McKinley History
An unattributed history by a former student

The first thing that a schoolboy looks for in either his mentors or his peers, is physical peculiarity, and old "Mac," a man of more than ample rotundity, with a crop of sparse spiky hair, was, almost at once, labelled "Prickly Pear," this appellation soon afterwards being abbreviated to the terser and more convenient title of "Pear."

He was a man of many parts, irascible, but withal having that saving grace of humour, which is so necessary to dominies, as to all men. A man keen on his work, both in and out of school, he kept us up to our games, as well as to our lessons. His influence was such, that realising "Pear" would stand no nonsense, his class was always on its best behaviour, particularly so, when the subject of the period happened to be his "hobby horse"— Grammar—to the study of which, he had devoted a tremendous amount of time. He had compiled a Grammar Text Book of his own, but I do not think it was ever published.

In form, he had several foibles. He would walk up and down in front of the class, declaiming in a loud tone, and he would, without pausing, either in stride or stridency, intersperse cutting remarks to an individual amongst us, or upon our collective heads, call down the denunciation of all the Gods of Syntax and Behaviour.

Another performance was, while inscribing on the blackboard some problem of Simple Mathematics, or specimen of involved writing to tax our slender knowledge of Parsing and Analysis, he would exercise an almost uncanny facility, in using the corners of his spectacles as mirrors, which led to the undoing of many a poor night, who, not knowing the Old Man's faculty of seeing backwards, would indulge in some foolish prank against his fellows, or, worse still, would make unseemly gestures and grimaces at the tutorial back.

There are many legends about old "Pear," whose life was not made too easy for him by the younger and more highly spirited members of the staff. One trick they played upon him, was to put the life-saving dummy in his bed, and, on his late return from town, we all enjoyed his peroration against the offenders, and the casting forth of the inanimate figure, which was then seized upon by his tormentors and hung up to the tower balcony, and rumour hath it that a certain very highly placed personage, seeing this in the cold light of a misty moon, called loudly upon the Deity, to witness that the member of the staff occupying the Master's room in the Tower, had hanged himself.

On the introduction of the House system in 1909, Mr. McKinley was put in charge of the House that still bears his name, and which, I think, all Old Boys of this day hope will always be so entitled. He threw himself into its activities with tremendous enthusiasm. He was fortunate in having in his ranks, some of the School's best sportsmen, notably Harold Nimmo and Jack Dowling, as well as others, and the honour of being the first winners of the House Shield was theirs. But he did not confine himself to the athletic side of things. He found a field of endeavour in our personal appearance, and woe betide the youth whose boots were unclean or whose locker was untidy.

Of his early life I know very little but I know that from his salary, he largely paid the way of an invalid brother aloud his wife, and when the last Accounting is accomplished, I feel sure old "Pear" will show a substantial credit balance.

He passed away on July 20, 1913, regretted by all and by none more so than those, whose boyish follies he had so successfully harried.