Trafalgar School - Echoes Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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the spires and the bells — ' spires as sharp as thrushes ' hills to pierce the sky with song — which is so much a part of the soul ot Oxford; but in looking back on years spent in one of her colleges, it is not the books or the niusic or the comradeship one remembers so much as the subtle feeling that one has been in contact with something unique, something very old, and yet as young as Spring; something wise, and yet gay and carefree; something irresponsible, yet brave. Oxford is a challenge to a richer life — a life of service rather than ot materialism. Her sons go all over the world — to India as engineers and administrators, to Africa as missionaries and teachers, or into the slums of London to help in whatever way they can. She teaches internationalism and a broad tolerance for other creeds and races; and she demands of thoie who have heard her message to carry it on, even as a religion is carried on by its disciples. This is not easy; for though many have heard that message, to each one it is different; and each, in trying to give it utterance, has discovered how intangible it is — how very real, but at the same time how mystic. Arthur Quiller-Couch has expressed this challenge in one of the most comprehensive, because one of the most illusive forms, about Oxford: Know you her secret none can utter? Hers of the Book, the tripled crown? You, young lover. Drumming her old ones forth from town, Know you the secret none discover? Tell it — when you ' go down ' . Oxford then, by her subtle witchery, does more than give. She educates. She leaves her impress upon men and women, not so much in the learning which they may have acquired within her walls, but rather in their awareness of a demand upon them, a d emand that they should give as well as receive. Jane Howard. The Naughty Sparrows On a very chilly winter ' s day, When snow lay on the ground, I saw two sparrows quarrelling About a crust they ' d found. That crust is mine, chirped one of them, And pulled with all his might. No, no, it ' s mine, the other said, And they began to fight. But while these naughty little birds Were fighting, as I said, Down flew a great big speckled thrush And carried off the bread ' . Jean Meredith Thornton, Form IIIb. [31 1

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An Old Girl at Oxford I SUPPOSE the name and tradition of Oxford, the oldest of the EngHsh universities, io familiar to you all. For seven hundred years fine men, leaders of their generations, have been trained there; and now the same great privilege of being a student in that wonderful old city has been extended to women. There are five colleges for women, to whom the university lectures are open, and who are governed, as are the men, by university regulations. What, then, does Oxford offer that is so eminently worth while? First, and perhaps most vital (for we must share the experience of Oxford to know its true meaning), is comradeship with the ablest youth of the English-speaking world. It is to Oxford that EngHsh families of cultured tradition send their sons and daughters. Scholarships from many of the public schools bring to her colleges young men and women from every walk of life. The Rhodes Trust is the passport for outstanding men from every university in the Empire, as well as The United States and Ger- many. Educated Indians and Chinese represent the East; and a recent grant enables men from the Argentine to go to Oxford. Thus Oxford has become the focal point of a wide international consciousness and an intellectual cosmopolitanism which makes for broad sympathy and under- standing. When a girl from Siam has the room next yours, and you discover she ' s as keen about Beethoven and maple sugar as you are; and when your greatest chum was born in India, and her parents are missionaries in Bombay, the world seems very small, and the problems and ideals of the other half of immense importance. Then there are the hobbies. Perhaps you think of Oxford as a place wholly academic, where only the earnest student finds satisfaction. But Oxford has not been called the home of lost causes and impossible loyalties for nothing. One cannot be in Oxford for many weeks without becoming aware of the immense aliveness in the air, the countless points of view, vital with the keen intensity of youth. This interest may be in ethics or in cricket, in first editions or religion or early English church music, in agriculture or international politics: but the spirit is one, and the whole-heartedness with which each particular line is followed is the same. Here is opportunity for exploration in numberless fields. Three years is hardly long enough to discover half that is going on — merely time in which to throw oneself into one or two enthusiasms apart from one ' s work. Work, too — or, as it is called in Oxford, Schools — is almost as absorbing as any other activity. There, where every second shop is a bookshop, whose every college has its venerable library, where some of the finest treasures of scholarship are stored, and where almost every Don and lecturer is engaged on a book or in research, the willing undergraduate is encouraged to drink deep from the very source of learning. Individual work rather than mass production is foc tered. An hour a week alone with one ' s tutor, in a study lined with books and beside a crackling fire, is an amazing incentive to the appreciation of what scholarship really means, and is enough to stimulate a good week ' s delving in preparation for the next coaching. Lectures play their part too, but rather a secondary one; for, not being compulsory, they are attended only if they are exceptionally fine, or if the lecturer is an authority in his subject. One of the great privileges of Oxford is being able thus to learn from an immediate source, instead of at second-hand or through text-books. Then again, Oxford is no monastery, no cloistered place of mediaeval memory, but a city within sixty miles of London; and though during Term no undergraduate is allowed to stray so far from his college gates, yet, in compensation, all the best from London comes to him. No prima donna ' s tour is complete without a visit to Oxford. All the newest comedies are played in Oxford after they leave the London stage. Literary folk stop for a day to address an undergraduate audience and to be presented with an honorary LL.D. Church dignitaries deliver their finest sermons in the University Church; and when a new volume of poetry is published, it first appears in Oxford, at the headquarters of the Clarendon Press. These are some of the external privileges which Oxford holds out to the youth who calls her his Alma Mater. But she has something yet greater to give — greater and more intangible, and of deep value. It may be due to the tranquility and beauty of her streets and gardens, to the sense of their age and their unruffled wisdom, to that daily companionship with the towers and [30]

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Radio Programmes On evenings when I sit at home. And have my studies done, I Hsten to the radio And turn to, one by one, A different station. Sometimes I hear a speech or two, Sometimes a snatch of song. And then again a fairytale; But I don ' t Hsten long To any station. One evening as I turned the dial, And while I sat aghast, I listened to reception From each town that I passed. Prosperity is just around the corner, This came from Hoover, Washington, D.C. If you will listen, ladies, for a moment I to soften your complexion guarantee. Then suddenly the wolf leaped up. Red Riding Hood cried out — We take you to Los Angeles To hear a boxing bout. Then next to my amazement This ghastly tale I heard, That she shall be avenged, I swear. By the length of your blood ' red beard. Just add a bit of flour. Bend down and then count three. If you would like an icing rU read my recipe. Then suddenly I realized That it was time for bed. So off I went quite wearily With a very muddled head. Phyllis Hamilton, Form IIIa. A Hallowe ' en Scare I DON ' T BELIEVE in ghosts, but I certainly had a scare by something that looked like one on Hallowe ' en night. It was a very dark Hallowe ' en night. The moon was covered by black clouds, and a breeze was sighing through the leafless trees. I had been sent to a neighbouring farmhouse by mother. I took a short cut through a cornfield, and the orange pumpkins could easily be seen through the brown cornstalks. Every few steps I glanced behind me, everything was so silent that at last, breaking into a run, I tripped and fell. When I got up I seemed to have shrunk, because the pump ' kins looked like houses beside me. Before my amazed glance I saw a crowd of hurrying fairies, pixies, elves and gnomes. They were all headed for an extra large pumpkin-house; from its windows yellow lights were streaming. I was caught by an elf and hurried into the pumpkin. I saw rows of fairy-folk sitting cross-legged [32]