It’s the first day back to school for children here, so it seemed like a good day to post these photographs of two old schools in our neighbourhood. These two primary schools are only a five minute walk from one another. It seems strange to me that back a hundred years they would have built two fancy buildings so closely together, which shared the same ultimate goal.
Looking a bit deeper I found that the answer lies in one being a Catholic School and the other a Public.
St. Mary’s was built in 1918 to accommodate the influx of Catholic Irish Immigrants coming to the city. It’s located just west of Bathurst St at Adelaide.
The two separate entrances for boys and girls are interesting. They are located as far apart as possible and are remnants of days gone by, as they are no longer used this way.
The other school, a couple of blocks west on Adelaide, is Niagara Street Primary School, originally built in 1874 but renovated at a later date, when the builders took down the exterior walls and replaced them with the beautiful structure that is there today, leaving the interior basically intact.
With today’s generally accepted belief that evolution is how we all came to be, rather than through Adam and Eve, I wonder how much longer there will be separate Public and Catholic schools. Seems a bit of a waste of resources to me, especially considering that there are many other religions to consider as well. Perhaps as the boys’ and the girls’ entrance have merged into one, so will separating the Catholic kids from all the others.
[I went to Catholic School and personally felt the divide associated with doing do. I don’t believe that it made for the best mingling of minds.]
