The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

hr- d the tribune thursday june 29 1967 canada centennial 18671967 schawls mat jpaimfvl begiwiming w- orchard park public school summitview public school a i un h stouffville district high school st marks separate school four schools now fifth is planned earliest records of edu cation in stouffville tell of a oneroom school located on what is now church st as 1900 approached the school was located south of the present summitview school this building burn ed in 1916 and was replac ed by the present structure one of the earliest prin cipals of the school who will still be remembered by some of the towns old sters was the late james hand a competent educat or but a stern taskmaster before 1916 the school added what was known as continuation school where pupils could continue on from public school to their junior matriculation if fur ther education was desired it was necessary to go to markham the nearest high school in the rural area sur rounding the village the first schools were rough log structures crudely chink- ed and plastered with un- planed plank floors and de void of maps globes and all the modern apparatus of education the desks were homemade and they ranged along the wall school life languished in the summer months but when the fall frosts pre vented further field lab our the bigger boys and the girls and often young men and women came flocking back to school as in town school gov ernment was usually des potic not to say tyrannical but the presence of a num ber of older pupils often introduced a democratic el ement which helped mod ify the rigor of the masters rule early schooling hard in the early beginnings teaching was excruciating for the pupil and demoral izing for the teacher tea chers received less than 400 a year and comforts in school buildings were un known there were two heating systems the stove which roasted those who had to sit near it and the birch od which roasted pretty well generally education was an un fortunate necessity and the aim seems to have been to make it as grim as possible many of the little one- room schools which dotted the countryside were not so much beacons of know ledge as they were unitive establishments for the cor rection of wayward youth pader was scarce so the majority of the class had to scratch their lessons on slates standards low if the state of equipment left much to be desired so did the quality of the tea ching anyone could teach as long as he was a british subject early reports tell us that only one in ten was qualified to teach even the youngest children in ad dition to the pittance they were paid for their ser vices many went home each day to their boarding places to do chores ar the end of the day learning meant memor izing facts whether a pupil learned to think- was unim portant even before 1900 the high cost of education made headlines the school board was kept in line by public opinion and council deeply resented handing over money over which it had no control first addition the first of a long line of school additions came to the present summitview school in the 1930s and consisted of three rooms on the southwest corner of the building excavation for the two storey structure was done by a team of hor ses and a turnpike shovel and the cost of the whole project would not build one room at todays figures it built two classrooms and the first gymnasium a base ment room with tarvia floor it later became a room for extra classes some years later another three rooms were added to the southeast corner and household science was in troduced to high school today stouffville has 3 public schools with another forecast for the northeast section of town one of the three present schools is a separate school erect ed only a few years ago fullilcdged jligh school stouffville battled long and hard with the depart ment of education for the establishment of the local district high school the chief municipal supporter was the township of whit church a large area of which is served by the school in 1950 the depart ment of education had come out strong in favour of high school areas stou ffville wanted a school and so did markham and alone time it appeared that one might be built near dick sons hill to serve both mun- icipaltics however both of the towns prevailed but not before some bitterness developed over the whole affair the stouffville district school built on ten acres of ground purchased from the lambert stouffer farm presently receiving its latest and last addition a million dollar twostorey enlargement on the north and lront of the building expensive battle the big battle today is who is going to pay for the fantastic rale of construct ion and the annual sky rocketing of teachers sal aries i ne municipalities say they cannot continue and the provincial govern ment has not seen fit so far to take on the load architects see schools o the future as highrise con structions operating the year round to cope with the ast numbers now seeking education 5 in a hundred years educa tion has become a lifetime experience and a joyful discovery instead of an in strument of torlure first council 1873 the first council lor markham village met in january 1873 at ihe l-rank- lin hall county judge boyd received the declara tion and qualifications of the new members who look their seals as fol lows james speight reeve john jerman t a milne hugh megill and h tane the first business was the appointment of ii r corson as clerktreas urer at a salary of 50 j robinson as assessor at j20 and geo digby as in spector of houses ol pub lic entertainment at 50c per certificate grained i i 1 i f