Men, Music and Schools

MR. JOYCE: This is Education Week. To mark it, we have asked Dr. Cecil Charles Goldring, M.A., D.Paed., to speak for a very few minutes on Education and to introduce to us Mr. Eldon Brethour and the Toronto Men Teachers' Choir.

Dr. Goldrings needs no introduction to any Toronto audience. He has been connected with Toronto schools since 1912, as a teacher, as a Principal, as Inspector of Schools from 1927 to 1932, then as Superintendent of Schools for 13 years, and, since, 1945, as Director of Education.

In addition Dr. Goldring has been actively identified with many important educational, civic and community organizations. We are proud to include him as an active member of the Empire Club of Canada of which he is now Second Vice-President.

DR. GOLDRING: From March 6th to the 12th Education Week will be observed throughout Canada. The purpose is to bring to the attention of Canadians the work and accomplishments of their schools and educational institutions. With some concern I must report that last year the few days immediately following Education Week were observed in this city as "Aspirin Week". I was disturbed by the thought that someone might have found evidence to indicate that parents, having gone to school to compare the work of their children with that done by others of similar age, decided that they required more than the usual quantity of aspirin. However, I must say that during the year I have found no evidence to indicate that parents needed aspirin after a school visit, so perhaps my fears were groundless.

As special guests today we have approximately two hundred principals, vice-principals, supervisors, and teachers employed by the Toronto Board of Education and I should like them to stand now. These men and women have an average educational experience of something more than twenty-five years, so that you have in this room men and women who have collectively more than five thousand years' experience in educational work. With their colleagues, they are responsible day by day for the formal education of some 82,000 children in this city. It is interesting to think of the number and variety of lessons they have taught and of the countless number of children - now men and women in all parts of Canada - who have been influenced by their teaching. In those many years of experience the teachers have acquired knowledge and wisdom. They have learned that there is no magic formula for education, no fruit of the tree of knowledge which, swiftly eaten, can make us wise as gods, knowing good and evil. The process of education requires time and work and striving.

We are pleased to have with us today, too, several members of the Toronto Board of Education and I shall ask them to stand now. School trustees give many hours of their time each week, without remuneration, attending meetings in the interest of education in this city. They render a valuable public service.

We have educators from the Department of Education and from adjacent municipalities. I should like them to stand. These men have responsibilities throughout the Province and in areas outside of Toronto. We welcome them here today.

In imparting to citizens information about schools and their work, there are two channels which are used most frequently. One is to appeal to the eye. Accordingly, next week in various Toronto schools, open-house will be held and tens of thousands of parents will visit classrooms attended by their children and see samples of the work done. They will talk to their children's teachers. In some schools, films dealing with education will be shown to pupils and parents. Articles and pictures will appear in the public press and cards giving information about education will be shown on street cars and in some of the store windows. Some fifty thousand copies of a special edition of "The Ryersonian", produced by the Ryerson Institute of Technology, will be distributed to homes in Toronto. The paper will tell parents something of the work of the schools in this city. In addition to a visual approach, many words will be spoken in addresses on educational topics. In some of the churches, appropriate reference will be made to Education Week. Each day there will be educational broadcasts from 7:15 to 7:30 p.m. over Station CJBC.

For this, our Empire Club meeting, we have, I believe a unique programme - one which will appeal to both the ear and the eye - We have with us the Toronto Men Teachers' Choir composed of some seventy men who are teachers on our staff and who enjoy singing together. In another hour they will be back in their respective schools teaching or carrying on their regular duties. I know of no city on this continent which has a men teachers' choir of similar size and comparable record. This Choir has been in existence for approximately fourteen years and has performed frequently in Toronto and in various places in Ontario as well as in cities of the United States. For several years it has given an annual concert in Massey Hall, and in school circles the Choir is regarded as a valuable part of our educational system. It is a great pleasure to welcome the Choir, and for me to introduce the man who is the leader and has been the leader since the Choir was formed - Mr. Eldon Brethour, Director of Music for the Toronto Board of Education. Mr. Brethour will say a few words about the programme and will then conduct the Choir.

- THE CHOIR SANG -

THANKS OF THE MEETING were expressed by Mr. W. Eason Humphries, a Past President of the Club.