tests every two weeks, and to determine the standing for the term, the average is taken of all the tests. The grades or marks needed to attain this mark are as follows: A4uperior, 100 p .c. to 90 p.c. B-Above Average, C-Average, 80 p.c. D-Below Average, E-Failure, 70 p.c. If a student earns may be promoted to twice a year, as the 90 p.c. to 80 p.c. to '75 p.c. 75 p.c. to 70 p.c. to 0 p.c. a pass mark or over, he a higher grade or class grades are divided into two parts. If a student earns 80 p.c. or over in any subject, he does not have to write the final examination in that subject. The bui.dings of Detroit Schools are very attractive and well constructed. They cover a city block and are from three to ten stories high. There are elevators for the students and teachers, and swimming pools ranging from four to seven and a half feet deep. Div- ing boards and life poles are included in the equipment. The Auditoriums seat 500 to 3500 . The school I attended had thirty-live hundred seats. This Auditorium had a bal- csny which ran up from the second storey to the fourth, with entrances on each floor. We also had the staggered system to ac- commodate a larger number of students. BOB MITCHELL, TBA. In France Schools in France are not very diierent from those in Canada, except that Greek and Ro- man history are taught to very young children and also Greek and Roman mythology. Many older children follow courses on different subjects and to do this they go to several schools, rather than one. School days are Monday, Tuesday, Wed- nesday, Friday and Saturday. Thursday and Sunday are holidays. The school year begins in October and ends the last of July. There were more convents and private schools in France before 1902. when the gov- ernment passed a law expelling all religious orders from the country. Then parents were obliged to send their children to government schools: but still there are, even now, many private schools. for French people do not believe in mixing classes, as we do in America. Parents of better education would not send their children to public schools, for fear they would be in contact with children of an in- ferior class. MARGUERITE THERIAULT. In Germany The Voll-:schule ' of Germany is an eight-year institution supported by the state and free to all pupils. Boys and girls are taught in the same class in the smaller communities and in separate classes or separate schools in larger centres. All the children go to the elementary school at the age of six. School hoLu's are earlyg boys and girls have to be at school at seven o'clock in the morning in summer and at eight o'clock in the winter. Music and theatres are regarded as a. part of education. The talented pupils in the schools form together to make a string orch- estra to entertain the adults. Pupils who graduate from the Volkschule go into technical school, where they are pre- pared for trades, or to the high school called the Gymnasium. The training in Gymna- sium is superior to that in American schools. especially in Greek, Latin and Science, and is very heavily loaded on the literary side. In Germany parents and teachers com- municate, and the child is under the strictest rule of obedience and respect toward the teachers.

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Z0 - The PORCUPINE QUILL ' i' Act II The Mine Scene I: NCROWDING THE CAGE Ah, the glory of the day's work, whether With hand or brain! -Walt Whitman quoted by Sir William Osler f .frrrctta tim e if Q iiaootallif f r h To give the readers of The Quill an idea of the number of races and nationalities repre- sented in our school, We have asked a number of students to write for our columns an account of the schools from which they or their parents have come. In Scotland Although Scotland is famous throughout the world, for her centres of learning and her system of education, Ontario's schools corn- pare very favourably with hers. In Scotland, because of the strict disci- pline, the teachers do not seem to be human and the pupils are shy and diflident with them. In Ontario, the teachers appeal more to the student's sense of justice, and severity is seldom necessary. In Scottish schools the pupils are taught vocational as Well as cultural subjects. Girls are taught sewing, knitting and cooking and boys, manual work. If he makes an excep- tionally good piece of work, some lucky boy will receive the Merit Certificate from Buck- ingham Palace, and his work will enter the London Museum. The other subjects of the curriculum are similar to those taught in Ontario. The chief sport in Scottish schools is foot- ball, which all boys are compelled to play. The next in importance is swimming. Every day the boys and girls are taken to the public swimming pool, where they must learn to swim. Headball, softball, and cricket are among the other games played. There is less stress placed on the Entrance fEditor's Notel or Qualifying examinations in Scotland. This relieves the pupil of the nervousness so common in Ontario at the time of the de- partmental examinations. A medal called the Dux Medal, is given to the head of the class each week, and the pupil who keeps it longest during the term is given a prize. At the end of the Christmas term, books are given to pupils who have obtained a certain standing, These prizes arouse the spirit of competi- tion, which is very common in Scottish schools. The Scottish people have a great system of education-one that the Scottish lads and lassies should be proud of-just as We in Ontario are proud of ours. JAMES VEITCH. American Public Schools The schools in my home city of Detroit diiier from Ontario schools in several ways. There, the primary or elementary schools take one to the sixth grade. The intermediate school includes grades seven to nine. Then come the high schools, or grades ten to twelve, which correspond to Canadian secondary schools. The advanced schools are called Universities as in Canada.

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22 .T The PORCUPINE QUILL ,...T,,,i-...TT--l The highest institutions of the German educational system following the Gymnasium are the universities. These are professional schools. The method of instruction is the lecture method. In general a German stu- dent takes a longer period than in Canada to complete the work for his degree. It is the habit of the German student to migrate from institution to institution, spending a seme- ster in each of a number of the leading uni- versities, and thus coming in contact with the prominent lecturers in the different fields. The universities are maintained by royal grants, by student fees, and by appropriation from the state. An instructor receives a cer- tain fee for each student who registers in his courses. LOUISE WALTER In Switzerland I think that you will find the story which I am going to write interesting. First I will tell you about the school laws in Switzerland. In the summer the school starts at 7 o'c1ock in the morning, and each period is one hour. But 'between each period is 10 minutes time to do homework for the next day. Then at 9 o'clock is a pause of 20 minutes, or lb hour and more. And after this pause the school periods start again till 12 o'clock, In the afternoon school starts again at one, and at three o'clock is a pause of I5 minutes. All school classes end at 4 o'clock. So every day except all day Wednesday, and Saturday af- ternoon, because at these times there is no school in the most places. The most schools were built more than eighty years ago. And so the walls are some- times one yard thick which do not let enter enough light. In most schools they let the electric light burn the whole day, because it is not easy to make windows in those thick stone walls. Each teacher has around thirty to thirty- flV6 pupils. And the most teachers are men. In the High, secondary, gymnasium schools, the teachers have to make examens to get the Dr. title before they can get a place to teach. In Switzerland the only thing which is different than in Canada is that the students have not to write only notes at school, but in Switzerland the teacher explains the things, and then the next day he asks the pupils oral questions and makes marks, which, at the end of the year are averaged. Then we make small notes, but we study the most things right from the book, For example:- In geography we have maps which are on the walls, and study the lands and countries which the teacher explains. An example of the notes we have: Timmins in the north of the province of Ontario, industry, gold mine, Population about 20,000. The law is that children six years old should go to school for eight or nine years. But if they do not pass on examens they have to start the certain subject again. In the summer time there is every two weeks a day on which the whole school goes swimming in the rivers. And in the winter they go skiing and skating. In the most schools they have only two month holidays because they go on places, Where, maybe, an important historical fact took place, or to see the things which they studied at school, which no body ever sawg and so they travel by train and cars to those places. The ones which have sick lungs have to go to places on the mountains to get fresh sunny air into their lungs. I think I told the most important. BEN BAUMAN tEditor's Note: This account, and the de- scription of plant life in Switzerland which the reader will find on one of the following pages, is the work of a student who began to speak and write English only last Augustl. In Finland Finland is not a very rich country. Its chief sources of wealth are lumbering, nshing, manufacturing and mining. Its greatest wealth seem to be in its system of education. Until quite recently, a student intending to become a doctor was forced to attend school until he was nearly forty years of age. Now he completes the same course when he is about thirty years of age. In Finland a child is placed into the lower primary school at eight years of age, where, for two years, he is taught to read and Write. In his third year of school, he enters the pub- lic school. He is taught, during the six years he attends this school, catechism, geometry and arithmetic, general history, the history