Ashbury College - Ashburian Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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[10] THE ASHBURIAN THE CHAPEL

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THE ASHBURIAN [9] EDITORIAL So MUCH — too much possibly — has been written about the September crisis in international politics that there would seem to be no fresh viewpoint that has not already been expressed, no avenue of thought that the seers and progrosti- cators of the radio and press did not explore. There is, however, one aspect of those momentous days that is of particular interest to us, and one that calls for comment, we think, and that is the effect of the crisis on a community of boys such as ours. It was only natural that older people, whose memory of the last war is still green, should have been deeply concerned with the situation. It was not so natural that young people should have interested themselves as they did in events which, to them, must have seemed so far away, especially when we recollect that not a boy in the School was born when the last armistice was signed and the world was supposedly made safe for democracy. The peril to them must have seemed less imminent, and the train of suffering that war would bring less real than it did to their parents. But what they fortunately lacked in previous experience they made up in the way they brought their reasoning powers to bear on the threat, as they saw it. Elsewhere in this issue there is printed an article which deals briefly with the radio as a medium of propaganda and information in times of national danger. Whatever our views as to the colour of the information imparted during that last week in September, there can be no denying that the effect of those news broadcasts on the School was immense. Everyone hod different second-hand views, dependent on the twist of a dial, and each free period and off-time half hour would result in some variation of the lost news bulletin. Conversation switched from games to prepared- ness, and for a brief season the sports page in the daily press received only secondary attention. But nothing is an unmixed evil, and even the most fictitious description of hap- penings abroad as witnessed by an N.B.C. commentator had its value. It was able, for the first time in history, to bring home to potential soldiers before the outbreak of war the horrible prospect of military conflict in our present order of civilization. In 1914 no such medium existed, and to us in Canada war never showed its true colours until too late, until it had already involved the whole world. Three thousand miles of water between ourselves and the scene of conflict seemed, then, such a reasonable guarantee that our shores at least would remain inviolate. Today ' s youth, however, harbours no such illusions. It has heard, albeit in a foreign tongue, and has read translations of. Hitler ' s diatribes and fulminations, and removed from the influence of mass hysteria has been able to judge reasonably of their worth. War today holds for it no attractions, as it may have done to the young men of 1914. The braid of a soldier ' s uniform is, today, only recognized as a symbol of rank in a branch of national defence, and the grim task of war ' s business would only be entered upon in the full realization of its real significance, shorn of all attractiveness and false glamour. For this true picture, at least, we ought to be thankful.

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THE ASHBURIAN [11] I CHAPEL NOTES i -4 T Read Over on June 17th Dr. Woollcombe, Founder and former Headmaster of Ashbury, took the service in the Chapel. Mr. Archdale has continued taking the majority of the services on Sundays this j term, preaching at Matins, and Dr. Woollcombe has taken the Communion Service ■ i each month. We were interested to read that when our former Headmaster read ] Matins at All Saints ' recently the Service was broadcast. We welcome Mr. Hugh Huggins, B.A., LL.B., as School Organist. Mr. Huggins is Organist at All Saints ' Church and plays for us at morning prayers on each week- day. His accompaniments are a great encouragement to singing and a noticeable increase in those trying to sing is largely due to his playing. j On Sundays Miss Elsie Preece plays for the School. Along with other parts of the buildings that received attention this summer, the Chapel came in for its share of improvement, and a new carpet was laid down the aisle. It is red like the one before it. As was the case last year, the Prefects are again reading the lessons. The Prefect-on-Duty for the day reads the lesson at evening prayers and on Sunday | morning the lesson is read by Barclay. On October 16th the Boarders went to All Saints ' for Matins, when Dr. Wool!- j combe preached the sermon. This was the first visit the School has made to this city church for many years and we hope to go there again at some future date. | On October 23rd Mr. Porritt delivered an address at morning service. j Two guest preachers have addressed the School in the Chapel this term, the ■ Rev. Howard Clarke, Acting Rector of the Cathedral, and Mr. MacDermot, Principal of Upper Canada College, Toronto. As was the case last year, friends of the School and Old Boys have attended our I services on Sundays, and we are always glad to have them with us.