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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1920-07-02, Page 11920. - 1ACTAVI * * * t: We pay * J' the * � F: a postage on * t,� * "send by * ice' * mail"* * parcels. * * * * r Day 51 tztt yant to have. he kinks of ire so very you'll like ily tailored Le range to nto models -ns. Price SES )n. Every expect at -the secret long hils,. ,ct to set fitting you. dren Cool and ou have for next ss, You can get [pre. 20c to 81.50 $1.5e to $1.75 _tll :Sizes All S'.- -, Full Stock spliced heels and beach and dark ..... ....$1,25 < p, extra spliced ack, navy, grey, ..$2.00 to $3.50 ..e Bits :wear 2 nee itiee Lave lsapes that give ` I!1 d esses. ss `.` -pee Organdie, Satin. o $8.50 tsti C3. a 1-3EnM 1 o 004 Owl 01 I 4 0 aa` 0-3 Olt MACTAISH PIPIT -FOURTH YEAi 'WHOLE NUMBER 2742 SEAFORTH, FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1920. McLean Brio, Pablialiers *1.50 Year folvattos WORTH OF Boys' and Men's Suits ON Slaughter Sale This is a rare chance to save ten or fifteen dollars on the buying price of a good Suit of Clothes. There are an assorted lot of Suits in all sizes; styles and colors,sent to us by a big manufacturer into a quick turn Cash. l All splendid Patterns, Reliable in Color and d Qual- ity of Cloth. Novelty form fitting styles for : the fastidious young man $20.00 :to $35.00 Plain Staple Styles for the man of quieter tastes in, clothes p y $20.00 to $30.00 The Regular Price of these Suits is $30.00 to $50.00 The Best Picking is sways at the commencement. SALE- STARTS FRIDAY, JUNE 25th AND CON- TINUES FOR .10 DAYS. The Greig Clothing Co. ONTARIO'S BIGGEST PROBLEM . Now that the balanceof power and the responsibility of government rest upon the elected representatives of the rural districts, the time is op- portune for grappling with the big- gest problem that faces us as a Prov- ince. This grave problem is the de- population of rural districts,, with a consequent decline in agriculture and an unhealthy overcrowding of urban centres. The trek cityward now under way in Ontario ,for half a century has not been wholly owing to economic caus- es. Our system of education must answer for its share in the movement. Not only has it failed lamentably in setting before our young people in rusal districts a proper perspective of life and a reasonable and moderate appreciation of the advantages and possibilities of life in the country, but much of the instruction given in the rural school has acted as a pos- itive pull toward the city. Too often the country school has offered to the brightest boys and girls a means of escape from their wholesome environ- ment rather than a training that would put them in harmony with it or enable them tochange it by in- telligent reactions upon it. ' No sensible person would wish to set up artificial barriers to prevent young people in rural districts from absolute freedom of choice of occupa- tion. ' It is perfectly natural that many of them should go to cities. Many of them in this way make their greatest contribution, for the benefit of others. It was a perfectly natural and legitimate. function of the 'rural school to give them preparation for a life away from the farm, but this work ought to be a • mere • incident in 'the programme of the school, and not its chief aim. . l Special Sal 1110 days only for cash, 1 Ready Roofing 3 -ply B . Asphalt Roofing, per roll 2 -ply B. Asphalt Roofing, per roll 2 -ply Leatheroid Roofing, per roll 1 -ply Leatheroid Roofing, per roll Reg. Special $5.75 $5.25 $4.00 $3.50 $4.00 $3.50 $3.75 $3.25 3,000 Square Ft. Beaver Board, per squar9 foot 3 -Burner Perfection oil stoves 4 -Burner Perfection oil stoves Simmons' Famous Blue En- amel 3 -burner oil stove Oil stove ovens, New Perfection 614c 5%c $31.00 $27.00 $40.00 $35.00 $34.00 $29.00 $9.25 5.8.50 Sole agent for Frost Fence, Martin Senour 100 per cent, Pure Paint, Gold Medal Twine The Big Hardware H. EDGE Too often the efficiency of " our country schools and our rural teach- ers have been' judged by their success in teaching pupils who °were to live in the cities, and too often the school has neglected the boys and girls who were to remain on the farms. Too often the country school has been so divorced from the life interests of the country people that its pupils have insensiblya come to feel dissatisfied and ashamed of their homely but wholesome life and surroundings. They have embraced the first oppor tunity to escape to the cities. Farm- ers' sons who might have been free- men and independent owners of small farms voluntarily become wage -slaves of street car corporations. Farmers' daughters leave cad homes to live in cheap boarding houses :and to work for departmental stores for $10 or 1$12 a week. Had they been properly ed- ucated they would have become partners with their fathers in dairy- ing, poultry -keeping, or the produc- tion of honey or fruit. The rural school has failed in its first- duty - that of giving its' pupils a proper perapective of life. This economic theory was deliber- ately planned to build towns and cities. It has amply fulfilled the expecta- tions of those who planned it, but the rural districts and farmers have paid the price. Year after year they have had their poduce, the fruit of their labor, valued in the markets of Europe in open competition with the whole world, while the price of their nlafchinery, cloth, building material and household necessaries has been fixed by the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the great railway cor- porations, and the financial and in- dustrial trusts e that have. ' controlled and guided the policy of the Parlia- ment Canada. The majority J ori, Y of Canadians have approved of this policy and the farmers of Ontario have supported' it. But at last the Canadian farmer is awake. The wool so adroitly pulled over his eyes by designing nimg polIticirisand flag -flapping - aPp i n g patriots has been brushed aside, and he begins to see that for forty years he has been tricked. The farmers' movementand the' labor movement are the natural and inevitable reactions against the class legislation which_ was shaped in the interests of manufacturers, trans- portation companies and financial cor- porations. Let us . hope that the present union in Ontario of farmers and - organized Labor will be wise enough to avoid legislation for any special interest or class, and will frame only laws that are good for the whole social organism. 'Only by so doing, can their tenure of office be more than a mere incident in our political history. When Egerton Ryerson and those who preceded hint planned our On- tario schools for the education of our grandfathers and grandmothers, we were peculiarly a rural people. An expensive. school was impossible. The average Ontario farmer in 1844 did not pay out in cash $200 a year for the needs of his family. Often he did not sell for money, produce from his farm much in excess of this amount. The school of necessity was one -roomed. Means of transportation were primitive, and the roads bad beyond the imagination of the present generation. The school government was simple. Three trustees were chosen by open vote of the ratepayers. These trustees managed the school with almost no interference from the 'Department of Education at Toronto. They engaged . the teachers, them- selves determing the standard of his qualifications. Three-quarters . of a century has passed and yet many of these school sections remain geographically as they were in 1844. The school af- fairs are still administered by three trustees, elected by the ratepayers. True, the trustees are now stripped of all power, except that of providing a suitable school building and engag- ing a qualified teacher. than the urban school Ontario's big - problem ? Simply because the first problem connected with a iinecessful modern school is getting together un- der one roof a sufficient ember of children to make it economically pos- sible to give them efficient instruction. This first problem is already solved in cities and „,owns, and if they do not have good schools it is either be- cause they do not know what good schools are, or because- they are un- willing to bear the cost. But thousands of Ontario farmers desire for their children a better school, and are quite ready. to pay the cost, but feel themselves powerless to secure _ what they wish. Is it not becoming clear that they can secure for their children some measure of their ideal, only by a complete re- organization of the present system. A considerable part of the present rural ..organization and plant must be "scrapped" and fashioned anew in harmony with modern needs. This is no condemnation of the old or those who build it, but merely a 'villingness to allow free play in educational affairs to that spirit of progress which is a marked feature of our age. Under good leadership the rural schools of Ontario could be so chang- ed in twenty years that farmers' sons and daughters, as a class, would be proud of their country homes and the -things of greatest worth in urban society -books, pictures, music and greater freedom o'f" social intercourse -brought to the country through a new type of rural school. Needless to say this new type of school can- not be established in the small school section having a registration of seven- teen and an average attendlance of twelve pupils. Needless to say it can- not be taught by young boys and girls who however thorough their school training, have no adequate ex- perience of life to enable them to estimate values and put first things first. They may give valuable ser- vices as first or second lieutenants. As captains they are, for the most part, costly• failures. Our country school curriculum, whatever may be its theoretical possi- bilities, is in practise too thin in con- tent. It makes no adequate prepara- tion for citizenship; it barely puts our boys and girls in possession of the tools of learning; - it leaves to the high schools of cities and towns, which touch barely ten per cent. of our future citizens, the serious .work of education. All this must be changed. Our rural school adunistratipn is antiquated, wasteful, ineffective, dis- jointed, discriminatory, clumsy in operation, too parochial _clumsy . yet t much centralized and bureaucratic. It is antiquated because we have in 1919 the same machinery of admini- stration, viz., a small section andlthree trustees, that we had three-quarters of a century ago. It is wasteful be- cause it costs much and secures poor results. In some schools the total cost now falls little short of $100 per pupil per year, and yet the education given leaves much to be desired. It is ineffective since it does not provide a 'good education for the sons and daughters of farmers. Usually, to secure a fairly good education they must leave home and go to a neigh- boring town or city to attend a high school. It is disjointed because l,`t has no broad outlook and no unity of purposes Elementary schools and village high schools -both a part of the machinery for rural education - are under different Boards of illan- agement and elected ' on different principles. The rural high school, instead of being complement ement and the supplement of the surrounding elementary schools, sets itself out, as its. chief function, to prepare a select class for iestitutions higher up. Rural education, for the 90 per II school from a levy upon the school section. If the section is rich and has few children the levy may be very light; if poor and in need of money to educate a large number of children it may be very heavy. In the County of, Carleton and the Town- ship of Fitzroy one section levies 2.7 mills and another section 12,5 mills. Both sections levy. an additional 3 mills .for the township rate. In the Township of Gloucester the total rate varies from 11 to 19 -milts. In the Township of March from 4.8 mills to 7 mills. In Nepean from 3,3 mills to 93 mills, and in Torbolton from 11 mills to 26 mills. I know of one ; There are others where half the rural case in Carleton where A pays an population is geographically isolated annual school tax' of $13, while B from a high school. Even in such an with a farm of equal size and equal old and well-settled county as Lincoln value directly across the road, but in with five high schools within its another school section, pays an an- borders, at least half the farmers' nue' tax of $40. In the Coihlty of sons and daughters who have a de - Leeds and Grenville West ten school sire for a better education than of- sections have an average rate of 2.02 fered in the rural schools andwho mills, and ten others have an average are intellectually entitled to a better rate of 15.16 mills. In Leeds and education, never pass the portals' of Grenville East the rate varies from a high school because their parents 6.8 Mills to 15.5 mills. In West Kent are unable or unwilling to provide ten rural schools have an average of the necessary money. 3.85 mills and ten others an average Failure to establish in rural corn - tax of 10.9 mills. In Halton the murales schools that can provide a rural school rate, exclusive of the liberal education has driven thousand's township " levy, varies from 0.7 mills of farmers' families to villages, towns to 13 mills. In South Hastings the and cities, never to return. The high rate varies from 2.8 mills to 20,7 schools situated almost wholly by men mills, and in South Renfrew from 5.6 in. the cities, many of whom are by mills to 44.2 mills. In East Peterboro temperament, training and environ - ten t � a ten sections have a total school rate ment incapableoias sympathetic - ranging from 4.8 mills to 6.2 frills, terpretation of the -needs of rural and ten others have a total rate rang- eoniinunities. They have assumed ing from 20.7 mills to 51.2 mills. Other that all young people in high schools Ontario counties will show similar have their faces set toward the city, anomalies. - and the young people have too readily A County Board of Education,' followed the lead given them. Then elected by popular vote, one member it has come about that our high schools for each township, and one for each even those situated in mere hamlets, incorporated village, would pave a have turned young people from the way for better things. This would farms instead of fitting theta. for give the average Ontario county a better playing their part on the 'farm. school board of ten or twelve members. Instead of adjusting them to their The new School Act would wipe out environment the high school has as - completely the exisiting school bound- slimed that their environment was aries and public schools within the not a congenial one, and has .set but county outside of towns and cities. to fit them to enter commercial The school property would immediate- offices, normal schools and universi- ly pass under the control 'of the ties. Even our continuation. schools County Board of Education. Would have become little more than "cram - not such a plan as this be a step for- ming machines," with their teachers, ward, even if no consolidation of in as mad rush, to push,in -the shortest existing schools were possible? But . possible time, every promising stud - in every county in Ontario some eon- ent into the nearest normal school. solidations are immediately possible, If on January 5th, 191, fifty well - and others would follow as transporta- prepared bright and promising boys tion facilities improved. The success and girls thirteen or fourteen years of the consolidated school is not a of age from rural homes were to apply vague and theoretical one. It is be- to an' Ontario high school for adinis- ing, fully demonstrated in the Ameri- sion and inform the .'Principal that can and Canadian West where weather they had come for a four -years' conditions are more severe than, in course, that they =wished neither to Ontario, and where goods roads are teach school nor attend a university, more expensive to build. that they wished to work hard for a Assuming that we have county ad- general education that would fit them their in_ parts ministration of schools and that con- to play their respective solidation will be carried out only home communities, I venture to say after a careful survey of the whole the Principal would coliap ee. Nothing educational needs of the county, what in his previous experience would en- are some of the advantages we may able him to interpret this strange expect from the scheme? At the phenomena. - And yet I submit that head of• the list I would place an every year ten thousand boys and equalized) tax upon the county property girls from Ontario farms with aims for school purposes, and next we could such as I have outlined ought to enter have real economy of administration. some school equipped to give them a I do not mean that less money would liberal education. The, students in be spent than is now spent, but the our high school preparing for normal money would be profitably spent, schools and for matriculation into whereas now the expenditure often our colleges are pursuing legit - produces a very small return. If we imate and normal courses. I have could give the children an education no thought of suggesting that they worth three times as much as that be interfered with, but I wish to 'point now given for double the cost, we out than in a really democratic and should be practising true economy. successful scheme of secondary educe - At the present time the energy of tion these students would be a mere the County Inspector is largely wast- handful of the whole.& ed. He travels long distances to Is 'it not clear then that our high visit small schools. He finds these schools as they now function are of schools, for the most part, in chare usee to farmers' sons and selaughters of young teachers whose average term of service is very short.. More than half of these schools change teachers once a year. With two visits a year intended that these institutions should I be for the classes rather than the masses. Democracy has won the day and our high schools are no longer caste schools in a social sense. But if by class schools we mean schools -which are not really available for all the people then our high schools may still very properly be called class schools because thousands of farmers Daisy Hamilton.sons and daughters are as effectually passe_ Jean Lowery, Jim Stewart;. cut, off from their advantages as earl Carnochan, Gretaferner, though such schools had never been Nellie Gook, Willie Hart, Jim Weir, established, There are wealthy coun- Dorothy Kerslake, Jean Stewart, ties in Ontario where not even one violet Rankin, Billie Sutherland, such school has been established. Maybelle - Rands, Elmer Beattie, Elva. Jefferson, Eleanor Harries, Leslie Hogg, Irene Patterson, Evelyn Har- burn, Elizabeth Charters. Recommended --Margaret Thomp- son, Sidney Pullman: Recommended on work during the year -missed exams through illness --- Jean Brodie, Murray Savauge.-M. v .. Mackay, Teacher. Room III Honors-Carrnon Ferguson, Gerald Snowdon. Pass -Gordon R2 1ph, Jack Cri+c'lt, Mildred Johnston, Jean Ciuff, Jeanette Archibald, Vera Hulley and Retta- Hoggarth equal, Leonard Brown. Recommended -Elsie Lowery -Am -thin Grieve. Absent on account of illness, re- commended - e -commended, on term work: -Mary - Jackson, Dorothy Robinson, Elroy Brownlee, ' Billie Barber, Arthur Carnochan, Andrew McLean, Russel Barrett, Dorothy Webster, J a c le Oughton, Alvin Shiers', Jack Frost, Margaret Stewart, Jack Walker, Ed- ward Rankin, John Dennison, 'Charlie Scott. -M. B. Habkirk, Teacher. PUBLIC SCHOOL EXAMS The following are the results of the midsummer examinations at the Seaforth Public School: Room II Honors --Edgar Brownlee, Robert Willis, Carl Ament, Anna Sutherland, .. cent. who do not go to the high by the Inspector and .a yearly change schools, has no `breadth and no of teachers, his influence on school seool rounding out. It ` begins and then is insignificant. He can make a fair - stops abruptly when the child reaches ly accurate estimate of conditions as thirteen or fourteen years of age. he finds them and report these condi- The young tree is torn up by the roots tions to trustees and to those in just when it begins to blossom. The authority above him, but• he can do system is discriminatory because the comparatively little to improve an un - children iri a wealthy neighborhood or satisfactory condition. near a high or continuation school Competent male teachers have may receive advantages denied other practically disappeared from rural children in a poor section or remote schools. If teachers stand in a par - from a more advanced school. The ental relation to their pupils it seems system is clumsy in operation be- reasonable to think that this relation cause it requires 300 managers to look will be more natural if " men and after 100 schools, and 100 teachers women are associated in the work of with 18 or 20 additional managers education, Is there a husband and for the county high schools. The wife in rural Ontario who read this system is unnecessarily parochial be- letter who would not like to have cause in 1919, with good roads and their children, for at least part of improved means of transportation we their school course, attend a school no longer require a school at every large and important enough to employ crossroad. The social and business as Principal a competent, well educat- life of the community has grown until ed man? Psychology teaches us that its circle now embraces many school imitation plays a very large part in sections. The social community circle our education. Is it fair to the boys would widen still more if five or six of rural Ontario that thousands of small schools could be replaced by them have no opportunity at school one really good school. - to imitate a model of their own sex? But little progress can be made In a larger and better rural school, until .we secure a larger unit of ad- where male and female teachers work ministration and a small number of side by side, lies our hope of the administrators, and the more this future. How can this school become problem is studied the clearer it. be- a reality? Not without effort, not comes that the unit must be the -without sacrifice, and not without a county. It is simply ridiculous to willingness to put- away old idols. expect that the schools of the County The ultra -conservative clings to the of Peel will be properly managed if old merely because it is old. The 300 people have a hand in the job. iconoclast smashes everything because Three hundred grown-up men to man- the things that are seem perfect. The age 100 teachers! The inevitable re- real statesman pulls down only when suit is that less than' 100 of them he wishes to. clear the ground for a take their duties seriously, and some better structure. of these are seriously coneernel only A consideration of the rural school With keeping down expenses. problem involves more than a view The present system for the financial of one -teacher country schools located Support of the rural schools is very on the township cross-roads. The complicated and very unsatisfactory, village high school and often the because it fails to distribute the bur- town and city high schools are closely den upon those who ought to carry linked up with the interests of rural it. Some money comes from the Pro- l communities. A considerable number vincial Treasury, a small. amount from of the pupils in these echoois come the County Treasury, a considerable from farm homes. grant from a uniform township levy, When orignally established in Upper the Canada as grammar schools, it was Why is the rural school any more and the balance necessary to run • Room, IV Honors• -Lillian Longworth, Ciar-- enee Trott, Margaret Rolphs Mary Hays, Norman Jefferson, Alice Walk- er, alk er, Nora Stewart, Fred Willis, Earl` Peterson, Beatrice Merrier. Pass --"Annie Hulley, Alvin Adams, Louie Jackson, Rosabel Ciuff, Evelyn. Hiuser, Leona Pearson, Glen Smith,, Laura McMillan, Margaret Beattie, Gordon Muir, Marie McCormick, Jack Archibald, Id's Hiuser, Tom Thiel. --- L. E. Gillespie, Teacher. Room Promoted to Jr. II Honors- -Flor- ence Spain, Ruby Storey, Elizabeth McLean, Evelyn Grieve and Olive Walker equal, Thomas Govenloek, Kathleen Calder and Harold. Cum- mings equal,George Charters. Pass -Leslie Knight, Jirn Pinder and Bessie Gluff equal, George Parkes, Sadie Hart, Josephine Edge,. Edith Bateman, Audrey S umme rs Toni Cluff, Fred Hiuser, Joe Hart,, Margaret , Cudmore, Jack Cudmore, Harry McLeod, Harold Henderhon, Harry Workman, Clarence Stevenson, Charlie Stevenson. Recommended; absent through i11- ness-Mary Oughton, Charlie Stew- art, Russel Holmes, Bernice Joynt, Promoted to Sr.. I -Margaret Crich,, Charlie Reeves, Bertha Huiser, Mar- garet Cardno, Tont. Hulley, Anna Edmunds, Nelson Cardno. -'- 'G. G. Ross, Teacher. Room VI Promoted from Sr. Primary - Elinor Burrows, Borden Merner, Dorothy Wiitse, Amelia Cha Cooper, George Hays, Andrew Calder, Pinder, Cecil Adams, • Mary Thomps- son, Herbert Peterson, Mary Archi- bald, Bernice Dorrance, Margaret Mc- Lennan, William Brewer, Ona Nic lis, Berne Stephenson, ne so n, Harry e Mi chael D only as a means of escape from the Frank Case, Leslie Howes, Peart , farm and that such means of escape 1Reeves, Mabel Bateman, Jean Frost, even if it were generally desired, is, Elva Oke, Irene Cluff, Russel Allen, as a rule, available only to those near Douglas Cook. towns and cities? Therefore, any, consideration of the rural school problem must include a consideration of providing for rural communities something beyond the present ele- mentary school. Will the present Premier of On- tario have the courage to come to a grip with the rural school problem? It, as well as any other! --perhaps better than any oher-may be a touchstone by which to judge his temper. If he aspires to improve the condition of rural Ontario, which he himself says in fundamental to any improvement of the Province as a whole, he must give rural Ontario better schools. He may double the 'o Government grants to rural schools s and treble them; he may give.-thenim twice as much inspection and super- vision; he may make more and more elaborate regulations about school gardens and elementary agriculture; he may give them medical and dental inspection; he may appoint architects to improve and remodel their build- ings; he may revise and add to or subtract from their present course of studies; he may devise the most elaborate and expensive machinery to increase pupils' attendance; he may give them free text books; he may make a score of changes each of which by itself seems to be an im- provement, but no possible multiplica- tion of such changes will have any appreciable or permanent value unless we can ultimately get rid of at least two-thirds of the present rural schools and substitute for them a limited number of consolidated schools equip- ped with every modern improvement and provided with a staff of teachers competent to begin and complete the formal school training of at least 95 per cent. of the children in the district. The first step toward the realization of such schools is the repeal of the High and Public Schools Act so fax as they effect the Province outside of townsd cities., The second step is to creme as many units of school ad- Tablets "A" to 93" -Dixon, Hazel; ministration as" there are counties, ,:Flannery, John; Flannigan, James;. towns and cities in the Province. i McLeod, Allan, SEPARATE SCHOOL REPORT The following are the results of the examinations, June, 1920: Grade VII to Grade V ale.-Carbert. Joseph. Grade VI to -Grade VIII -Faulkner, William; Gorden Reynolds. Grade VI to Grade VII -Daly, Jack; Devereux, Edward; Lane, Andrew; Lane, Mervin; Maithewe, Mary; Me - Mann, Joseph; O'Leary, Andrew; Williams, Lorena. Recommended---Grisbrook, Frank; Kennedy, Bernice. Grade V to Grade VI -Dixon, Rovena, Flannigan, Mary; Kennedy, . a3T James; McMann, Emily; Murray, Julia, Nigh, Exior; O'Leary, Patrieki Phillipe, Anthony; Sills, Mona; Thiel, Clement. Grade IV to V ----Daly, George; Duncan, Basil (promoted on year's work) ; Eckert, Clever; Finkbeiner, Mary; Hildebrand, Irene; Hughes, Monica; Hurley, Edith; Murray, Frank; Nolan, Thomas; Purcell, Basil; Purcell, Joseph. Grade III to IV -- FIannery, Catherine; Phillips, Angelo; Williams, Willie, - Grade II to III -Flannery, Martha; Howard, M a r y; Lane, Willie; T' Matthews, Gertrude; Nigh, Aloysia-, Nigh, Joseph; Nigh, Mary; Rumphf, Matilda.; Fortune, Donna; Fortune, Lionel (promoted on year's work). Grade I to II -Dixon, Dorothy; LeBeau, Lester; McMann, Florence; Murray Audry; Reynolds, Frank; O'Leary, Ignatius; Phillipa, Bess) (promoted on year's work). Tablets to Grade 1 -Curtin, Urban; Devereux, Francis; Duncan,, Eugene; Flannery, Harold, Flannigan, Julia; Hildebrand, Gordon; Kennedy, Alex- ander; Klein, Milmer; Nigh, Edward; Nolan, Vera; Purcell, Loretto; Purcell, Louis; R.umphf, George; Sills, Dorlon; Williams, George.