Altona Collegiate - Green and Gold Yearbook (Altona, Manitoba Canada)

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Should Women Propose? In this age of female domination, of female doctors, female bankers, and female taxicab drivers, the superiority of the male is in some jeopardy. According to statistics, a man can expect to live a shorter life than a woman. Further, for over one-sixth of the first fifty nine years of this century, men have been very busy killing other men in war. Meanwhile, on the home front, women were quietly taking over many male roles in our society. Today, women “wear the pants,” in both the literal and figurative senses of the phrase. In the past, men were the dominant sex and they proposed marriage to women. Now if women are the dominant sex, should they not propose? To prove my point and answer the question, let us look into history. In the beginning, God created Adam with an extra rib and a carefree mind. But then the Creator, in a moment of weakness, took back one of Adam’s ribs, and created Eve, the first woman. After seeing the indiscretion of letting such a creature roam free over the surface of the earth, the Creator told Adam to take care of Eve. Adam promptly hit her over the head with his club, and hauled her off. This was known as the “un¬ conditional proposal” or the “club proposal.” It had one great advantage—no long and expensive engagement. As time went by, man became more civilized. Man became sentimental, romantic, and feminine. Man was no longer a virile, robust, rough and ready barbarian. Thus civilization ruined man. The results of this deterioration of man were long and expensive courtships, duels, feuds and wars. Thus women gained the fruits of long courtships, (gifts) and the duels, feuds and wars began to bring about a shortage of manpower. Now! in the original state a man was a bar- Festival And When the idea of a music and speech arts festival was conceived by the late Dr. K. H. Neufeld 27 years ago, the founder had in mind a sort of showcase of young talent. The talent was to be drawn from the schools of southern Man¬ itoba and the festival was to serve first, as a stimulus to the arts, and secondly, as a focal point or annual climax for cultural activity in this area. That vision has been realized. Well over one thousand students each year are gaining the benefits of thorough preparation and pro¬ fessional adjudication in both the speech arts and music. Since 1953 the Altona collegiate has shared in these benefits. The collegiate choir, under the direction of Mr. Kroeker, has participated in the last six festivals and has won top honours in its class three of the six times that it has competed. As this yearbook goes to press the choir is again preparing for competition in this year’s festival. barian with a club. A woman had no say in the arrangement. As civilization slowly ruined the male of the species, he gradually moved from hauling off a wife with a club, to leading her off to ask her to be his wife, with the consequence that we now find man on his knees proposing marriage where once men lifted women off the ground and carried them off. Before us lie two j conclusions: Man in the barbarian state was happy, and proposed as he pleased to whom he pleased; and civilization, which was a woman’s; idea in the first place, has a deteriorating effect; on men. There is but one solution to this. We must either take up the club and throw off the yoke of civilization, or we must succumb and lose all manly dignity. Since all persons wishing to sell their split-level homes and buy caves would be a minority group, let us look into the future to view civilization. Civilization has ruined man. As we look into the future we see passive, domestic ghosts and shadows of men, whose clubs are only used for golf; whose sporting firearms have been turned into lamps, table legs, or antique ornaments. Never again will a man display even a hint at rebellion against the female-dominated world. A marriage is taking place. With a huge gold- plated frying pan (the symbol of the new order of marriage) a woman proposes to a man. She hits him over the head with the pan, and hauls him off to their new split-level house. I shudder to look at such a future. But if civilization is ruining man, as it most certainly is, men might as well “throw in the towel” and the women can start proposing marriage right now. But as for me, give me back my club, or my long-lost rib. —Tom Milne. The School Altona collegiate debating teams have matched eloquence and rhetoric with other collegiate teams in the inter-collegiate debating classes which were added to the festival three years ago. This year our team of Dora Toews, Shirley Braun, Dave Hoeppner and Joe Fast won the home-and- home, total point debate on the resolution that “The Russian System of Education is superior to the Canadian system.” An increasing number of students each year are entering speech arts and instrumental classes. This year approximately thirty collegiate students entered spoken poetry and public speaking com¬ petitions. The collegiate produced one trophy winner: Bob Wieler was awarded the Dr. W. Colert trophy for his speech on “China” in the public speaking competion. As in past years a number of students who are receiving private instruction in piano and voice will be performing at the two-week festival. 31