Royal Military College of Canada - Review Yearbook (Kingston, Ontario Canada)

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R. M. C. REVIEW vol.. X JUNE. 1929 5L'E i,flifIfLf1, 9. Foreword HE Commandant has done me the very high honour of inviting me to write a Foreword to your Review, and I thank him very sincerely for the opportunity. My recollections of the College date from 1880 when I arrived at Kingston from England to join my father who was then Adjutant of the College. I arrived just after the Old Eighteen had left, and I became aware at once that, though the College was young, it was already old in tradition: for the Old Eighteen had assimilated very quickly a high standard of discipline and honour, and had carried on the high traditions of the British Service, and had passed all this on to those who remained. All we-re men of character and personality. Since then I too have passed through the College-I graduated in 1885-and I believe we in those days tried to carry on that same high standard. Since I left, I have mixed with all arms of the service in many coun- tries, and I have been struck by the invariably high eulogistic terms in which Ex-Cadets were spoken of. All this shows that the training has continued down the years on the same sound lines and has produced the same type of Cadet. So far as the British Army is concerned, I can state that Kingston Cadet bears a very high reputation. Your Commandant published in the December, 1928, issue- a letter from me in which I recorded the laudatory opinion of Kingston lads expressed by a very distinguished General whose reputation for direct speaking is famous, that is but one instance, I could tell of others. This continually expressed high opinion makes it evident that the present generation is maintaining the high traditions of the past, and that the same care is being taken with the training and education. Looking back on the past 44 years-which have simply rushed by-I am certain that what counts most in a man is his character, a quality that can be acquired. Let this always be uppermost in one's mind: for mere academic excellence without character can achieve but little. The whole system of Education and training at the R.M.C. is based on the desire to form character in harness with reasonable academic qualities. That this is successful is evident from the records of Ex-Cadets in every walk of life, for our Ex-Cadets have shone as Engineers, Scien- tists, Administrators, Airmen, Police Soldiers, Business Men, and a host of other professions. So that in saying HI was at R.M.C., Kingston one may be certain with just pride that one's standing is high.

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12 R. M. C. REVIEW I am writing this for the Review, so may I just say a word about it. I think that as a publication it is excellent. and one of which the Editor- in-Chief may well be proud. As a record of events I think it is most refreshing and gives a won- derfully live account of all the marvellous activities of the Cadets, and though I, personally, do not know any of the Cadets I take a very lively interest, as do hundreds of others, in all their doings, and wish myself once more back at the College to enjoy it all. Of all those activities I had personal experience in 1925 for I had the great good luck to visit the College in that year, just forty years to the month since I graduated. May I say how proud I was to see such a fine set of sturdy and steady men, and may I express my admiration at the skill shown in mounted and dismounted work, and the courage shown in the marvellous P.T. dis- play I witnessed, for high courage and nerve were requisite in some of the exercises. The training of the present day appears to be more severe than in my day, while the academic side made me feel that I was lucky to have passed through when it was not so exacting. Everything I saw filled me with intense pride and called into play every atom of esprit de corps. It behoves the Cadets to benefit by this excellent training, to preserve the high traditions and to hand down a worthy heritage. I have tried to confine myself to fact-and I do not wish to moralize -but I think I shall be helping my brother Cadets if I urged them to lead a clean, vigorous life of honest endeavour and determination, to regulate their actions in relation to others by a scrupulous regard for the rights and opinions of others, by endeavouring to look at every question from the opposite point of View as well as their own. I believe most thoroughly that the Commandant and his Staff are fully alive to what I urge-and never fail to bring it to the notice of the Cadets not only by their own example but by their teachings. The fact that they do is measured by the success of the finished article, for the Cadet stands high in the estimation of everyone wherever he may be. And in wishing the Staff, Cadets, and Ex-Cadets all prosperity and good wishes, I would close with an extract I made some years ago from a previous issue of the Review, which I have always carried with me day by day ever since. It is a fine creed and I think might well be adopted by the College. He Profits Most Who Serves Best To live as bravely as I can To be, no matter where, a man, To take what comes of good or ill, And cling to faith and honour still, To do my best, and let that stand The record of my brain and hand, And then, should failure come to me Still work and hope for Victory. -E. Guest. Richmond. Surrey, April, 1929.