Central Collegiate Institute - Analecta Yearbook (Calgary, Alberta Canada)

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18 The Analecta It was, and is, the greatest relief imaginable to be able to go into school without having to march under the eye of a teacher until safely in the room. I shall never cease to be grateful for this—to me—decided privi¬ lege. Altogether High School seemed to present few real difficulties, and I was perfectly satisfied to remain as a member of the great student body of C.G.I. until my course should be finished. This feeling has lasted until now, in February, 1 am writing these impressions for the Analecta. THE GIRLS’ PHYSICAL DRILL At C.C.I. we have physical drill every morning. The girls take drill in their own rooms under the supervision of one of the lady teachers or girls. It is just the best practice we could have to exercise our muscles, to de¬ velop our constitutions and to supply healthful recreation. Sitting cramped up in our desks all morning does not improve our youthful dimples and happy smiles, but makes us grouchy and tired. We all long just to stretch “miles and miles.” Now drill gives us that desired stretch among many other things. It stimulates our nerves, re¬ laxes our minds and gives us more “pep” so that we return to our books with renewed energy. Having no recesses at C.C.I. drill gives us a short intermission which is employed usefully, helpfully To vc h - Down . and healthfully. This is really an experiment which Dr. Hutchinson is observing with keen interest. Its success depends on the support of the students. All the girls who superintend the rooms commend its continuation; still your support is needed for its ultimate success. The teachers and girls who supervise the rooms are: Grade IX—Miss Field. Grade XA—Helen James. Grade XD—Pa¬ tricia Parker. Grade XC—Dorothy Ford. Grades XB and XE—Beth Carscallen. Grades XIA and XIIA—Zella Oliver. Grade XIB—Betty Landells. Grades XIC and XID—Marian MacKay. Grade XIIB—Marjorie Kells. —MARY CURRIE. A GRADE TWELVER’S REFLECTIONS ON HIGH SCHOOL LIFE Grade Twelve — the last year of High School — and in a few short months most of us will leave the dear old halls of C.C.I. for ever. Pleasant thought ? Well, perhaps—no more homework, no more detentions, no more exams—but, on the other hand, no more school hikes or dances or rugby games—no more waving the purple and gold banner at the hockey games and cheering the team to victory with the time-honored “Old Locomotive.” Graduation means breaking old ties and forsaking familiar scenes for new friends and new surroundings. It means that we are nearly grown up and that we must get out into the world and accept our responsibility. Except for those fortunate ones with a University career in view the future is a great big black place and, when June comes, we won’t be very joyful to think that school days are done.

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The Analecta 17 OUR 1927 SCHOOL CONCERT One of the most interesting events in the school history for 1927 was the Annual Concert presented entirely by student talent. When the request passed around the school about the beginning of March for artists to give their assistance towards arranging a worth-while entertainment, our school spirit was not found lacking and many responded to the call. The result was that the students gave a concert on Monday, March 28, 1927, in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, and repeated the same in our Assembly Hall on the evenings of Tuesday and Wednesday, March 29 and 30, respectively. Nor were the artists’ endeavours the only evidence of our school spirit for an auditorium filled to the utmost with a sea of enthusiastic faces greeted the performers as the curtain was drawn aside each evening at 8 p.m. The fine program consisted of a farce, “The Fatal Quest,” by twelve senior students and four selections from our C.C.I. orchestra, which was especially deserving of mention. Vocal and instrumental numbers, as well as readings, dances and speeches, were contributed by Peggy Menzies, Fairy Muttart, Beryl Daniels, Jean Wonnacott, Peggy Mackay, Mary Hughes, Marjorie Hardy, Edith Seville, Muriel Oliver, Margaret Smith, Muriel Sherring, Jean Anderson, Betty Buckley, M. Galbraith, Amy Bow- ker, Dorothy Bennett, Vera Christie, M. Earle, Misses Coates and Hagel, Zella Oliver, Alice Howson and Gordon Withell, Wedgewood Robinson, Fred Bermingham, Arthur Buckley, Don Kepler and Tom Scrace. —Z. OLIVER, XIIA. A “NINER’S” IMPRESSIONS OF HIGH SCHOOL I always liked Public School. There was, as a rule, plenty of fun and companionship to be had at any time, while there was always plenty of work to keep one occupied. However, when I entered on my last Public School year, I felt secretly happy that next year I would be able to start a new life at Central Collegiate as a “niner.” The first day of September, nineteen hundred and twenty-seven, arrived at last. My great ambition was finally to be realized, and my joy over this fact knew no bounds. On reaching C.C.I. I knew at once that every¬ thing was going to be interesting, fascinating. And so it has proved. What a difference a variety of teachers made to the enjoyment of the work. You know teachers are sometimes the cause of one’s sleepiness in class or of one’s alertness. Any student will understand perfectly the meaning I wish to convey, and I am sure they all feel that this variety of teachers is a great asset to the working of their feeble minds. All the new subjects made me wish to work harder, that I might learn about them. All had a certain fascination—Geometry, with its intricac¬ ies, made especially interesting by Mr. Asselstine; Scienc e, with its obser¬ vations and experiments; Algebra, with its x-y-z’s faithfully explained by Mr. Robinson, and French, with its “Bon jour, mademoiselle.” Detentions impressed me as being rather bothersome, and so far as I have heard, students, at least, agree with me. As for 1 the teachers, I doubt very much if they enjoy keeping us poor things in after 4 o’clock to give us a lecture or five hundred lines to write.

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The Analecta 19 True, High School life has its unpleasant features. Those impossible French rules and Latin verbs—the thousands of formulae and the frightful conundrums we have to solve for Mr. Asselstine (not that he can’t do them himself, of course), all loom up like evil spirits that fill days and haunt the nights, and we can’t help being glad to think they will soon be things of yesterday. We’ll be glad, too, to speak of “cramming” for exams and the fun we missed because we had to study in the past tense. But we’ll miss the friendly, helpful teachers, the joy of accomplishment and discovery, the thrill of belonging to “the gang,” and in after years we’ll probably sigh for “Auld Lang Syne.” Doubtless, too, when we’re old and hoary we’ll sing to our grand-children that moth-eaten refrain: “Your school¬ days are the best days of your life.” So let’s crowd these last few months with healthy fun and good hard work. Then we’ll have something to show for our four years in High School and we’ll all agree that “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.” —BETTY HARVEY, XIIA. GRADUATION Christmas has come and gone, Easter, with its attendant gruelling exams, now looms upon our horizon. Soon the Fearsome Finals will march past in dread array; and then, out of the turmoil, comes Graduation. “Graduation,” according to Webster, “is the conferring or reception of an academic degree.” But it means far more than that to us,—it is one of the cross-roads of life, it is a parting of the ways. For next year, our ranks will be scattered, our well-known seats filled with other faces. Some, enjoying college life, will trundle peanuts along the sidewalk with their scholarly noses, and catch a cold because half their manly heads have been shaved. Others, having finished Normal, will drill the laws of multiplication and division into heavy heads, and sympathize with their co-mates in toil. Many will work; a few, perhaps, will attend business college. As for the rest of us—well, we shall be found some¬ where, last, but not least. And so it goes from year to year. “The old order changeth, yielding place to new.” In a short time, it will all be a thing of the past. Then we shall pull out our well-thumbed Analectas, smudge the pages once again, and think of both our joys and sorrows in the Hall of Learning. It won’t be long now! But let us hope that, at the end, we have been more than little containers, into which our teachers have laboriously poured a stream of facts. Let us hope that, though we have obligingly poured them out again, once and for all, a few of those precious drops shall re¬ main, as evidence to our instructions of toil not in vain. DORIS CORMIE, XIIA. THE LITERARY SOCIETIES The season 1926-27 saw the revival of those much-loved Lits., with their interesting debates and entertainments. This is a splendid way of arousing an active interest in good old C.C.I., and it is to be hoped that something may yet be done along this line during the present term. There were three of these Societies,—one for the IX’s, another for the X’s and still another for XI’s and XII’s combined. These Lits, which took place in the Assembly Hall, are especially noteworthy as they proved