Interviewer: What subjects did you take in high-school? Speaker: I took my j-- my matriculations. Interviewer: Do you remember any of your teachers?

I went to high-school in Colbourne, Ontario. My father and mother, at that time living in the village of Smith-Field just west of Brighton. I took the senior matriculation or now known as grade thirteen in the Napanee-Collegiate.

You just called it the high-school. And I went to Saint-Agnes and got my matriculation from Saint-Agnes was a private school, do you know where it was?

It was quite a good sized school. We had- they had- they started with the- with kindergarten and they- they had classes right up through to matriculation, right through the collegiate and I got my matriculation from Saint-Agnes and then I went to Guelph.

Interviewer: How did you um manage to get into an Anglican school. Speaker: It was no trouble getting in, I passed into the high-school and then I went to Saint-Agnes and got my matriculation from Saint-Agnes, I was there for five years. Interviewer: So that- um your religion was not a deciding factor when you applied for the school.

Interviewer: Do you know how then how Saint-Agnes might have differed from the public-school? Speaker: Well it was a church school, that's all I know about it, but the- the course, we had to try the examination, the matriculation, we had to try it from the collegiate, we didn't have the exam at the school. But we took the- they- they taught, they had the teaching, they- they- they had the ah collegiate.

And I once asked a bank manager why he preferred boys for their matriculation rather than boys who taking the commercial course. He said, "if they got their matriculation at seventeen, I know they have got a certain amount of mentality, I know that they have worked hard to get some work that is disagreeable, and that is what you need in business."

When you got to the high-school the various classifications were called forms. Now of-course it's all grades but you went from first form to third, senior third, form which was the matriculation form. And then for people who wanted to have another year before going to university there was a fourth form which was very small.

Yes, yes, yes we had um um I had two- th-- three friends up the street from where I lived and ah then another friend um her parents were the superintendent and matron of the County-Home, which was quite a ways out in those days.

No, no. My girlfriend's parents were the superintendent and matron and they ran the- the ah County-Home and.

Yes they built the Club-Commodore after the War. That was when- when um- well I think Sam talked to the historical society and I should remember all of these stories but I remember you could bring in a- a- a mickey of whatever and put it under the table and- ... then that stopped because I think um somebody infiltrated and-

And- it was in about nineteen-twenty-one, and (coughs) I didn't ah- I hadn't been to teacher's college. I had ah, four years in high school and um, I had what was called the model school, a summer school.

Always competitions. Like ah, and it was- and no one was um, ah kind-of mollycoddled, if you were out, you were out. Like you-know-what-I-mean? Like it was...

They're a thing about twenty-five feet long, or close to it. When the feeder's up. You put the grain one in, the straw goes up the other end, the blower up, the straw goes up in the mow with the blower. The grain runs out in bushels- bushels ah on the side of the mill and (inc) you have to have a man carrying them to the granary as they come out.

Interviewer: They didn't have a garden on their own. Speaker: No, they never had, no.

Interviewer: Or- so what um- what sort of requirements were there when you started to be a teacher? Speaker: Well you had to teach in the elementary school, you had to have had one year in- to what was called then the normal school. Then you- if you wanted to teach in secondary-school you had to have a university degree and a teaching certificate from the Ontario-College-of-Education. That time there's only one Ontario-College-of-Education in Toronto.

Well it would take you, the same as it does now, three years for a general Arts degree, four years for an Honours degree, plus one year at a college-of-Ed or if you taught elementary school, ah grade-thirteen and one year at normal school. Now grade-thirteen gave you a better teaching certificate for elementary purposes than if you only completed grade-twelve. It was called a first-class certificate. If you ah just had grade twelve and went to normal school for a year then you were on what was called a second-class certificate. Interviewer: Um, what subjects did you teach? Speaker: I taught History, and English and for the last eighteen, twenty years I guess I was in the guidance department.

Yeah. He's a great teacher and he lives th-- i-- this is a cool thing about Belleville, you-know I know where my- my old chemistry teacher lives and he's three doors down- was three doors down from Mrs.-Kuiper and- who was my O-A-C English teacher another- ah she was a brilliant English teacher. Um and th-- they both retired Speaker: Um Mrs.-Kuiper was- she was a really good teacher. Yeah. Taught English, O-A-C English. Anyway. Interviewer: Very high praise, for both of them. From you. Speaker: Mm. Mm-hm. I had- those were two of my favourite- and they- because they both were able t-- to um- w-- when I submitted work they were able to critique it and- and-

I-don't-know they were really good teachers or really good people. Maybe both. And they- they helped me realize that that wasn't a barrier anymore and that I could achieve. Which was awesome 'cause it was in the O-A-C year so I was able to bring all of these marks and top them right up um I think I got a ninety or-something in O-A-C English which was absurd for me, like totally, "Wow, that's amazing!" You-know I used to puddle around in the sixties and seventies. Um but it was Mrs.-Kuiper's encouragement um- it was just amazing to get me- to push me that little bit more.

Landscape design, and then biology 'cause I obviously like biology so much, and ah I wanted to be a doctor. The doctor got taken off the list because I really did not like O-A-C chemistry- k-- calculus, pardon-me.