Saint John's Cathedral Boys' School
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Saint John's Cathedral School (SJCS) was a private
Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...
for boys named for the Saint John's Cathedral in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, out of whose youth program it had emerged". It was the first in a series of schools, operated from 1958 until 2008, by an Anglican lay religious order called the Company of the Cross.


History

The school was founded in the early 1960s by
Ted Byfield Edward Bartlett Byfield (10 July 1928 – 23 December 2021) was a Canadian conservatism in Canada, conservative teacher, journalist, historian, and publisher. He co-founded ''Saint John's Cathedral Boys' School'' and ''Saint John's School of Al ...
and Frank Wiens, who became the school's director. They started an
Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
lay order called the Company of the Cross, based on the writings of Christian apologists, such as
Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers ( ; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic. Born in Oxford, Sayers was brought up in rural East Anglia and educated at Godolphin School in Salisbury and Somerv ...
,
C.S. Lewis CS, C-S, C.S., Cs, cs, or cs. may refer to: Job titles * Chief Secretary (Hong Kong) * Chief superintendent, a rank in the British and several other police forces * Company secretary, a senior position in a private sector company or public se ...
, and
G. K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist and magazine editor, and literary and art critic. Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brow ...
. Originally, the Company of the Cross was under the authority of the resident bishop in Winnipeg, officially called the Diocese of Rupert's Land. Ted Byfield, Frank Wiens, and over a dozen other men—many of them from the St. John's Cathedral choir, formed a cell or group, that shared similar beliefs. They founded a lay Anglican order, affiliated with the
Anglican Church of Canada The Anglican Church of Canada (ACC or ACoC) is the Ecclesiastical province#Anglican Communion, province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French-language name is ''l'Église anglicane du Canada''. In 2016, the Anglican Church of ...
, which they first called the Dynevor Society, after the Dynevor Indian Hospital in Selkirk, north of Winnipeg, a property they had acquired. They believed that the education of boys in public schools was not training them to develop strong character and Christian values. They organized a boys choir at St. John's Cathedral, which first became a club, then a weekend residential school starting in 1957, and finally, in 1962, a full-time "traditionalist"
Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
private boarding schools for boys. The Company of the Cross had acquired the abandoned Dynevor Indian Hospital where they held their weekend schools. The cell officially changed their name from Dynevor to the Company of the Cross under the Manitoba Societies Act. In 1962, Byfield and five other members of the Company opened the first in a series of St. John's full-time boarding schools for boys "dedicated to the reassertion of Christian educational principles"—Saint John's Cathedral Boys' School. The school operated intentionally on "traditional" methods. They used mathematics textbooks from pre-World War II advancing from "arithmetic to calculus" with constant testing. Ginger Byfield taught French "developed from French-Canadian history." They watched hockey on the French channel. Byfield taught history which required that students read copiously from
Thomas Costain Thomas Bertram Costain (May 8, 1885 – October 8, 1965) was a Canadian-American journalist who became a best-selling author of historical novels at the age of 57. Life Costain was born in Brantford, Ontario to John Herbert Costain and Mar ...
to
Francis Parkman Francis Parkman Jr. (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of '' The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life'' and his monumental seven-volume '' France and England in North Ame ...
. The Company of the Cross teachers and staff were paid $1.00 per day and provided room and board. In 1973, parents paid $1700 a year tuition. Arduous row-boat trips (called "cutters"), later replaced by canoes, and snowshoeing and dog-sledding were part of the outdoor education program. The school's founders believed that boys should be pushed to what they might believe is their breaking points, and this would "build character". The school was seen by many as a way to help troubled boys, usually from 11 to 14 years of age. Its primary focus was challenging boys from every social stratum to work together in order to grow morally, physically, intellectually and spiritually in the tradition of Victorian "muscular Christianity". The 1974 National Film Board Film described the St. John's Cathedral Boys' School as the "most demanding outdoor school in North America." Upon arrival at the school, the new boys, 13- to 15-years old, undertook a 2-week 330 mile canoe trip and in the spring there was a second longer canoe trip covering 900 miles with 55 portages. Ted Byfield wrote in 1996 that rules were enforced with a "flat stick across the seat of the pants" in the early years of the school. In the article, Byfield defended this practice as acceptable at the time. The students ran the
physical plant A physical plant, building plant, mechanical plant or industrial plant (and where context is given, often just plant) refers to the technical infrastructure used in operation and maintenance of a given facility. The operation of these technical f ...
of the school, doing all the janitorial work, cooking and serving food, cleaning kennels, making and selling processed meat products door-to-door for fundraising, and raising sled dogs. Two other schools,
Saint John's School of Alberta Saint John's School of Alberta (SJSA) was a small private boys' boarding school in Genesee, Alberta, Canada which operated from 1968 to 2008, the second of three such schools founded on conservative Anglican ideas and the notion that children we ...
and Saint John's School of Ontario were founded on the same ideas in later years. The school closed in the early 1990s, struggling for funds and credibility after a canoeing disaster on
Lake Timiskaming Lake Timiskaming or Lake Temiskaming (, ) is a large freshwater lake on the Provinces and territories of Canada, provincial boundary between Ontario and Quebec, Canada. The lake, which forms part of the Ottawa River, is in length and covers ...
where 13 people died of hypothermia.


Incidents

In the fall of 1973, the
National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...
filmed the two week canoe trip on the Red River and
Lake Winnipeg Lake Winnipeg () is a very large, relatively shallow lake in North America, in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Its southern end is about north of the city of Winnipeg. Lake Winnipeg is Canada's sixth-largest freshwater lake and the third- ...
, with the 13- to 15-years old boys who had just arrived at the school. It was part of
CBC-TV CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 195 ...
's series, ''
West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...
'' In early 1976, a boy by the name of Ted Milligan collapsed while on one of the school's lengthy snowshoe hikes, and froze to death. He was rushed to the closest hospital in the town of Selkirk and pronounced clinically dead. A doctor who specialized in hypothermia managed to bring him back to life. For a brief period, Ted Milligan was listed in the Guinness World Records as a person clinically dead for the longest time and then brought back to life. In 2000, a former teacher, Kenneth Mealey, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting five students in 1982 and 1983. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article on his sentencing said that "St. John's school administrators knew about the assault allegations but chose to fire Mealey instead of calling the authorities".


Bibliography

* *


References

{{Reflist, 30em


External links


Bedard’s Unofficial St. John’s Page
* Watc
''The New Boys''
online,
National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...
* St Peter's Dynevor Anglican Church Rectory, formerly St John's Cathedral Boys' School, o
Canada's historic places
Defunct Christian schools in Canada High schools in Manitoba Middle schools in Manitoba Private schools in Manitoba Anglican schools in Canada Christian schools in Manitoba Selkirk, Manitoba Educational institutions in Canada with year of establishment missing Former schools in Manitoba Boarding schools in Manitoba