Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School

History

Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School was founded in 1909 by Maud Edgar and Mary Cramp. Maud Edgar, for many years headmistress of this private school for girls, was the daughter of the historian and feminist Matilda Ridout Edgar and the lawyer and politician James David Edgar. The school has always been an all-girls school. The school began its life in a home on Guy Street in Downtown Montreal. There were 70 girls at the outset, including 15 Boarders. The Heads’ initial goals were to equip their pupils with a broad understanding of literature, languages, ethics, fine arts, as well as science and mathematics. The most novel feature of the curriculum was the organization of literature and history.

Forty years later, the school relocated to a building on Cedar Avenue, on the slope of Mount Royal. By then there were approximately 150 girls attending, with 17 Boarders. The school continued to do very well in this building for another 16 years, but its leaders were always conscious of the need for a space designed and built to be a school. After observing a property at the corner of Mount Pleasant and Montrose Avenue in 1964, the school undertook a major fundraising campaign to make the move possible. The official opening took place in November 1964: at this point, ECS became a dedicated day school.

Today the school is located at 525 Mount Pleasant, the property bought in 1964. The school's motto is "Non Nobis Sed Urbi Et Orbi" which translated from Latin to English means "not for ourselves but for the community and the world." The school anthem was written by Isabelle Adami.

School organization

ECS is divided into three "schools": junior school (K-grade 5), middle school (grade 6-grade 8) and senior school (grade 9 - grade 11).

Today the school has approximately four hundred students in total from kindergarten to grade 11. There are about 20 students in each grade. Grade 4 and up is divided into two classes. In total, the students are divided into three house groups. The houses and their colours are: Cramp house, which is represented by the colour red; Edgar house which is represented by the colour green; and Adami house, which is represented by the colour blue. Each house has three elected officials from Grade 11.

Music

ECS has both vocal and instrumental extra-curricular activities. Open to middle and senior school students are: Vocal Jazz, Senior Choir, Junior Jazz Band, Senior Jazz Band and Symphonic Ensemble. For the junior students there is a junior choir and an annual junior school musical in addition to their regular music classes.

Every year both the vocal and instrumental groups each go on a music trip. Previous destinations include Costa Rica, Mexico, Boston, Prague, Orlando, Washington, Philadelphia and New York City.

ECS' Vocal Jazz has been generating musical sound with Selwyn House School's Jazz Band for years now, and won several medals this year in Orlando, Florida, during Spring Break. The ECS girls and Selwyn boys competed against schools much larger than their own.

Athletics

ECS actively participates in friendly competition for sports. They have a soccer, rugby, basketball, swimming, badminton, curling, golf, tennis, football, track and field, halo, cross country, squash, ski, hockey team and others. ECS is an elite athletic school.