 2009 |
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 8 November 2009 Miss Edgar and Miss Cramp Found an Unlikely Angel  William C. Van Horne. 
Montreal Quebec - "St. Margaret's College Toronto. A
It seems odd that there should have been, that autumn of 1909, a Gazette advertisement for a Toronto girls' school, but nothing for similar schools in Montreal. In fact, the ads for St. Margaret's College, complete with a picture of the school, ran week after week. But in that period, not one Montreal school felt a comparable need. Two Montreal schools in particular might have been moved to get the word out that autumn. Both Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School, which will celebrate its Founders' Day next Thursday, and Lower Canada College had begun teaching just two months before. Could the absence of publicity imply confidence they were bound to succeed no matter what? ECS, as the girls' school is now known, opened its doors to about 70 pupils and LCC welcomed more than 100. Each is now a century old, while St. Margaret's has been gone nearly as long. Maud Edgar and Mary Cramp first met while teaching at Toronto's Havergal College. The new friends discovered they thought alike about educating girls. From this, it was a short step to deciding they might organize a school of their own. Lest it draw students away from Havergal, Edgar cheekily said years later, it would be in Montreal. Similar ideas, about ethical standards, about the importance of the humanities, about allowing girls to advance at their own speed, were all very well. But more was needed, and fortunately they had an angel. Unlike the Those connections had led to an unlikely friendship between her and the much older William Van Horne, retired president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Van Horne's wife, Addie, was highly unusual in her day in having a college degree. Edgar and Cramp had found a suitable building for their school. It had been the home of Samuel Carsley, a wealthy The house was on the market, but Van Horne knew the two women had neither the capital nor the business acumen to swing a deal. Van Horne was not much of a public philanthropist, few community institutions ever benefited from his largesse. But his liberality toward friends could be astonishing, as Edgar and Cramp soon found out. "I am led to suggest [that I] buy the entire property outright and become your landlord, leasing you the property for a term of years with provisions for the renewal of the lease," he wrote to Edgar. "In this case I should pay Mr. Carsley the whole of the purchase price in cash." That price was $67,000, which Van Horne thought steep, but he didn't blanch. He also argued that as the women's landlord he would be a buffer against potential disasters like a fire or the prolonged illness of one of them. ECS would occupy the Victorian residence until 1948. Though it was three storeys high, it took ingenuity to cram in a reception room, study, library, classrooms, dining room, kitchen, and bedrooms. The house was torn down in 1953 to make way for an office block, but by then ECS had moved to another house, on Cedar Ave. near Cote des Neiges. It was just a stopgap, for again the school was a victim of its own success. More room was needed to accommodate modern educational standards and its growing student body. The final move, to its present location on Mount Pleasant Ave. in Westmount, came in 1964 and forced one unwelcome change. Westmount council would not allow a boarding school within the city limits. ECS has been a day school ever since. As one of the traditions at Founders' Day next Thursday, the names of students who are the daughters, Each girl will stand in turn, as well as her relative, if she's there. Many surely will be. John Kalbfleisch.  |
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