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The Huron Expositor, 1972-05-25, Page 5a CALE DOUCETTE CONSTRUCTION LTD. GENERAL CONTRACTOR "Early teachers made 'contributions Seaforth Public School Principal, John Talbot (left) and Harold Knisley, Associate Super- intendent of Operation (Area C) for the Huron County Board of Education, study the rough blue- prints for the Seaforth public School addition in January of last year as tenders were called for the project. The addition is being opened ,on Monday evening. The enlarged school accom- modates pupils from Seaforth 'aa well as all pupils from Grades 4 - 8 from Walton and McKillop Township, The new addition extends to the southwest of the preSent school, include,saLittrary, Home Economics and Industrial Arts facilities, three new classrooms, shower and change rooms, a new Staff Lounge, additional lavatdries and new storage areas. (staff Photo) "pATEWAY TO LEARNING" Continues Leonard McFaul was a man known far and wide for the extra- ordinary shine which he always )managed to keep on his boots. This was all the more remarkable because, for many years, he walked two and a half miles to school, come rain, shine, wind or high water. Yet no pupil Nithin living memory can recall ever having seen the principal with a fleck of dust on his boots. In itself, this Is a triviality, but those shining boots were the mark of the man and the mark of Leonard McFaul, as the prin-' cipal of the Seaforth Public e School, is the mark of the school itself, even up to today. Every school has good tea- chers and bad teachers, and oars was no exception. To record these would take volumes; to pick a few would be unfair discrimination. But in the story of every school there is a critical moment when the influence of a dominant man or woman will set the tone and decide for the future what kind of school this will be - a good one or a bad one. For the S,aforth Public 4 School, that mThaient came when the front wing was completed, when the, municipality was Incor- porated as a town, when Egmond- Ville and Harpurhey were beaten 'and it became evident that not only economically but education- ally Seaforth.was to be the centre %, for the district. The man in charge at that critical moment was Leonard McFaul, and that's why it is worth taking time to see what thoSe shining boots stood for. Leonard McFa.ul was a member of one of the McKillop -Township pioneer families. He was born and raised on the old homestead, and this fact had a tremendous influence on the school's development. Put it this wry: his love of learning made him ambitious for • his best 'scholars, but his love for his native hea th made him work for the kind of school 'which would serve the whole town. These are the two elements which - with minor inerruptions - have always been predominant in the life of.the school. Teachers and citizens alike have demanded • that the school provide a good basic education for the children of the town, but they haye also insisted that the student of extra capacity be recognized and, encouraged. To accomplish this, they in- stituted no great reforms, or- iginated no educational' experi- ments, .or tinkered with the curriculum or teaching methods. Classes were' conducted in the orthodox manner, with the emphasis always on the three H's. Then there came a shift. The doctrine of functionaiiern hit the educators, just as it had hit the builders, and they began to ask: "Why bother with all the curlicues and those coarse and fine strokes, and all those other frills and • ornaments-, when all that is necessary is writing • you can read? Who cares about beauty as long as it's legible?" Thus the freehand system of writing was introduced with its easy to form,...large, rounded letters whidh certainly are easy to read and have about as much character as a shoelace. Bravely the teachers at the school took up the chore. 'By' the hour they. taught the pupils how to make ovals. At one point, the school bought a grams.- phone which played' waltzes, so the youngsters could get the right a rhythm for making ovals . The theory was that it was easier to make this kind of rounded writing if your arm was trained to the rhythm of it. Although he was long re- tired by the time the grarna- phone was bought, that was Leonard McFaul talking. As the head • of the school, he did not set out to dictate to the community, but to serve it - to do what they expected him to do, and do it thoroughly. The Seaforth Public School has al- ways been run that way. • And when the basic needs of the curriculum had been served, and down in the third row was a curly-haired girl or a bright-eyed boy who looked as if he wanted more, the teachers did not look at the clock and reach for their hats. They gave those eager to learn as much as they could take. When Leonard McFaul first became Principal, the town's high school had yet to be built, but in his classes he invariably found students who needed to be pre- pared for advanced education. He always took them on. Natur-' ally, it was extra work; of course, it was outside the strict limits of his duties, but this district - and indeed all parts of Canada - can thank , this zealous principal for some of their finest doctors, lawyers, preachers and teachers. The principle of serving the many at the expense of the few has never been recognized in this school. A record of over eighty years has proved that a good school can do both. But as time went on it was recognized that while a good job was being done for the students right up, to the Senior Fourth, we were not so strong at the be- ginning of cycle. It took another local teacher, again ,With. roots, deeply sunk in Huron County soil, to see this. Sarabel McLean was already a mature woman when she under- took to start the first Kinder- garten in the school. There had been private ones 'from time to time in the' town, but it took Miss McLean to get the idea worked into the educational fabric of the community. It was her first and only school, and there is no doubt that' the ' cheerful kindergarten, so care- fully designed and such a good place to start out in, which is a feature of the. new school, Is her achievement, and nobody else's. Thus, from the beginning' the town's own sons and daughters are those who have made the most important and lasting marks on Seaforth education. Others have come and gone and have done• well for us, but there is not a doubt in the world that the best service' has come from • those who have been wedded perman- ently to the town. Lecinard McFaul knew this from the ,beginning. He pre- lerred to hire local teachers, and succeeding school boards have always seen to it that there has been a good representation of local scholars on the staff. Finally McFaul decided to leave the old homestead and build him- self a house right in the town. He built, one 'to last a good long time. In fact, it is still the largest house In town. III. So back we come to the ones who caused all the furor in the first place - the ones who Made it necessary tobuild the school, and add to it, 'to train teachers for it, to deviSe curricula and teaching methods for them - the pupils. For almoit eighty years the time and energies of many men and women, and the money of a great many mere, haye been ex- pended in their service, and what did they think about it? . • Most of them thought it was a great crashing. bore, yet after • the two-month summer holiday, most of them were so ,tired of leisure that they were happy to hear the sehoolbell calling them back. ' They wouldn't admit it, of course, until later years, and tlien,they would recall with ond- ness and nostalgia "the best days of my, life when I was at school," And what went into that life?. Well, it wasn't all discipline and study of spelling lists and the multiplication table. There was plenty-of that, as has been shown, but there were lots of other things - things which are recalled long after one's ability with com- pound fractions has become a little Shaky. These things, which.enriched and.` filled every schoolchild's life, were not quite the same as what we know today as "recrea- tional activities." yet have never heard an alumnus of the Seaforth Public School charge that his childhood recreation was neglected. The reason is clear, , Left Jo his own devices a' youngster will find his own fun, and when you live in a small Western Ontario town the- pdssibilities are infinite. The playground has always been vir- tually unsupervised and that, on the whole, probably accounts for the ingenuity the children learned in amusing themselves. Let a teacher be standing over your shoulder and you get inhibited. From the very beginning the games of the children devised to amuse. themselves were a nice balance of skill and strength and, because they were not made up by adults but by children, they were simple games. However; with such an allur- ing and wonderful world for fun surroundipg' the, town - the Mountain, the grove, the several swimming • holes, Bealtte's swamp, the dam and the two slaughter-houses - the school. „ . found its biggest problem-of Clis= ciprine - absenteeism it is pro- perly called. Hookey to you. Children can devise apparently endl ess ways of tormenting teachers, and in our• school all the old tricks were tried - tacks, spitballs, molasses, ' pen nibs, tinfoil: all the equipment for mischief - but the culprit was at least on hand and the prac- tised teacher soon learned to spot the guilty. But hookey was another thing. In Leonard Mc- Faid's view, a much- more ser- ious thing, because to' him it represented a waste of the tax- payer's money and a.,situation in which he could not do his full duty . You can-'t educate a child if he doesn't show up. The other things he, took for granted and coped with effectively - even in the days When the School reached ita peak enrolment °Lever four hun- dred; and there were only four teachers to handle the *whole works. But hookey was some- thing •,he could not abide:, Another early problem with students was cleanliness. In the beginning a bathroom was a luxury, even a curiosity. The Saturday night bath was an in- stitution and, especially in the cold weather, it was often ne- glected in many homes. But a pupil who had not had a bath all winter 'in a room ,of, sixty or seventy children, and if he hap- pens to be near one of those well-stoked stoves, something Is going to happen. It did, and • teachers had to have strong noses, especially during the winter months. Yet' most of these children eurvived. The hazards to health were high, the Aangers• of adven- • turf ng ' without supervision,, manifold; the discipline was strict, sometimes brutal, and psychologists say that can do untold harm 'to You in' later, life. But they did survive. They survived to go to fight two wars in defence of, their country; they survived -to go out into the world and 'make great contributions to learning and science and ihduStryf 'they survived 'to keep their native town a lively and good place to live in; they survived to raise more children and, now, to build a new and splendid school to educate those children. Altogether, the record is good. The best evidence of this you can find, is !tithe new school, which, with great, patience and foresight, has been planned to be a worthy successor to that aid beauty whose story I have been recalling in these pages. Like the old one, the new is built with an eye to the future. Provision has been made for ex- pansion; all the possible needs which we know about now have been attended to in the new huild- ing. n keeping with the times, it is functional, and yet it pleases the eye, and there is no better building a its kind in western -Ontario. • )It is very unlikely that an educational revolution will occur this year, or any other year; in the 'life of the new school, but it will be very surprising if it falls down on the two precepts which Leonard McFaul imPlanted so firmly so many years ago. The needs of all will be served; the promise of the ,few will be made to flower. Open SPS (continued from pa!ge 4) several' classes' were accomo- dated in portions • of Seaforth District' High School until the Public Seheot construction pro- gram was completed. The town of Seaforth worked closely with the Huron Board In providing a sewer, outlet, con - struction of which proceeded throughout the summer along Market Street. The sewer exten- sion was completed in lime fpr use when school in Sept- ember. • INDUSTRIAL, HOME & FARM WIRING JORDON ELECTRIC 348-9957 Mitthell,,Ont. 234-6381 Crediton,' Ont.' ,r 4 Children recall visit to neighboring farm 482-3348 Clinton, Ont. (contributed) Last Friday, the Seaforth Public School Kindergarten class visited the farm of Don Watson, RR 4, Clinton. . What, an excited group boarded the bus 'at thefschool about 10:15 a.m. Most of the children had never been on a bus before and' many had never been on a farm. They described the bus as being "very big with' Tots of seats and very burapitY." Mr. Watson greeted us as we stepped off the bus and led us towards the sheep. There was a -ram, ewes and frisky lambs. They were frightened of us and would run' away when we got near, but Mr. Watson caught a lamb for us to pet. The child- ren described the lamb as "wooly, soft and fluffy." Next we saw the "great big pigs bigger than usr" (the sows) and the little baby pigs. The children' were' allowed to hold ,the two-day old piglets that squealed and wriggled in their arms. Janice was somewhat sur- prised at what her little pig left ih her handl The children were fascinated, with the heifers and cow. They said, "there aren't, any bath- rooms in barns, so 'the cows go right where they aref" They learned the word manure and said that the farm would have cow, pig, sheep, horse and chicken manure. ' Many bhildren had never seen an egg in its natural envtron- I ment and came running to me with the news that a hen had just laid three eggs. Petting the young colt was lots of fun but riding the stal- lion was an even greater thrill and everyone who wanted to, had a ride. Just being host and hostess for such a delightful visit would ' have been enough but , Mr. and Mrs. Watson completed the event by giving us all ice-cream bars. We then scrambled back on the bus and returned to school. We discussed our trip and these were their comments: Mark liked the horse but not the ride; Kevin , Derek and Barry C. liked 'riding the horse; Pat, . Shelly and Laurie liked holding the baby pigs; Debbie, Janice and Stare liked the colt; Wendy liked the' cow and heifers; Susan and Sandra liked the chickens who laid the eggs; Jeff, John, Jamie and Todd liked the big fat pigs; Brenda liked the ice- cream and Heather liked the man and lady because they let us come. I asked how many would like to live on a farm and these would, Laurie, Hea- ther, Karen B., Brenda, Derek, Jeff Barry C., Sandra, Susan, Kevin, Shelly, Janet, Janice, Deb- bie and Tracey. Because farrns are "smelly", John, Cheryl, B.077 V. and Pattie didn't think they would like to live there. Our sincere thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Watson who Made—this venture possible. KYLES, KYLES & GARRATT ARCHITECTS 165 Huron St., Stratford