Balmoral Hall School - Optima Anni Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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BALMORAL HALL

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4.1! HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II by Baron

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Balmoral Ziaall, 31 une, 1952. My dear Girls:- As you read this letter I want you to feel that it is a very personal letter from me to you. If it is to serve the purpose I have in mind it must of necessity be intimate in nature even though it will appear quite openly in your magazine. I write to you about your motto-Meliora Petens-and in this letter my special wish for you is that your motto may daily mean more and more to you even after you leave school. Whatever your age and grade read on and see what you can grasp of my wish for you. Meliora Petens-Seeking Better Things. This is your motto. Have you realized the fulness of its meaning as it beckons you upwards and onwards? Are you Seeking Better Things?', By the end of this school year, I want you to feel that you have grasped something of its great meaning. To do this some of you will need guidance and some of you will need encouragement. If you are truly Seeking Better Things then you are developing the power to choose aright and this power to choose rightly depends on your sense of values. What do you value most highly? Is it a life of dreamful ease where you expect someone else to provide entertainment for your leisure time or do you look about for some useful form of activity feeling with Ulysses I-low dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnishid, not to shine in use ? So many of life's tangible amusements are quite harmless but quite unsatisfying. Value them as a diversion but not as the main object in your life. Surely if you value happiness you will not be satisfied with pleasure. Therefore look about you for some form of activity where you can use your talents, great or small, to bring forth fruit. If you are truly Seeking Better Things you will develop your power to value beautiful things which will provide you with lasting joy, and this power of appreciation of beautiful things will increase year by year if you nourish it. Seek beauty therefore in the sound of rustling leaves, in mist on a mountain top, in the wings of a butterfly, in art, in music and in books. Some of you may crave admiration and feel that you are most happy if admired, but admiration if it is aroused by your successes or achievements may induce self-satisfac- tion. Perhaps popularity, a form of admiration may tempt you. But this too often demands a lowering of your standards and sometimes even a denial of the truth that is in you. If you find yourself seeking admiration or popularity think of your motto and seek something better-seek the love of a friend, for friendship, remember, gives as much as it receives. But you must learn to be a friend before you can make a friend, often sacrificing your wishes in order that hers may be fulfilled. And when your thoughts dwell on what you can do for others rather than on what others are thinking of you, you are truly Seeking Better Things and if friendship and service mean more to you than admiration and popularity, then will your life be rich indeed. And so, my dear girls, if you will set your heart on activity rather than on ease, your life will be full of interesting things to do, interesting people to meet and interesting ideas to expand. If you will remember that trivial amusements are meant only for diversion, you will realize how necessary it is to increase your power to appreciate the lovely things that bring lasting happiness. If you will let service for others mean more to you than admiration and popularity, then will you discover the richness of friendship. And on this point I close, hoping that life holds for each of you the priceless gift of true friends, and knowing that by Seeking Better Things you will develop such nobility of nature and such enthusiasm for things great and good as will place you close beside those whose companionship will complete and enrich your lives. Affectionately you rs.