Ashbury College - Ashburian Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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DR. MICHAEL OI,IYIiR'S PRIZE DAY SPIQECH Mr. Headmaster. students ofAshbury College. ladies and gentlemen e May I first say how very honoured l am to have been invited to be vy ith you for these Closing Ceremonies at Ashbury College. lt is a school w ith a very great tradition from whom indeed we have received some of our very distinguished students at Carleton University and at other universities at Canada. A school vv ith a reputation for scholarship as well as for all the other things - the sports. clubs and activities that make up a good school. The choices that are made in education are vital ones: vital ones for both individuals that are involved and for society and. indeed. I am reminded of a story which is part of the blaek humour of the early lndependentiste Movement in Quebec. which perhaps illustrates the importance of educational choices. lt seems there were two farmers. one evening. walking along the shore of Lac St. Jean. smoking their pipes in a very leisurely way and suddenly they heard from the lake the ery Help, help. l'm drowning -they walked along puffing on their pipes and the ery went up a seeond time - I-Ielp. l'm drowning . Once again they strolled along. The third time the ery came up Help. l'm drowning . They walked along and. finally. one took his pipe out of his mouth. turned to the other and said Il vant bien apprendre l'anglais. mais il vaut mieux apprendre it nagerf' I suspect that not all educational ehoiees may be of quite that desperate kind but they are important and therefore let me now address most of my remarks to the students who are graduating from Ashbury today. i m XN4' Tony German Ted Marshall sells Mr. Mahoney an Ashbury Association tie at the Friday night barbecue. 25

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Thus far the choices in education have to a very great extent been made for you. They have been made by your parents. they have also been made by the society of which you are a part although not all of these edticational choices by any means have been brought to bear on you through the schools and throtigh this school. Ashbury College or rather from any of the institutions ol' society. Nonetheless what you have learned then and to some extent the way you have learned reflect the values and priorities of your society. They tend lo be individual values rather than collective ones except perhaps in your own peer group where elaborate codes. and they're very rigid ones. do grow up. They have been very competitive values on the whole in this society rather than eo-operative ones except perhaps in games or in plays but even there the stars appear. Your society. then. has educated you perhaps in consumerism. probably less from a school like this which has traditionally had its values set firmly in the things of the mind and in values that are more lasting. but certainly from institutions like television and others that play such an important educative role in society. You have also been educated in the importance of growth. The idea probably has been suggested lo you that things get better as they get bigger and as there are more of them. Had you been born in China. the educational choices made for you would have been quite different. You would have been going to Middle School and there you would have been mixing work and study from the very beginning following the dictum of Mao Tse Tung: Education must serve proletarian politics and be combined with productive labour. The students would also learn other things - that is to say they should not only learn book knowledge. they should also learn tlnlfl ..-., al, i 1 1 QI ' . .gt A 1 v -'45 1 ,r ' ' ' ' .' faq S , ,Q K A - .1 'h-,, Photo by Peter Wilson Frank Mulock receives the History and Economics prizes. Year 5. from Dr. Oliver. 27