The 1902 article titled “Vale! Vale!! Vale!!!” is a valedictorian speech given by a departing student named Miss Mowat, who stood at the head of the school for two years. In her speech she illuminates an issue that was occurring in public schools at the onset of the twentieth century regarding the lack of continuity in male upper level high school students. She states that last year “there were more boys than girls in the two lower divisions, but in the other three classes, boys became fewer and fewer, till in the senior or graduating class there was not a boy at all”. Why was this decline in the attendance of boys happening for upper level courses? Were they leaving school once it was no longer mandatory and beginning to work? Did their families encourage this? It is likely that the boys did not want to stay in school any longer and left as soon as the law allowed them to. It is also possible that the boys’ families needed them to help financially and economically support them. Some of the boys could have moved away with their families, or by themselves, to another school or to work. There are a variety of reasons which could explain why the number of boys in attendance of later high school was so low. Perhaps young boys did not appreciate the masculinized and authoritative regulation of their education and the almost father-like role of their authority figures.

 

—“Vale! Vale!! Vale!!!” The Daily Colonist, September 21, 1902.