22

Middy Uniform
Circa 1902
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College

23

Uniform
Circa 1905
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College

24

Food Conservation

By 1918, the girls were being asked to practice economy in both small purchases (especially clothing and fancy goods), and food intake. They were told "that if every person in Canada saved one piece of bread each day it would feed 25,000 people in England. That if every individual saved one teaspoonful of sugar each day it would amount to fifty-five tons a day, 4,000,000 a year, the cost of which would buy 265 aeroplanes. It is, therefore, some comfort ...to think that every time you take a sugarless anything, you simultaneously launch an aeroplane."

The girls' answer to the food conservation appeal was the Candy Campaigns: "by March 14, 112 girls had signed (total abstinence) till June, and fifty girls for the duration of the war." (Ludemus yearbook, 1918)

25

The appeal - and danger - of 'tuck' shop
1917
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College

26

Food Conservation: a new strategy on the homefront
1918
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College

27

A Woman's Duty: Havergal and Relief Efforts

Women's war work could be (as it was at Havergal) tied up with themes of motherly care, filial duty to the imperial motherland, and inspirational femininity.

Principal Ellen Knox would echo these sentiments on numerous occasions during the war years: [Women's work - including tidiness, obedience and diligence at school] "may seem comparatively insignificant and monotonous, but if, as by the purity of our lives, we can lift the tone and temper of all around us, we shall be one of the silent forces guarding the safety of the land just as the ironclad battleships are silent forces guarding the safety of the sea." (Ludemus yearbook, 1918)

28

'Canadian Education and the War' by Ellen Knox
1914-1918
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Ellen Knox Fonds
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College

29

In the mind of Ellen Knox, Havergal students and other young Canadian women were being called not just to serve as daughters - but also future mothers for the Empire:

"What might not our Canada be if [girls] would stamp the impress of a new purity upon every profession they take up, if they would stamp the impress of a new and deeper purity upon the homes that may one day be theirs, upon the children who may one day surround them? Do we and they realize sufficiently that every God-fearing home, every band of God-fearing children as certainly safeguards the future of our nation as our ironclads in the North Sea most certainly safeguard the future of the world."
The Canadian Churchman, June 22, 1916

30

Nurse Clementi: hired by the alumnae to work in Toronto's poorer areas
1915
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College

31

The Canadian Woman's Role

Historic themes of Canadian pioneers resonated in books like The Girl of the New Day, as in much of Ellen Knox's other writing.

In a 1917 yearbook editorial, she wrote:
"The women of a hundred years ago played a noble part in the birth of the first Canada ....They rose at daybreak, drew wood for the ever-devouring fire, prepared breakfast by chopping up frozen milk, sawing off the frozen beef with a hand saw ...They learnt the meaning of lonlieness ... They understood their responsibility to their children ...Are you taking as much trouble as the women of a century ago?... Your little boy may be but a little lad playing with his tin soldiers, but he is an arrow who carries a silken thread which one day may become a bridge of strength and righteousness in the Canada of tomorrow."

32

'The Girl of the New Day' by Ellen Knox
1918-1919
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Ellen Knox Fonds
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College

33

The Reality of War

The reality of war hit home early on, with several casualties from the Havergal community. This entry from Principal Ellen Knox in the 1915 Ludemus illustrates:

"...the actual casualties of the war have not been so far from us. I do not mean at this moment the sorrow of the elder girls who watch and wait whilst husbands, lovers and brothers are in danger, possibly imprisoned, wounded and killed, and nobly and bravely they are passing through their fiery trial. But the war has taken its toll even of Havergal girls themselves. Evelyn Neville, a little stranger, who had only been a few weeks in the Junior school; Gwen and Anna Allan, marked out by brilliant work and power of leadership; Dorothy Braithwaite and Irene Burnside, who have been away from us for a few years ...have all fallen in the war."

"...day in and day out I have always before me those who are going through the agonizing task of waiting and bereavement. Their names are very present though they are not written here. As they wait in God's great school of patience and endure, they know that they are not alone ..."

34

A Havergal College Old Girl as a nurse abroad
1917

Credits:
Spadina Historic House and Gardens

35

North Toronto Military Orthopedic Hospital
1917
Davisville Avenue,Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
'Construction' journal, 1917
Toronto Reference Library