Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

P R E F A C E

Havergal’s First Century “Though I do not believe that a plant will spring where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed … Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

In the early 1890s, the forward-thinking men who became Havergal’s founders were firm in their belief: Toronto needed a new school for girls. In 1894, they planted a seed they hoped would grow into a flourishing tree. That seed did send out tender shoots, and a tree did grow tall and strong, in large measure because the founders hired the formidable Ellen Knox as the school’s first principal. From the day she arrived at Havergal, it was clear Miss Knox was a woman of great strength and determination. As Havergal: Celebrating a Century tells us, she “arrived in Toronto on 25 August 1894 … [and] had just sixteen days in which to transform dusty Morvyn house, the old school Havergal’s founders had rented at 350 Jarvis Street, into a welcoming home for seven boarders and thirty-one day girls, her first students.” 1 The Havergal which I knew and saw for the first time on a hot August morning was just an old-fashioned building with furniture which had stood twenty-four years of hard school work, and, with a sandy yard at the back, practically impossible for games … Upstairs and downstairs the one spot of cheerfulness was a loaded crab-apple tree under the staircase window, making a splash of brightness in the otherwise dispiriting surroundings. 2

Havergal students eating apples, early 1900s.

Ellen Knox on the newly purchased land in 1923.

—Recollection from the new principal

4  HAVERGAL COLLEGE