Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1965-11-18, Page 64KM*74�crn, Pro+ts.rtif tIzt, VNT., NOV. 18, 1965 Se�i�rth W.1. Meets The regular meeting of Sea - forth Wont4en's Institute was held Tuesday at the home of Mrs. Mae Hillebrecht. A poem, "The War For Some Soldiers is ?Yot Over Yet," was read by Mrs. Eldin Kerr. A minute's silence was observed for those who served in the Armed Forc- es. The roll call was answered by naming "a soldier who fought for his country." Mrs. E. Cameron told the story of John McRae, the author of "Flanders Field." Reports of the Huron County rally were given by Mrs. R. J. Doig and Mrs. W. Coleman. The report of London Area convention, held in Stratford, was given by Mrs. John E. MacLean and Mrs. R. J. Doig. The District Board of Directors' meeting held in Hensall was reported by Mrs. James Keys. Mrs. Gordon McKenzie and Mrs. E. Papple attended the short course, "Vegetables With a Flair," in Hensall, and at this meeting demonstrated different ways of preparing vegetables. These were later served for lunch. Articles for the Christmas stocking at the Ontario Hospi- tal, Goderich, were displayed. A donation will be made to the Children's Aid for Christmas. A Christmas recipe for "Danc- ing Snowballs," was given. The business meeting was in charge of Mrs. L. Strong and Mrs. W. Coleman. Mrs. E. Cam- eron and Mrs. H. Hugill were in charge of the program. The Women's Institute are sponsor- ing a dance in the Legion Hall on Friday, Nov. 26, with Des Jardine's orchestra. Legion Bingo Winners Legion bingo winners were: Mrs. Walters, Walton; Mrs. Wood, Seaforth; Mrs. Russ Holmes, Clinton, and Mrs. Tideswellj, Clinton; Mrs. Baird, Brucefield; Mrs. Floyd Dale, Seaforth; Mrs. Heckman, Strat- furd, and Mrs. Baird, Bruce - field; Joanne Van Vugt; Mrs. Cliff Ashton, Clinton; Mrs. Campbell. Mitchell; Mrs. Teen- kemp, Clinton; Mrs. Garrick, Goderich; Russ Campbell, Mit- chell (2); games 6 and 12 were split three ways, Specials were won by Mrs, Pauline Kennedy, Seaforth, and Mrs. Campbell, Mitchell (split); Mrs. Plant, Seaforth; Mrs. Heck- man, Stratford; $50 special, A. Watson. Door prizes went to Frank Skinner and Mrs, Lazonby, . of Galt, 4 DROP IN AND LOOK AROUND Everything you need for the man and boy on your list! BILL O'SHEA MEN'S WEAR Main Street L. Seaforth USED SPECIAL 1964 Pontiac $, A.T. Parisienne, 4-D Hardtop — Low Mileage Many Extras at Seaforth Motors Dial 527-1750 Seaforth Used Car Lot Open Evenings It Was the .C1.1. School Days (A talk delivered by Dr. H. H. Kerr, a graduate of SCI, at the SDHS gradua- tion ceremonies on Friday). (Continued from last week) Walk With Teacher Miss Nelson was a teacher of general subjects, She was still young enough to be flattered when some of the bigger and older boys vied with each other for the privilege of walking home with her after school and of carrying her books. This they took turns in doing with great regularity, I am sure they enjoyed her company, for she was well-groomed, vivacious and interesting; but not unna- turally, they had an ulterior motive in mind. They hoped their attentions would bring them some helpful considera- tion whep the time carne for her to mark their examination papers. Young people haven't changed much in that respect, Miss Wetherill was the sixth member of the instructidna staff and she was in charge of Art and Commercial subjects surely a strange combination Her enthusiastic approach to her work, however, overcame all inherent difficulties and any knowledge of art which I pos- sess I owe to her. She was al- ways cheerful, always consider- ate, and always very efficient. In addition, she had a tall, com- manding appearance and when she stood at the door of a classroom, a great silence auto- matically descended upon the room. She did not have to utter a word of remonstrance. A cou- ple of years ago Miss Wetherill sent her greetings to me through a Ryerson student who comes from St. Thomas. As far as I know she is still living in that city. All things considered, it was an excellent staff and the mem- bers on it were ornaments to their profession. They were well qualified in their fields, and very earnest in their desire to make sure that the students un- der their -care received a sound education. This they accom- plished, and the graduates have always been grateful to them individually and collectively. The educational process centres around the ability of the teach- er, and the Seaforth Collegiate has always been 'fortunate in the type of staff it has had over the years. The Old Gymna 'um To accommodate t,We teaching staff • and the students, the Board provided a building with six or seven classrooms and a science laboratory. Might I ex- plain that in those daysl, we advanced by forms, not by grades. In the elementary school system the term "book" was us- ed, i.e., Junior and Senior First Book, Junior and Senior Sec- ond Book, and so on. The term "book" referred to the 'authorized readers, which were published by the T. Eaton Com- pany at astonishingly low pric- es, sometimes only a few cents. In the high school, students en- rolled in First Form, Second Form, Third Form or Fourth Form. The largest room, locat- ed on the east side was for the, 50 or 60 First Form students, The chemistry laboratory was above the First Form. The oth- er room housed Forms 2A and 2B, Forms 3A and 3B, and Forms 4A and 4B, which were together. At the end of Third Form we had to write a depart- mental examination called the Junior Matriculation Examina- tion. It consisted of 12 papers, and if a student failed a single one of them, he had to repeat the complete year: There was no such thing as a partial fail- ure or a credit. Fourth Form prepared the students to 'write I , LASTCHANCE - - - - -. FREE Double -Bed Size Electric Blanket, value $29.95, or Electric Hair Dryer with a FRIGIDAIRE CLOTHES DRyER SEE ,THE MANY MODELS AVAILABLE AT BOX FURNITURE Phone - 527-0680 , -- SEAFORTH In Seaforth the Senior Matriculation exam- inations, which consisted of two parts written in two sep- arate years. Successful candi- dates were ad fitted to the Uni- versity or to! the provincial nor- mal schools. _ The gymnasium was a barn of a building located on the east side of the property. It was heated by a stove, but was so cold in the winter that the principal. mercifully cancelled all physical training classes from about November until just before the high school inspec- tor's anticipated visit in March. Compulsory physical training was something young people in those days could well do with- out, They had many chores to do around the home and 'they did not need additional exer- cise. Splitting wood is a very good substitute fur a physical training course. • The classroom desks were of a double size, with the seats hinged to the desks behind. Needless to say, they were not built for comfort, and this in itself caused a great deal of • wriggling-4,especially among the younger members of the student body. Sometimes the boys were required to sit in the seats on one side of the room and the girls were required to sit on the other side. For some rea- son, however, boys and girls in the Fourth Form were seated alternately — first, two boys; then two girls; then two more boys, etc. A shy boy really suf- fered under this system. The girls who sat behind would of- ten plague him by pulling out a hair from their bountifully covered heads and draping it over the lad's shoulder when he was unaware of what was hap- pening. To his great embarrass- ment, the other boys would lat- er insist on knowing where he had been the night before .and what girl he had dated. The hair . was pointed out as mute evidence. This seating arrangement, too, made it relatively easy,,with the help of willing accomlices, to pass notes back and forth be- tween a boy and a girl, but there was always the danger of interception by a teacher. To have Miss McKinley read one of these notes aloud to the class and to hear her comments thereon was a source of merri- ment which lasted for days. Such were the boy -girl ap- proaches of 50 years ago. Board in Town The district high school had yet to be born and there were, therefore,no buses to trans- port the country young people to the high school. Under the circumstances, they had to do the best they could. Sometimes they walked; sometimes they rode a bicycle in the good wea- ther. In the winter, they were frequently transported in a vehicle drawn by an ancient, obstinate horse who took no joy at all in his educational task, and gave as much trouble as he could. Sometimes they board- ed; in town, but not often, as that cost money.. Generally they "roomed," which meant that they rented a room for never more than a dollar a week, us- ually 50 or even 25 cents a week, and brought their own food from home with them for the next five days. This food usually consisted of plenty of bread, some caked meat, lots Of jam and a package of oat- meal for porridge. The kindly landlady let them use her stove to cook their meals in return for shovelling the snow and do- ing a few other odd jobs. That was a hard way to obtain an education, but it produced many a prominent citizen in later years. I have often felt that these kindly landladies have never been properly honored by the authorities for the impor- tant part they played in the educational process. No woman likes to have a roomer putter- ing around her stove, and these students must have been a real nuisance. Social life for the students .was not well organized. As a matter of fact that kind of thing was frowned upon as being frivolous and not conducive to the acquisition' of an education. Somehow we struggled along without the help of a students' administrative council, which is standard equipment in any school today. The staff and the senior students, _ however, or- ganized one dahce per year, us- ually following the field day at which the athletic types demon- strated their superiority over the rest of us. There were not even commencement exercises at that time. But Lots of Fun But this is not to say we did not have plenty of fun, organiz- ed on an informal basis. There were house parties, church par- ties and the skating rink at which the ,town band provided the muss.. There was always the adverure, too, of just strol- ling up and down the main street, shyly flirting with mem- bers of the opposite sex of the same age group, and seeing which one could be induced to come to the ice cream parlor for a banana split. Perhaps these seem like simple pleasures to the teenager of today, but thus we enjoyed ourselves on Friday and Saturday nights. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights were, of course, devoted to homework. The stern morality of the times forbade studying or partying of any kind on Sundays. We had, of course, a cadet corps and I recall vividly a humiliating episode in connec- tion with it. The school authori- ties had introduced conscription long before the Federal Gov- ernment had ever thought about it, and every male who could walk found himself a member of the cadet corps. Some were unkind epough to say the rea- son for this state of affairs was the grant of a dollar for each and every cadet who could stand on the parade ground on the day of inspection. But we were too young to know about such matters and anyway, with school discipline as it existed at that time, we were not in any posi- tion to argue or stage ,a sit-in as protest. The Awkward Squad With so many conscripts in the corps, an "awkward Squad" was always organized, consist- ing of First Form students who found it difficult to master the fundamentals of military drill or to know even the difference between their right foot and their left foot. The squad was outfitted in what was left over after the regular members of the corps had been given their choice of the uniforms owned by the School Board. Conse- quently, on the parade ground these young teenagers had the appearance of scarecrows. The rifles too were cast-offs, Since I was the tallest and gangliest First Former in the squad, Mr. Ross decided to• ele- vate me to the distinguished rank of Lance Corporal, and to place me.i in charge of these stalwart troops. That high rank, however, did not improve my knowledge of military drill or increase my confidence in my ability to handle the squad. On the day of the cadet inspec- tion I drew up my squad under the shade of a couple of trees, and we watched the regular corps going through its paces. I fervently hoped that the in- specting officer would not even notice us, but ,he evidently was the type of official who insisted that everyone on the dollar -per - head grant list should be in- spected. Over he came and ask- ed 'me to show him what the squad could do. I first got them to stand -at attention with the rifles on the correct shoulder; which was a feat in itself. Then I told them to "Mark time, right turn, quick march," which they did; and we moved off in a fairly straight column. Thus far everything had gone reasonably well, but dis- aster was around the corner. I ordered them in my best man- ner to "left wheel" as Mr. Ross had instructed me to do, but with an utter perversity'paral- elled only by barnyard fowl al- though with no malicious intent, I assure you, the leading boy wheeled to the right rather than to the left, and headed for a wire fence about 15 feet away. The others followed.' I was so shaken by this sud- den turn of event that my mind went blank, and I could not think of a single command to stop the impending debacle, not even the command "Halt!" Now if this fine squad had been members of the Grenadier G,uards, they would without flinchieg have walked over, or through, or under that fence into the plowed field beyond, but my boys did not play in quite the same league. When they arrived at the fence they stopped of their own accord, hesitated a moment, broke ranks, and slid their rifles to the ground. Some even sat down for a rest. This probably seemed a natural thing to do, for they had been standing all forenoon. They had done their duty as they saw it, and under the circumstances, it must have seemed just about the only sensible procedure. The in- specting officer sliiled in a frozen sort of way, and Mr. Ross gave every evidence of being completely furious with all of us. Earn Title The whole episode lasted not more than three minutes, but in that period of time my troops and I amply indicated we had the ability to live up to all the honorable traditions of the "awkward squad.', From that day forward I never had any ambition to become an army officer. In fact, I have nevem been able to work up much en- thusiasm about the place of a cadet corps in a secondary school. My years at the school were clouded by World War I. I remember Well August 4, 1914. It was the final day of the Sea - forth Old Boys' Reunion, and a large crowd had gathered at the fair grounds to see the various competing squads of firemen perform their drills and to gnjoy the other events of the flay. Great excitement prevailed when word arrived by telegraph that the British Em- pire had gone to war with Ger- many, and rumours flew thick and fast. That night the peo- ple danced on the main street, because no one really knew what was or the price that would have to be paid. They thought that Loyd Kitchener, the .Hero. of ghartoun(, woulldc very quickly hang the Kaiser, and many of the young men be- lieved they should enlist quick- ly or the war would be over before they got to England, Well, Lord Kitchener did not prove to be the white knight in shining armour—(it was im- possible for him to be so) and the war dragged on and on. Canada and her citizens be- came more and more involved and it was not long before this country with its small popula- tion had fielded on the western front a large army of brave men. Area Losses The casualties mounted. When a great battle was in progress, it fell to the lot of Mac Mc- Kellar to bicycle around to va- rious homes delivering tele- grams starting with the words: "We regret to inform you—" The casualty lists were posted each day at eight o'clock on a bulletin board in front of the Town Hall. When the list was posted, the crowd of bystand- ers would press forward to read the names. Some would quickly detach themselves, and with bowed heads to hide their grief, would steal away. With others, anxiety gave way to joy when the names of their loved ones were not included. Those were anxious years which took their toll of old and young alike. They were followed immediate- ly by the flu epidemic of 1918- 19 comparable to the Black Plague of 1665. More deaths re- sulted from the flu than from the war itself. Although we did not know it at the time, World War I mark- ed the end of an era and the beginning of a new way of life. In 1914 there were few cars, no paved roads, no passenger aeroplane flights, no radios, no televisions, no computers, ..rlo automated equipment. Now we have thousands of cars, hun- dreds of miles of paved high- ways, and we can fly around the world in a few hours. Our houses contain thousands of ra- dios and television sets, and so many labor-saving devices, in- cluding auton-latic washers and dryers and dishwashing ma- chines, that our wives are seek- ing avenues outside the home for their surplus energies. We have so much automated equip- ment in our factories and busi- ness'establishments that it has become necessary to introduce a system of continual retrain- ing for multitudes of employ- ees. Pattern Shifts Prior to World War 1 the town was the centre of the life of the' community and the merch- ants could count en practically all purchasing being done on the main street. With modern transportation, the citizens now range far and wide in their quest for so-called "bargains." This has helped to develop stag- nation in the growth of our vil- lages and towns. Another cause has been that population pat- terns have shifted until, in 1965, two out of every three persons live in urban centres. At the turn of the century, purchases were made by cash or by "trade." This was the exchange of eggs or home-made butter for groceries or dry - goods. Now a high percentage of all purchasing is done through the credit system. It can hardly be said that we own our homes, our cars, our appli- ances or even our clothes. We actually rent them through in- stalment' purchasing system. Prior to 1914 everyone had to work hard, six days per week on a 60 -hour work week, just to make a bare living. Now we are more and more concern- ed, with providing for our lei- sure time. Then the family was a real unit comprising at least three generations with an ac- cepted place and job for every member of each generation. In this decade, we have day-care nurseries for the little folks, all types of schools for the young, small apartments fpr the middle-aged, and "villages" for he old. This change in our ode of living means that the amily as a unit is no longer m f Juniors Entertain Seaforth Junior Farmers and Junior Institute held their an- nual entertainment meeting in Seaforth District High School, with members from South Hur- on, North Huron and Clinton the effective force it was. Iron- ically, our age demands more and more education. In those far away World War I days, few students went beyond elemen- tary school. In this computer age, 14 years' schooling is fast becoming accepted as the mini- mum educational requirement for employment. But despite all these changes, the importance of the local high school remains steadfast as a rock and the objectives of the educational process have not changed greatly. We still be- lieve we should be very much concerned with the production of a graduate who possesses a sense of dignity and a sense of purpose, one who has a re- sponsible attitude towards his work and his fellow human be- ings. I think the Seaforth Col- legiate Institute in bygone years Junior Farmers as guests. Donald McKereher, president of Seaforth Junior Farmers, was in the chair. A sing -song was 'led by Christine Pryce, and con- tests and games were conduct- ed by Robert Fotheringham, Mac Stewart and Joan Pryce. Invitations were accepted frgm Clinton Junior Farmers and from North Huron Junior Farm- ers. did that, and I think it has ef- fectively maintained that tradi- tion. Methods may have chang- ed, new concepts may have been added and new courses intro- duced, but the old aims con- tinue to act as a guide to both staff and students. I am sure that when this ancient build- ing, which has served so many generations so well, has disap- peared, the new Seaforth Col- legiate Institute will continue to pour forth young men and women of such dignity and pur- pose that they will be a great credit to themselves and to their famous school in this new world of ours. HURON CO-OPERATIVE MEDICAL SERVICES offers to Residents of Huron County Comprehensive Medical Cover- age At Cost! — Individual and Group Rates Available — Inquire to=day from: ROBERT McMILLAN, RR 2, Seaforth ART WRIGHT, C.I.A., Seaforth GORDON RICHARDSON, RR 1, Brucefield BERT IRWIN, RR 2, Seaforth or at HURON CO-OPERATIVE MEDICAL SERVICES 70 Ontario St., Clin o' . Phone 482-9751 EVE -MAR STORE Your Headquarters For All Your Needs! "The Store Where Your Dollars Buys More" SEAFORTH, ONT. — PHONE 5274690 GIRL'S DRESS DUSTERS - PURSES BLOUSES - SKIRTS PYJAMAS - GOWNS CARDIGANS SHIRTS - TIES - GLOVES DRESSING GOWNS SCARFS - TIE & SOX SET SOCKS • PYJAMAS 'Come in and browse around No obligations WE GASH ALL BABY BONUS CHEQUES A SMALL DEPOSIT WILL HOLD ANY ARTICLE Safety -Tested USED CAR AT HURON COUNTY'S FINEST USED CAR MARKET SALE! SPECIAL ! ! 1964 Ford Custom 6 -Cylinder, A.T. ' $1495.00 1-1965 Parisienne 4 -Door Hardtop 2-1965 Meteor Montcalms, 4 -Door H.T. 3-1965 Pontiac Laurentian Sedans 1-1965 Chev. Impala 4-Door—}LT., fully equipped 1-1914 Pontiac Strato-Chief 300 1-1964 Pontiac Strato Chief 283 2-1964 Chev. Impala Sedans 3-1964 Pontiac Laurentian Sedans—Auto- matic, fully equipped, 6 and 8's 1-1962 Pontiac Parisienne 4 -door HT, V-8 1962 Meteor Customs Sedan 1962 Pontiac Strato-Qhief, Standard 1962 Falcon Sedan—A.T. 1-1961 Pontiac Laurentian 4 -door IIT, V-8 1961 Ford Sedan—S.T. 1960 Chev. Sedans A Wide Selection of Other Models, 1957' to 1960, to Choose From STATION WAGONS 2-1964 Pontiac Station Wagon, V-8 1962 Oldsmobile Station Wagon 1-1962 Pontiac Laurentian Station wagon, V-8 1-1964 Pontiac Laurentian Station Wagon �-V-8 A Written Guarantee for 60 Days on all Late Mo el Cars—Many other Models to choose from BRUSSELSMOTORS BRUSSELS ONTARIO PHONE 173—"The Home of Better Used Cars" °' OPEN EVERY EVENING 1