Grantham High School - Olympian Yearbook (St Catharines, Ontario Canada)

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Valedictory Address I accept with pleasure the responsibility and opportunity to convey these parting words from the graduating class of 1964. I shall not soon forget the honour afforded me and I am sure that those graduating with me will not soon forget this, our last formal function at Grantham. In retrospect, after five months of an entirely new type of life, a high school graduate must begin to assess the value of his secondary schooling. The most ob- vious focal point for evaluation is maturity. We cannot help but marvel at the extent to which we have developed since we first set foot inside these doors. It is, of course, obvious, that we have matured physically. We entered Grantham small and feeble. I think that we are now reminded of that feeling as we attempt to make our way in an even larger, less sympathetic world. But as years went by, we grew taller, more confident. We could never hold back some expression of the amazement we felt at the small size of each successive entrance class. It was here at Grantham that we grew into the young men and women that we are today. Equally remarkable is the degree of social maturity we attained here. How wonderful, when we entered, that people should gather in the halls after school! For most of us this was the first time that we found an institution in which we might overstep the bounds of strictly academic activity. We joined clubs, teams, went to dances, parties. It was in these halls that we learned to fraternize with those around us, and for this, we are indeed thankful to Grantham High School. Finally, we must inevitably consider intellectual maturity. Now that we have reached the end of a distinctive phase in our development as individuals, it is time for us to take a reflective, critical look at ourselves. Before us, while at Grantham, we had placed a very high and difficult ideal, in the words of our motto Scientia crescat Sapientia — Let our knowledge unto wisdom grow. We studied, sometimes diligently, sometimes not so diligently, in our attempts to absorb certain selected grains of knowledge. We crammed and crammed, our teachers and parents prodded and finally we came through. We are here tonight in testimony to that. But again, we must stop and intros- pect — what have we come through with? Wisdom is more than accumulated knowledge; the wise man may or may not be highly educated. Wisdom is an attitude toward what we know or toward what we know we are ignorant of. It is an attitude of balanced judgment of sound evaluation, of long-range perspective. Many men of great learning never achieve it; many a man or woman ' who is illiterate has achieved it. Only now can we begin to take the knowledge imparted to us here and, while constantly adding to it, use it as a tool in the acquisition of wisdom and true intellectual maturity. Admittedly, true omniscience is impossible to achieve, but it is a goal, the thirst for which is only slaked by edging towards it — alone. For now the text is gone, the close-watching teacher is gone and we must strike out with an attempt at free and individual thought. These remarks on intellectual maturity do not admit extremism. It is not a logical derivative for one to know no facts, and claim wisdom on the basis of admitting ignorance. Self understanding and intrinsic desire are the in- dicators here. Stretch a bow to the full And you will wish you had stopped in time; Temper a sword edge to its very sharpest, And you will find it soon grows dull. When bronze and jade fill your hall It can no longer be guarded. Wealth and place breed insolence That brings ruin in its train When your work is done, then withdraw! Let us withdraw from Grantham with regret and respect, with appreciation and conviction, with a potential and a challenge. And let this challenge never breed total peace of mind, the wicked state of inaction. Z -?

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Graduates

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Grade 13 Graduates FRONT ROW: Carol Leach, Jams Andrews, Sheila Buchanan, Gloria Bullock, Lee Allen, Pat Anderson. MIDDLE ROW: Dave Morrison, Gladys Baranek, Irene Redekopp, Wendy Nesbitt. Helen Redekopp, Gillian Boyce, Bill Chuchman. BACK ROW: Jurgen Erxleben, Peter Brewster, Bruce Jackson, Richard Larocque, Allan Davis, Ken Rennie, Jim Ellis. FRONT ROW: Anne White, Sharon Scholtz, Myrna Rode, Margaret Thomson, Barbara Himann, EUy Verwey. MIDDLE ROW: Mike Garrett, Sally Wiley, Stasia Skorski, Liese Walde, Louise Fabello, Lynne Harrison, John Gulbis. BACK ROW: Lawrence Timms, Werner Gerbes, Paul Fransen, Norman Fedyshyn, Richard Hildebrandt, Wayne Fenwick, Dave Russell, Duncan Smith.