Trafalgar Castle School - Yearbook (Whitby, Ontario Canada)

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present an address of welcome to Lord and Lady Dufferin, who came on that day to inspect the college before its formal opening. It was a great event in the life of the community. There were evergreen arches and brass bands, and so with good friends and good wishes O.L.C. began a life which has continued for fifty years in uninterrupted honour and good fortune. Here and there in the grave dignity of the minutes appear in spite of themselves human touches concerning the life of the school which are both interesting and amusing. In one place sandwiched between some important ]notions Joshua Richardson is authorized by the Board to purchase a cow for the institution. They seem also to have had domestic troubles. They changed stewards about twice a year. From its inauguration the staff of the school was headed by the Reverend J. J. Hare, assisted by his wife. For forty-one years their lives were one with the growth of the school and both left an indelible impress of their goodness and beauty of character upon its form and spirit. In 1915, after a life-time spent in faithful service on behalf of the College, Dr. Hare retired and was succeeded by Reverend F. L. Farewell. The growth of the building itself is an indication of the progress and prosperity of the school. It has developed graciously and beautifully. Not a jutting-out here and an abutment there, but in proportion and dignity it has expanded into its present form. In 1878 Dr. Egerton Ryerson laid the corner stone of Ryerson Hall, an ad- dition at the West end of the building, and in 1887 an enclosed passage con- nected the original eastern wing with the cottage, the residence of Dr. and Mrs. Hare. Finally in !1895 the eastern wing was completely transformed into what is now Frances Hall. The erection of this building was largely made possible by the generosity of Mrs. Lillian Frances Massey Treble, after whom it was called. Perhaps the most important event until this Jubilee Year in the later history of the school occurred when Lord and Lady Aberdeen and their daugh- ter, Lady Marjorie Grordon, established for us the lovely custom of the May Queen. Of all the happy days in the year this is the one which we remember most dearly. The 24th of May, the birthday of a good and noble woman, has become almost sacred in the eyes of O.L.C. people. All that is good and lovely in the life of our community is typified in the person of our May Queen. She is the symbol of the deepest desire of the heart of every girl to be a good, true woman. Times and customs change. Browsing through old calendars one discov- ers some things which are of amazement to the present generation at O.L.C. How in the world did one ever play tennis in a bustle ! The dining-room used to be where the Domestic Science Room is now situated, and for exercise after dinner one might do the grand chain in the main hall upstairs. Six girls and a box stove occupied Nine Main. People went to bed by lamplight mostly. And twice to church on Sundays. The earliest calendars warned people not to give way to their daughter ' s fancied requirements in dress and called the Page T)i it! -Oue

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finest social life of the county. Many remarkable people eanie under its hos- pitable roof, among whom Prince Arthur was perhaps the most distinguished. Upon this occasion there were festivities of all kinds but the great event for which Prince Arthur had graciously consented to bs present Avas the laying of the first rail of the Wliitby-Port Perry Railroad. With such high hopes and and under such august patronage did the Push set out in life. In 1874, however, the lovely house then in the hey-day of its youth passed into other hands and upon that day its history as the home of the Reynolds family ceased and that of O.L.C. began. Dramatic and interesting as its life had been heretofore its sudden meta- morphosis from a private house into a college had in it elements scarcely less splendid. Its purchase did not only mark this change in the life of the building itself but it represented a triumph for the fervid Protestantism of the little town and the inauguration of one of the first great educational in- stitutions of the Methodist Church in Canada. In writing this little sketch it has been necessary to delve back among old books and papers and records and calendars and such like for facts and fables concerning the history of the school. One of the most interesting glimpses of its very beginning was provided by a letter from a son of the late Reverend J. E. Sanderson, the Methodist Minister in Whitby at that time. He says : — I remember while sitting at dinner in the old Parsonage at Whitby a wire came for my father from Toronto saying that twenty thousand dollars must be secured before the opening of the Bank the next morning or the property would pass into the hands of the Grey Nuns. My father did not finish his dinner but rushed off ' to raise the money. The Reverend Mr. Sanderson, with Mr. James Holden and others, had been advocating the purchase of the Castle for the Methodist Church as an ideal spot for a girls ' school for some time among the prominent churchmen of both the Town and of Toronto. It was their dearest wish to see such an institution es- tablished, and naturally when the property was in danger of falling into other hands, they were prepared to use every means in their power to prevent it. This event crystallized the opinion of the group of men interested in the project into immediate action. The money was raised and a stock comjjany formed who purchased the Castle, organized a board of Directors, with Mr. Holden, a resident of the town equally interested with Mr. Sanderson, as its first President, and the College was started upon the long road of its life. The old books in which the records of those first meetings are kept are almost falling to pieces. Many of the men whose names are written therein are long since dead, yet despite the clerkly style in which the by-laws, motions and remarks are couched, to read them is to reach back into the past and touch the lives of their authors. One feels that this meant more to them than a mere business enterprise. To many it was a matter of great personal pride and interest. On September 3rd, 1874, according to the minutes, James Hol- den, President, and John Rice, Secretary, were authorized by the Board to J ' (i( i ' ' riicntij

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Lady Principal A Female Educator , but people were reminded then as now that they were here to study ! In 1876 there was one graduate, Miss Lillie Gray, M.E.L. This year there are thirty-two. Between the two extremes there stretches a long, long line of women who lived in the rooms that we now call ours, who loved the orchard in ihe spring and the white purity of the winter fields, upon whose lives the old house east a spell which can never be removed. There is an old feudal custom called seizing whereby the monarch delivered up to his barons the titles to the lands he held in fief to thee and thine heirs forever. The bond was a piece of turf cut from the land about to be given by ruler to subject. It was a double contract for it bound the two together beneath an oath of eternal fealty. Whoever goes out from O.L.C. has taken seizing of their Alma Mater. Forever after, part of all that is good and noble belongs to her and in return she has laid upon them the sign of her love and goodness which can never cease to influence their lives toward all that is lovely and true. — N.H. iyc Turntij-Two