Torch - Spring/Summer 2019

Traditions

Opere Peracto Ludemus: When Our Work is Finished, We Shall Play A look back at Athletics over the years

By Naomi Buck 1990

I t was Samuel Blake, Havergal’s founder and the first Chairman of the Board, who came up with the school’s motto of Opere Peracto Ludemus : “When our work is finished, we shall play.” From its very beginning in 1894, the school embraced play—and by extension, sport—as a cornerstone of a complete education. There is no question the school’s First Principal, Ellen Knox, understood the importance of physical activity. While she was not entirely pleased with the athletic facilities at the school’s first location, Morvyn House at 350 Jarvis St., she identified a crab tree as the property’s greatest asset and encouraged the girls to climb and study in its branches. She also insisted that Boarders—there were seven when the school opened—have brisk walks before breakfast and before bed. In those early years, the school day was divided into a morning of mandatory classes followed by an afternoon of optional ones, ranging from Greek and organ to Delsarte (a French system of calisthenics thought to engender poise and grace) and Swedish movement (a system of techniques promoting overall strength, balance and well-being). The spatial limitations of Morvyn House led the school, in 1898, to acquire the property at 354 Jarvis St. There, board courts were built for tennis and basketball, as well as two hockey rinks in the winter. A little shaded park off Jarvis Street provided a putting green for aspiring golfers, and cricket and fencing were also offered. In the summers, Knox travelled to her native England to scout for new teachers. In 1901, she sourced the school’s first permanent Games mistress from the Gymnastic School in Liverpool. Miss Jameson was offered $300 per annum plus $50 in travelling expenses

to “give her whole time and attention to the gymnasium and out-of-door games of all kinds.” The following year, Miss Jameson was joined by Miss Fotheringham, from the increasingly renowned Sargent School of Physical Education in Boston, which would become Ellen Knox’s most trusted source of Games mistresses for the next two decades. Clubs and teams formed—basketball, hockey and track being the most popular—and, by 1909, Havergal was competing against other schools, including Branksome Hall, Bishop Strachan School, St. Hilda’s College, University College and St Margaret’s School. Knox, raised in a stern Anglican tradition, was adamant that Havergal teams never cheer for themselves, only for their opponents. In 1923, as the school breached 600 students, the Board purchased the 27-acre farm property that is the school’s current location. It provided space and facilities for a more robust athletic program and the school soon developed a reputation for gymnastics. In 1924, a reporter from The Toronto Sunday World wrote in awe of the activities on offer—aesthetic dancing, folk dancing, athletic dancing, formal gymnastics (barbell and rope work), remedial gymnastics and 150 exercises on apparatus designed by Dr. Sargent, founder of the Boston School. Gym mistress Miss Wallace was quoted as calling the program “a salient feature at Havergal” the likes of which “seemed scarcely to exist in many institutions.” 1 As provincial changes were made to the curriculum, students found it difficult to fit some subjects (e.g., Music and Health & Physical Education) into their schedules in Grades 11 to 13 while satisfying university entrance requirements. In the 1960s, Co-Head of Health & Physical Education Brenda Robson submitted an OAC innovative academic course to the Ministry of Education that was accepted as a “ 1. Bryers, M. Havergal: Celebrating a Century . Toronto: Havergal College. 1994, p. 40. “ From its very beginning in 1894, the school embraced play—and by extension, sport—as a cornerstone of a complete education.

Students use barbells in the original gymnasium, 1902.

36  HAVERGAL COLLEGE