 |
[Photo by KPA]
[This is a long blog post. But most of the information is explanatory quotes from other sources, some of which I've reproduced close to their original length.]
I had meant to post on the Jarvis Collegiate a few months ago, and a recent post at Laura Wood's The Thinking Housewife reminded me of it.
A reader (Alan) at her site writes about a high school in St. Louis, which he starts with:
This is the story of a dead school in a decadent city.He continues:
Grover Cleveland High School was opened in St. Louis in 1915 in a building as massive and impressive as a castle. It was designed by renowned architect William B. Ittner. Today it stands closed and abandoned, a victim of decades of neglect and suicidal public policies.This massive, castle-like high school building architecture apparently was part of the Canadian aesthetics as well. One particular Canadian architect, C.E. Cyril Dyson, was the designer behind seven of Toronto's high schools between 1890 and 1924. All these buildings still stand as high schools and are imposingly grand.
Although none have been neglected to the extent that Alan writes about the St. Louis school, I think there is another degradation taking place, at least in the one closest to my neighborhood, the Jarvis Collegiate. Here is some of the history behind the collegiate:
Jarvis Collegiate was originally founded as a private school, beginning in 1797. However, in 1807 the government of Ontario, then known as the British colony of Upper Canada, took over the school and made it part of a network of eight new, public "grammar schools" (secondary schools), one for each of the eight districts of Upper Canada. Jarvis was the grammar school for the Home District, an area covering much of the modern GTA. Its first name was the Home District Grammar School...Jarvis Collegiate boasts some prestigious alumni, including:
The original 1807 school building was a shed attached to the headmaster's house. Strachan [headmaster 1812-1822] raised funds for a new two-storey building, completed in 1816 on College Square, a 6-acre (24,000 m2) lot north of St. James' Cathedral, bounded by Richmond, Adelaide, Church and Jarvis Streets. In 1825 the school was renamed the Royal Grammar School. Later the name was changed to Toronto High School. In 1829 it moved to the corner of Jarvis and Lombard Streets. When Upper Canada College was founded in 1829 it shared a building with the Grammar School and for several years the two organizations were essentially unified. UCC eventually moved to its own facilities.
- Sir John Strachan: Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada, founded University of Toronto, first Anglican Bishop of Toronto, and headmaster of Jarvis Collegiate from 1812-1822
[Source: Toronto District School Board]
- Sir Ernest MacMillan: conductor of Toronto Symphony for 25 years
- Sir Allan McNab - Prime Minister of Upper Canada, 1854-1856
- Five mayors of Toronto
[Source: Wikipedia]
The Jarvis Collegiate Alumni Society website has fascinating photos from the 1907 year book. Students at the collegiate were male, until the first female students were accepted in 1872, "although double doors separated the genders until 1893" according to this website.
Here's a funny juxtaposition of events:
- 1975: first female principal
- 1976: first teachers' strike
Here is a website of class photos from 1982-2008. There seems to be an equal number of male and female students in the class of 1982, with the majority of students white (photos a and b). Asian (East Asian) females seem to dominate the class of 2008 (large JPG file here). Whites are barely visible in the 2008 class photo (barely present), and the photographer seems to have put the white couple and the tall blonde girl right up front deliberately to offset the non-white multi-culti mix of the school.
I've done a rough count of the number of East Asian females over the total number of students for the class of 2008, and I've come up with 28/108, which is roughly 26%. I'm sure the ratio is still higher for 2012, and I would also think that the multicultural count has also gone up.
The ration of whites to non-whites for the class of 2008 is 13/108, which is 12%.
I cannot find any recent (2000 and on), famous, alumni who graduated from the once prestigious Jarvis Collegiate. Wikipeida cites Olivia Chow, the leftist (lefty) New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament, as a "notable" alumnus from the 1970s. It makes sense that a Chinese woman (Chow was born in China, and speaks with a strong Chinese accent) is a contemporary prominent figure in Canadian politics. I've written here that the Chinese seem not to fare as well as anticipated (economically, educationally etc.) and are latching on to the grievance system set up by (and for) non-white immigrants. Chow is a leader in grievance politics. I suspect that many of the Chinese woman at Jarvis will follow Chow's lead as they enter the real, post-high school world.
Below is the is the image from which I've made the tally. The link provided has a larger image.
 |
The once prestigious Jarvis Collegiate stands ranked at 587/727 between 2009 and 2010.
The latest news from Jarvis Collegiate is just a year ago, as published in the Toronto Star on January 24, 2011. Below are extracts from the article:
Teens hurling slushies and slurs in Gay VillageIt is interesting to see the homosexual Winsor's tolerance towards his aggressors: "In my mind, it’s a bunch of teenagers behaving badly all around. I think it’s general hooliganism."
[Jarvis Collegiate is right next to Toronto's "Gay Village"]
The principal of Jarvis Collegiate Institute said allegations that students are hurling slushies, shoes and homophobic slurs at residents of the Gay Village are being "treated very seriously."...
Paul Winsor, a local florist, was singled out by a group of about 12 students who soaked him with two frozen beverages last Monday.
The 49-year-old narrowly dodged an airborne chunk of ice as he chased the teens before they ducked into the school at Jarvis and Wellesley Sts.
"A slushie drink is one thing — it stains your clothes and hurts your pride — but when it escalates to chunks of ice, that’s dangerous," he said...
Winsor ran into a friend a few minutes after the slushie attack who’d been targeted with ice and been called ‘faggot.’...
But [Winsor's] not convinced the teens are motivated by hate.
"In my mind, it’s a bunch of teenagers behaving badly all around. I think it’s general hooliganism."
Anderson [a transvestite] disagrees...
"These kids promote violence by calling people ‘faggot’ and doing what they’re doing," [s]he said.
I'm sure these "hooligans" are a mix of the multicultural smorgasbord (reflecting the Jarvis student body) which homosexuals like Winsor would totally approve of. I wonder what he would say if a bunch of white kids had accosted him? White Nationalist, Far Right, Nazi thugs (hooligans sounds more forgiving than thugs)?
I think this type of "intolerance" will grow in Toronto, where the multicultural policy of Toronto, notwithstanding "integrated" high schools, actually favors group separation. The even more aggressive and violent Muslims (who are simply following the mandates of their prophet), who now make a considerable part of the Toronto population, will only increase these antagonisms towards any one and they feel doesn't follow their religious edicts.