‘Our title is our glory’: Neil McNeil High School’s 50th Anniversary Celebration
Written by Noel Martin on May 27, 2008 – 12:24 amby Noel Martin
Fifty years is a long span in a human life, but in the context of a school fifty years is merely late adolescence!
The origins of Neil McNeil high school can be traced back to an invitation of the Archbishop of Toronto to the Holy Ghost Fathers in Ireland to found a Catholic school for boys in Toronto.
Over the past fifty years the Spiritans have seeded and nourished the distinctive Spiritan culture of the school and have passed on that living legacy to the vibrant and thriving school of today.
They can tell the stories of the difficulties and indeed the hardships that accompanied this venture. But together with the students and the parents, who placed their trust in them, a school grew and prospered and sent out its alumni to make significant contributions to Canadian society.
A school community is not completed by its students alone, although they are the critical mass for the simple reason that without them there is no school! But it needs its staff, its support staff and its administrative staff and these are a very important factor in the creation of that community of Neil McNeil of which we are so proud to sing in our school song that ‘Our title is our glory!’
Neil McNeil is all about community, a vibrant Catholic school community. It was in addition a vibrant Spiritan community, which shared in the same educational philosophy with other Spiritan high schools around the globe. That philosophy looked to the education of the whole person intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, physically and with a significant emphasis on service to humanity at home and abroad.
Yes, there were days for many of us, when any other profession on the face of the earth seemed more attractive than the task of opening young minds to the possibilities that lay ahead. But that was a passing shadow.
To teach, one has to love the student in all that student’s moods and tenses. The vocation of teaching has long term implications, and teaching in a Catholic school has eternal implications. It is with great pride that we, the teachers at Neil, view the significant contributions that you, the students, have made to the fabric of life in Ontario and indeed across Canada and beyond.
Neil McNeil Alumni have graced many careers and professions. That so many of you have followed us into the teaching profession is both flattering and humbling. Learning is a two-way proposition. You learn from us, we learn from you. If the learning in a classroom is not mutual, then it is an undeveloped learning.
I shall never forget Neil McNeil. It was my introduction to this wonderful country and I would not change it. Many of us, students and staff, are older now, maybe even wiser! Our hair which was once long, short or shaven is now grey, thinning or gone. But we will celebrate this Anniversary with grateful hearts knowing that we spent time together in this mutual enterprise called Catholic Education, and in that time affected some change in each other. And in an apology and a paraphrase of the W.B. Yeats poem, Easter 1916, we, the alumni and staff of Neil McNeil High School:
Now and in time to be,
Wherever maroon and grey is worn,
Neil boys are we!
Our Title is our Glory!
Fidelitas in Arduis
Noel Martin is a director of education for the Ontario Catholic School Trustee’s Association and former Director of Education with the TCDSB and is a member of the alumni of Neil McNeil High School.
