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

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hours. The only reason we can offer the immensely varied programme we do is that we have teachers who are not only academically qualified, but who are also athletes, musicians, pilots, artists, experts in drama, and who are prepared to use their talents and their time in the interests of the students. One thing all the staff, academic, administrative, housekeeping, kitchen, gardening, have in c ommon is that they care about the school and the boys in it. To them, and to the Governors who seem always able to make the impossible come true, my thanks. It has been the custom at these affairs to address a few bons mots to our graduating class - it is, after all, their day. I ' ve preached a deal already this year, so I shall merely reiterate something you have heard me say before, but something which life here has been all about. If you want to teach a good class you need discipline. If you want a good choir, you need discipline. If you want a good drama production, you need discipline. If you want a good rugby team, you need discipline. I realize and acknowledge that we here are swimming against the tide in these days when the young are permitted, nay even encouraged, do their own thing, when it is no longer fashionable to pull in the reins and lay down sensible regulations and direction for adolescents. But this tide will turn and we at Brentwood shall continue our present course until it does. We are, I think, a reasonably liberal school but we believe in discipline and I know that you have experienced the worth of it - remember your successes this year. Remember too, that effective discipline is exercized by professionally competent people who have a deep sympathy with and understanding of those whom they lead. Remember that when you become doctors or lawyers or business men and, above all, in these awful days of educational permissiveness remember it when you become teachers. Remind those in your charge that hap- piness lies not in having a good time, but in the joy of achievement and fulfillment. Goodbye and Good Luck. 12

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way. The Colts won three of their five, and acquitted them- selves with great distinction. But more important than the results was the the experience itself. The lads stayed sometimes with the schools against whom they played, sometimes with the families of their opponents and, for a short time, in a hotel. All pronounced it a most memorable experience. In rowing Joel Cotter and Brian Crookes teamed up to win the B.C. Double Sculls Championship, and they have been selected to represent the Province at the Canada Trials and in the Canadian Henley at St. Catharine ' s in August. There they will be competing for a place in the Canadian team for the World Championships. We won the senior Independent Schools Swimming Championship, and failed to get first in the Independent Schools Track and Tennis competitions by a whisker. Talking of swimming, I should perhaps at this juncture thank all those who supported our Walkathon, which was quite a great success. We have been able to pay off the first stage of the pool development, and the Board of Governors are now very seriously investigating prospects for a cover. Our staff is due to undergo but little change. Mr. Bombezin and Mr. Molloy are leaving, both after one year with us. Both have contributed greatly to the academic and extra- curricular activities of the school, and I want to thank them for their dedication and support this year and to wish them the best of luck for the future. In their places come not new faces, but old friends. Mr. Johnson, who has so magnificently directed our choir, joins us full time, and, returning after a year of education courses at the University of Oxford, is Mr. Colin Ross. Mr. Prowse takes as his assistant in Ellis Hous e one of his former students, Mr. Tony Keble, who comes also to teach Spanish. Mrs. Hallet, our revered housekeeper, is leaving today after looking after us so well for so long. We thank her for all she has done and wish her many happy years of retirement. And lastly may I briefly but most sincerely pay tribute to a fine staff not only for being so demonstrably capable in the classroom, but also for the fact that they never count the 11

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ADDRESS BY MR. HUGH STEPHEN GUEST SPEAKER GRADUATION DAY AWARDS, JUNE 20, 1970 I am, of course, most honored to have been asked to speak at this Graduation Ceremony which has a rather special meaning for many of you here this afternoon. And while each of you, be it as teacher, parent or boy has played an essential role in the process culminating in this happy day, it is, I am sure, to the graduates themselves that I am expected to address myself. However, in passing, and just to set the record straight, let me make plain at once that, even were the occasion different, I would not have the temerity to address advice to members of the staff. My brief excursion into politics may not have taught me very much. But at least it trained me to recognize fairly instinctively the kind of territory where even angels fear to tread. As for the parents, of whom I am one, I am sure the boys feel we are fairly far beyond the stage where remedial action of any sort can accomplish too much. However, in this connection I might just say this to the boys, that if they will but have faith and hang on with patience for a little while longer, they may be amazed at how well we mature with keeping: coinciden tally, they may also find the rate of the process roughly approximates their own advancing years. And now let me speak directly to the graduating class. Well, I am sure at this very moment all of you feel, and with justification, that at long last a seemingly endless phase of your life has come to its close, a phase which at times, I am sure, has tried your patience and made you anxious to be done with it. And now the big day has arrived, your ap- prenticeship is over and the real thing has begun. From here on the road climbs ever upward and straightforwardly to the top. So in all fairness perhaps my first words to you this af- ternoon should be such as to moderate somewhat your un- derstanding of the status you have achieved on this your day of graduation. Because where in effect you have arrived today is less some great watershed of life than what you will later find to have been but the first of a series of checkpoints which will 13