Trinity College School - Record Yearbook (Port Hope, Ontario Canada)

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Does Mon Hove A Purpose? There is a biological instinct of man which, l suppose, one could call his purpose. All animals share it within. Animals are required to achieve three things in their lives: reproduce, survive, and rear their otfspringto the reproductive age. Every- thing else man has created and done is for his own amusement, to keep his mind occupied. Civilization is a game, a form of entertainment. On the assumption that his life has some kind of moral purpose, man conceived of an afterlife where he continues to exist beyond his normal earth life span. But if man has no purpose on earth, then what purpose has he in an afterlife? Life is a biological process: you were born, you were reared, you reproduce, and during all this time you try to survive and then finally death, the end. You have produced an offspring to take your placeg to keep your species going. Man's real afterlife is in his oispring. The only way he'1l live again is through his child. Man is simply a product of the phenomenom evolution and was not intended to have purpose. He is just a high form of life that with the ability to think, has created what he has and conceived many explanations to his existence which he likes to think is for a purpose. Page 23 550 Does man have a purpose? Man believes that because he is intellectually far superior to the other animals that he must have a purpose, that there is some reason for existance. Because of the complexity of life, man feels that it is impossible to have just evolved. There must be, he argues, a reason for the existance of such a complex and intellectual organism. I believe that there is a great possibility that man just happened to beg to have evolved. There- fore, I feel that man has no real purpose. He is simply a product of several billion years of evolution. Earth is one of many probably planets that life miraculouslybegan. Though one of the unknown phenomena of this universe, a micro- scopic organism was instantly formed by some accident: a lightning bolt hitting a certain group of atoms perhaps, with the inconceivable number of planets which exist in the universe, this pro- bability could be true. Through a billion years of evolution, the earth, due to its conditions, pro- duced man along with countless other species of animals. Man exists by a miraculous chance. He was not meant to be, or created for a purpose, but simply unexpectedly becameg evolved. The complexity of life and the human body was formed through millions and millions of years. - lan Skoggard

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The Fight On at Saturday night, soon after the start of the year. a group of about 60 Port Hope boys attacked some T.C.S. boys who were walking up from the movie. The 'Port Hopers' had a couple of chains and brass knuckles and one switch blade. The injuries amounted to a cut knee, ascraped face and a big scare - no one was hurt to any serious degree. The immediate feeling was that the 'grease' were in the wrong. They were the boys from the pool hall. many of them already in trouble with the police. This summer they had badly beaten up a local boy. Most of the local residents were entirely on the side of T.C.S. However. there is another side to the story. T.C.S. boys are regarded as snobs by most of the people of Port Hope, and not without reason. The fees for this school exceed the annual income of a great many people in Port Hope. There is, of course. nothing wrong with this. However, when some of us go downtown and flaunt our money in the stores, when some of us are rude to sales clerks or waitresses, we are just asking for trouble. One boy, who is not back this year, asked a waitress for a cup of tea with three tea bags. She kindly gave him two but could not find him three. He t.hen hurled the cup of tea across the restaurant and called hera filthy pig . Another incident took place at the theatre. Some T.C.S. boys sat behind a Port Hope couple and called them both names. After the show, these boys separated the couple, causing great embarassment for both people. These are admittedly two extraordinary inci- dents. However, news of such things does spread around, whether at a pool hall, atabridge game, or at the dinner table. Many such incidents, in the past few years, have caused a deep and justi- fied resentment. Other causes of this resentment are our con- stant loudness in the movies and our attitude towards people of Port Hope. Every Saturday, large groups of T.C.S. boys walk down the mid- dle of Ward Street, laughing at the cars they hold up and calling all the Port Hopers gris . However, there was more to the light than resentment. There was also a spark which trig- gered it. The annual car show was being held in The Rink and many T.C.S. boys werethere. Some of them suddenly thought ofa 'hilarious' joke and proceeded to pour coke over seats of the cars. Laughing at the outraged protests, they walked out. For the benefit of those who still believe that the local people were entirely in the wrong, I would like to point out once again, that no boys were seriously hurt. We were merely givenascare and it has done us some good. We now keep P age 22 more of our comments to ourselves and we no longer act like invulnerable gods. I do not feel that the Port Hope boys should be too severely condemned for an action which, although extreme, had plenty of justiiication, did not really hurt anyone, and in the end has had a positive effect on us. - D. McCallum

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'. . . und lstood u'f1tc'l11'1zg. .Ind I stood ll'fll'flAlIxLI. JUHNSUN HALTS BUMBING HANUI T0 TALK PEACE Can we hope? Can we now expect something from behind the closed doors? I like to think so, because if I did not. I would be rejecting the only possible route left to the future. Ilven yesterday pessimism ran high. so high in fact that one clever fellow was about to write .in .irticle for this section on VVhat hasn't hap- pend at the Paris Peace Talksf' Up until this morning he would have been justified in the opinion that nothing was happening, and now he nnist wait and see whether in a few weeks' time he inay again begin an article along those lines. lt may he just as fatal to go off on a spree of ni.tgniticent optimism. if we remind ourselves of i.-. han happend in September when the same thing .it t urrt-rl. The overereaction of the public could int-.Ae ht-en expected. but it is interesting to note li-iw. overnight. President Johnson's publicimage '.'.'-grit from deep black tothe white ofthe Crusaders. llis t-motion-charged speech on that occasion iw-gzitnfl the opinion that he was a lion, harsh tml unfecling. P ri qe .74 What now? He has taken his actions a step further, and in ceasing all bombing of all type he once agaim seems to be the human wonder that cannot see bloodshed without guilt. If the last tactic was a political move, this one must not be, because the last one failed, and this one cannot afford to. The Hanoi delegation was in no way about to take part in a compromise, and so Johnson has met an ultimatum, and can now only wait. If it is rejected, the only further step in the natural progression of things, is a total withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Southeast Asia. This would be, in effect, a complete sur- render, and it doesn't take a fool to realize the likelihood of this 'eat and run' tactic from our neighbours to the south. The negotiations resume in four days, and as a carrot we have the assurance of the Hanoi representative that immediate action will follow any such move of the United States. If this statement was made in good faith, fand we really have no way of being surej then the future may not be black at all, and the war may be over in the foreseeable future. If, however, this is simply a play for time, we will have lost all possibility of the continuation of the talks. They will turn into the complete farce they were in early Septem- ber when Hanoi would not even recognize the fact that they were directly involved in any war at all. They contended that all those iightingwere volunteers, and not conscripts. By his action, President Johnson has laid some very clear ground rules which the next adminis- tration must follow - be it Nixon or Humphrey. Either one will be forced to follow a policy which will be determined by Hanoi's reaction to this overture. It must be positive . . . it must. Because, ifit isn't, I will be forced to take a very negative attitude and say that we cannot hope. - .L S. Wootton