From the Head of School David Thompson From his Closing Speech, June 2010 When Sparham Sheldrake founded the school 131 years ago, there was a large private house, some cow barns and a square in front of the house where wood was piled for the furnace. The students at The Grove adapted to a life of pumping the water out of the well, heating it on the kitchen stove, and pouring it into a wooden tub in which three students would have a Saturday night bath. The toilets were about a hundred feet outside and as one student proclaimed, “It was not very pleasant, especially at night.” By the 1900s and under the leadership of Dr. Mackenzie, the school added classrooms, an assembly hall, and dorms to accommodate up to 40 students. In the mid1920s a chapel was built for $5,000 and the following year a wing was added for an additional $10,000. After some challenging times, Winder Smith erased the school’s deficit and debt, purchased the land between Grove House and the lake and oversaw the construction of Memorial House, the classroom wing, and the dining hall. Since then, there have been many additions and renovations including a refurbished theatre, residences, new field space, a new chapel, Duke of York Hall, the
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learning centre and, most recently, Hadden Hall and Cooper House. Today, we talk less about outdoor plumbing and more about carbon footprint and environmental sustainability. In the past two years, the school has made many strides forward in this area including ground source heating and air conditioning, tankless hot water heaters, school-wide energy management systems, energy efficient lighting, composting of organic waste, and solar panels in the near future. During the history of the school, we have seen the student population grow from 15 boys to 220 boys to a coeducational school with 365 students. This year, we celebrated 20 years of coeducation. We tend to think of established schools as steeped in tradition and resistant to change. But Lakefield has always understood that change is important, necessary, and part of the healthy evolution of the school. Prince Philip once said, “Change does not change tradition. It strengthens it. Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat.” As much as there have been substantial facility improvements and changes to composition and size, the emphasis on maintaining the mission and values of the school by focusing on educating the individual student in a holistic way has remained paramount.