Brentwood College School - Brentonian Yearbook (Mill Bay, British Columbia Canada)

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One of the most exciting projects undertaken this year was, of course, the swimming pool. Incidentally, to the parents who have boys in grade VIII or IX, some of whom have emerged from the pool merely to eat and sleep recently, you may not get home the best students in the world, but you are certainly going to get the cleanest. This is something for which I want to thank not only the boys, but also the parents— The boys for their great efforts, encouraged and directed by Mr. Prowse, and the parents for putting up with the campaign for money and for all their help and for all the talk they have had to listen to for the past year. It has all been very worth while, and now we have got something we can identify per- sonally with, something which will be of tremendous value to the school in the months and years to come. The Drama Department continues active. We had a concert this year— a rather sophisticated concert under the direction of Mr. Ford. We had planned to do a play, but unfortunately we had committed ourselves to just too many things to do, and we just had to delay this production until the Fall. Our staff remains almost intact next year, although we are losing Mr. Rees. Mr. Rees has been with us for five years. He came at a time when we seemed to be experts at losing all games. He took over a rugby team whose record was extra- ordinary in that it had not had any wins at all. The year follow- ing his takeover, we won more games than we lost, and in the last two years we have never been beaten except by a team which had to come all the way from Scotland to do this. This is due to his enthusiasm, his competence, his dedication and his immense energy. This same ability and dedication he has applied to all phases of his work at Brentwood. We shall miss both his contribution and his company, and we all wish him well for the future. To Mr. Bunch, to Mr. Crookston and to all the staff I would like to pay particular tribute for your dedication and support in this year. To the housekeeper, kitchen staff, the janitorial and the maintenance staff, and to last, but not least, that wonderful Irishman, who is as successful a stagehand as he is a gardener, Mr. Finnegan. All the beauty of these grounds are of his creation, and to him our most grateful thanks. And now, the Grade XIFs, you leave us to go on to Uni- versity, and from this moment your status is changed. No longer are we standing over you directing your every move. Now you are on your own. Now you have to apply your own self -discipline. Now the effectiveness of what we have been trying to teach you will be judged. Of course I hope we 8

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perienced, who are proficient, and that it is our job to see students and it is our job to teach them to think and not to just cram them full of facts. Isn ' t education, after all, that which remains after we have forgotten all we have been taught. Of course, it is true we don ' t spend all year training, and that we do this largely in the last few weeks before government exa- minations. But we feel that even this is rather a pity. It is time which I think could be more productively spent. We have done well, too, in sports. Our senior rugby team has for the second year in a row won both the Independent Schools championship, has won the Island championship and has qualified to enter the final of the B. C. championship. Our Colts team ran through the season unbeaten. All teams in fact, in the school, had a distinguished record. I must say the day that pleased me most was the one that occurred early last March when we fielded ten teams against Shawnigan. Now we have 207 boys in the school, 40 of whom were involved in badminton, so that takes them out of the rugby. We field fifteen boys and a linesman on each team, and that means 160 boys were all on the field at the same time. This I suppose is probably what you could call mass participation. If you are careful with your mathematics you will probably realize that this left seven boys to be sick, to be on leave, to be having dent- ist appointments and to be otherwise unproductively involved. Our track team has done equally nobly. The Seniors finished second in the Independent Schools competition, and the Juniors first. The Rowing Team won the Varsity Eight in the Shawnigan Regatta The Sailing Team won the Brentwood Cup for the fourth year in a row. Our Cross Country Juniors and Midgets won their respective classes in the Island Championships, and our Tennis Team continued to take second place in the Independ- end Schools competition. You might be interested to know that we have adopted a new summer sports philosophy wherein there is a free choice of games. It used to be that the track coaches had priority and if they wanted a certain boy for track then they had him regardless of the wishes of the boy. Well, we have changed this this year, and I think everybody is much happier, and the system is working well. We have added new games in lacrosse and badminton, in which I may say that John Gourlay went to the final in the Island Junior championship. And Softball, so that I think our games programme is reasonably rounded. 7

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have taught, and sometimes at least, inspired in the classroom. But I hope too the wider lessons have been learned. I hope you remember the business of tolerence and consideration for others— of standing up for what you know is right— of living in peaceful co-existence and friendship with your fellow human beings. You go on to University where you find all kinds of behaviour and philosophies. You may even find that kind of student activity, which, masquerading in the guise of philosophies or movements for peace or for intellectual free- dom, are in reality disguised vehicles for license for aggression, for anarchy, for hatred. You are not going to calm or to per- suade your fellow citizens by jumping up and down screaming. You are not going to aid the cause of peaceful co-existence by demonstrating that you can ' t co-exist peacefully with your fel- low citizens. This is not to say that you should allow your- selves to be led like sheep. This is not to say that you should never question, never challenge, never discuss. You should speak, you should preach, and if necessary you should even demonstrate, but you must do so in a way which will per- suade and not provoke. You must appeal to kindness and rea- son, not to hate and hysteria. You must not express alienation or bring about estrangement. Your duty is to help humanity by furthering the reconciliation on which the survival of our race depends, reconciliation at home and reconciliation abroad, reconciliation with all levels and sections of our own society, and beyond that reconciliation with all races, black, white and yellow. Never has there been a more urgent necessity tor brotherhood, for kindness, for tolerance and for consideration for others. And now in closing, there is one new project which I have not yet mentioned. This year we started a band, and we were fortunate enough to secure the assistance of a director who is dedicated, who is enthusiastic, and who obviously knows what he is about. His enthusiasm has rubbed off on all sixty of us. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Boel. 9