Page "University of Toronto Schools" Paragraph 5

The 1960s were a " turbulent " decade in the history of UTS.

Prior to the 1960s, the Ontario Ministry of Education required seniors to complete a number of matriculation exams in order to graduate.

The student who scored highest in his or her exams province-wide would be awarded the Prince of Wales Scholarship ; during the matriculation era, UTS students won thirteen Prince of Wales Scholarships.

Although matriculation exams would eventually be abolished in the 1960s, UTS students had been calling for change since the late 1930s in the form of valedictory addresses and protests.

Addresses by Mark Czarnecki and Richard Reoch in 1963 and 1966, respectively, targeted the tendency for matriculations to reduce " a tangible desire for knowledge ", producing instead " a mind that cannot think for itself ".

In 1967, Ian Morrison's valedictory address lambasted a number of teachers and administrators who had been responsible for rigidly holding UTS to its past.

The speech was not published in The Twig the following year, but was still circulated among students.

Discontent with the school's inability to reform climaxed in the " Protest for Nothing " in May 1969, which was led by Brian Blugerman, Michael Eccles, Paul Eprile and David Glennie.

Unlike most protests, the placards that the protesters held were blank ; when headmaster MacMurray asked for their demands, a student famously showed him a blank sheet of paper and stated, " This is a list of our demands.

" The protest was front page news in Toronto newspapers and was widely reported in the U. S. media, including the New York Times.

It was the first ( and perhaps only ) time that UTS was the subject of such wide public attention.