What+Was+Life+Like+at+W.+Ross?

Education

 Education changed with the growth of towns and cities. In the more farm-based economy of the 19th century, eight years of education was considered enough. But by the 1920s, about a third of students went on to attend high school for two or more years.

Maggiacomo Fact Among Mennonite and Amish people in Ontario, 8 years of education is still considered enough. The Ontario government recognizes their needs and traditions and allows their education to end before others are allowed to end theirs.

 Most high schools were built in the growing towns and cities so that students could reach them more easily. Since there were no school-bus routes in the 1920s, rural students often spent less time in high school than urban students.

 There were class differences too. Working-class children often left school between Grades 6 and 8, while those from middle- and upper-class families usually finished high school.

 Although more students attended school than ever before in the 1920s, only about 2 percent of those who started school would go on to college or university. Today, about 40 percent of the Canadian workforce has some post-secondary education.

 If you look closely above the outside doors of some older schools, you will see that there are two main entrances - one for boys and one for girls. Not only did boys and girls enter through different doors, they often left school with quite a different education. Everyone in high school was required to take certain core subjects, such as English, History, Math, and Science. Beyond that, however, students were usually directed to different options according to their gender, such as mechanical trades for boys and secretarial classes for girls. Ella Trow, a 1927 Toronto high school graduate, remembers what girls' education was like at the time:

 Wives stayed home and looked after the house, and the girls were expected to learn how to do the same. Manners, behaviour, voice, and all of there things were taught in school. There were classes in home economics, in with cooking and everything else to do with running a household. In those days it was called domestic science where we'd also be taught subjects like food chemistry, etc. Many girls, who had no intention of going to college would specialize in domestic science as its aim was to make a girl a better housewife.  Ella Trow, quoted in Bill O'Neil, Bill O'Neil Presents: Voice of the Pioneer (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1988), p. 120

 W. Ross Facts  -the school was called the Ontario School for the Blind before 1974  -Braille wasn't used until 1926! Before that New York Point was used. Similar to braille, it was 2 dots high and 4 wide, as opposed to 3 high and 2 wide  -The Perkins Braillers weren't generally used at the school until the 1950's. Before that it was slate and stylus.  -Handwriting was taught, even for those with no usable vision.  -Typewriting was very important at this time <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> -7:30 every morning the students took a walk to get exercise and fresh air <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> -Vernon Morrison, a student, drowned in the river on a walk in 1915. The boy's residence supervisor took 29 boys for a walk along the river using a long rope as a guide and some of the low-vision students as guides. Morrison's body was discovered 4 days later. 1 staff for 29 students would never be accepted today, but it was normal at that time <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> -despite students as old as 22 going to the school in it's first near 50 years, the first high school classes were offered in 1918 <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> -farm facts! W. Ross in 1917 had 7 cows, over 300 chickens and 3 acres of land that was farmed. <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> -electric stoves were introduced in 1921 <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;"> -Before the 1920's, ANY socializing between girls and boys was punishable by one months suspension from school. School dances for the girls were only for the girls, though the boys could invite local girls as guests for their dances.