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( Upper Canada College)
Upper Canada College (UCC) is a private elementary and secondary school for boys in downtown Toronto, Canada. Students between Senior Kindergarten and Grade Twelve study under the International Baccalaureate program. Founded in 1829, UCC is the oldest independent school in the province of Ontario, the third oldest in the country, and is often described as the most prestigious preparatory school in Canada,[3] having many of Canada's elite, powerful and wealthy as graduates. Modelled on the British public schools, throughout the first part of its history the College both influenced and was influenced by government and maintained a reputation as a Tory bastion from its founding. However, today UCC is fully independent and the student and faculty populations are more diverse in terms of cultural and economic backgrounds. A link to the Royal Family is maintained through Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who is the College's Official Visitor, and a member of the Board of Governors.[4] Founded in 1829 by then-Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, Major-General Sir John Colborne (later Lord Seaton), in the hopes that it would serve as a "feeder school" to the newly established King's College (later the University of Toronto), UCC was modelled on the great public schools of Britain, most notably Eton.[5][4] The school began teaching in the original Royal Grammar School, however, within a year was established on its own campus at the corner of King and Simcoe Streets, to which Colborne brought Cambridge and Oxford educated men from the United Kingdom, attracting them with high salaries.[6] Still, despite ever increasing enrolment, popularity with leading families of the day, both from the local Family Compact and from abroad, and praise from many, including Charles Dickens,[7] UCC was faced with closure on a number of occasions, threatened either by opponents to elitism, withdrawal of funding by the provincial government that once administered it, or by having no building in which to operate.[5] The school survived its denigrators, but after the government of Ontario stopped funding it in 1891, thus making UCC a completely independent school, the College was forced to move to its present location in Deer Park, which was then a rural area. The College thrived at this new location, both physically and culturally, as the buildings were expanded and bright instructors attracted. Central to this development was principal William Grant, who appointed a group of teachers described as "eccentric, crotchety, quaint, though widely travelled and highly intelligent,"[8] and who saw the student enrollment and teacher salaries double, bursaries grow, and a pension plan established.[9] UCC expanded to take in lower year students with the construction of a separate primary school building, the Prep, in 1902, allowing for boys to be enrolled from grade three through to graduation.
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