Central Collegiate Institute - Ye Flame Yearbook (Regina, Saskatchewan Canada)

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ART IN CENTRAL HERE is no national Art Gallery in Regina. If great paintings are to be enjoyed they must be purchased by the individual who scorns the common and multitudinous reproductions. For an individual to do this is costlyg for a corporation a light imposition on the pocket-book. Without possessing a true appreciation of great paintings one can hardly claim to be fully educated. Few students can afford trips to the Louvre, Paris. It would then seem that centres of education would endeavour to amass an art collection to place at the disposal of their students. This assumption is so. Central possesses many valuable, beau- tiful paintings which have been contributed from year to year by the Elgar Club and Dramatic Clubs. The Students' Council promises to co-operate in such donations to the school so that art is well sponsored. The drawback is, however, that before a small gallery can be started the cold bleak walls of this institution must be embellished and the requirements of such adornment are usually that of pictures. Before an art collection may start, the walls must be decorated. Could they not be enlivened with tapestry and thus save the notable works from the oblivion of the engulfing grey walls? The true value of a picture can not be determined as it hangs high above. Thus an art gallery is a prerequisite to appreciation. The pictures of Central colour the walls in the auditoriumg they fit into empty wall space in the library 5 they hang in the more conspicuous positions in the corridors. Their true value, however, remains un- detected by all with average perspicacity. The lighting is poor, the pictures are enshrouded in such deep gloom or so placed as to cause a bright reflection on their glass covers, that one forsakes their beauty in avoiding eyestrain. Few students realize there are several paintings in Central worth over two thousand dollars. Studying a picture, its balance tends to lend balance to its peruser, its contrast so vividly outlined causes him to be a hero in the strife, his attempted interpretation lends him initiative. The possession of a private gallery would permit art students to revel in the environment of their ambitions. Art in Central is off to a good start. If the various organizations, the Students' Council and the Alumni continue to make in the future such welcome contributions, Central will boast an art collection un- challenged in merit by any secondary school in the Dominion. ARCHIVES FOR CENTRAL HE SCHOOLS of the Old Land are founded on tradition Q they exude traditiong they live on traditiong they are tradition itself. And no wonder. Many were founded before Columbus discovered America, others earlier, others later. 1 Tradition in the schools of Western Canada is an unheard of thing.. Precepts are established only to be broken. The new schools are founded on novelty and they subsist on novelty. Central does likewise today. It is impossible to prognosticate as to her action fifty years hence but when the plaster begins to fall and the roof leaks like a sieve it is safe to say the old school will have 12

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of these voters feel they will be able to follow their picked calling, but the less fortunate feel they must follow in the ranks of teachers, 13, stenographers, 8, nurses, 8, men of commerce, 3. It is interesting to note that five out of the nineteen doctors to be will be girls. Followers of sundry and divers followings drift around Central in a daze. Would you have imagined we had a terpsichorean dancer in our midst, or an electro-chemist, or a militarist, or an horticulturist, or an economist? Only one aspires to be a secretary, only one to be a machinist, only one to be a dentist. Strange to say the civil service is represented by a social worker, a policeman and a fireman. The passage of the years will bring the verification of those answers. In any case let us hope that the final response to the call of What will I do? will not be of a kind to bring disillusionment and despair to the questioned one. SCHOOL TRIP TO EUROPE This summer the Overseas Educational League sponsors the second annual visit of secondary school students to Great Britain. Last year ninety secondary school students visited Great Britain for the two summer months and included in their itinerary the Empire Holiday School of English at Eastbourne, inaugurated by the late Mr. Rudyard Kipling. This year the programme will be devoted entirely to secondary school girls who will leave Montreal on July 3rd to spend fifty-three days visiting the most interesting and import- ant points in England and Scotland, including the Empire Holiday School of English. The students will arrive at Glasgow and proceed from there to Edinburgh. Other points where the students will visi tare Stratford- upon-Avon, where they will attend two performances at the Shakes- peare Memorial Theatre. Then, on by way of Oxford, to London where ten days will be spent visiting places of literary and historic interest under experienced guide-lecturers. Visits will be made from London to Windsor, Eton, Kew Gardens and other well known places. The group will then proceed to Eastbourne, visiting en route Canter- bury and Rye. At Eastbourne the Canadian girls will be joined by girls from the Scandinavian countries, from France, Germany, Italy and the United States as well as girls from the British schools and from other parts of the Empire. Mr. Ernest Raymond, an author of note, will direct a series of informal talks on English Literature. During their travels the girls will often be accommodated in private homes and at girls' schools where they will have an excellent op- portunity to learn about the country of which they have heard so much. Transportation will be by special train or by motor coach and through- out the visit the Group will travel under very privileged conditions. It can easily be seen how such a trip will widen the knowledge and sympathies of the youth of Canada and it is hoped that this yearls visit will set a high standard to be lived up to in future years. 11

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a cherished tradition-scores of unwritten accepted doctrines, rites and customs handed down by word of mouth. The school is new and the new does not entrust annals to memory but to paper. Archives are at home in any age and the amassing of such records lays the foundation for mossy tradition. Archives have, however, a more important role to play in a school than the founding of tradition. Theirs is the task to glorify the unknown student who has done his duty silently and steadily without the blaze of glory background. Defined more narrowly, archives are the written statements and facts of school life, stating facts and playing no favours, to be handed down to the students of posterity. Believing that each bony breast hides a flame fed by pride in accomplishment, the archives will be more than a Central Student chronicle. They will serve as an incentive to the sluggard. One must perform duties and hard tasks to merit space in the archives and lest one slips through school and is soon forgotten, one will do and die for good old Central. Archives will give experience to the recorders, incentive to the students, glory to the school. The new constitution of the Students' Council has incorporated the clause ffthat archives be started. To this beginning we may ascribe all the ends of tradition. RE: SPECIALIZATION PECIALIZATION is a sure sign of civilization. The higher the degree of specialization the higher the plane of civilization. There is, however, a limit to all things. The industrial revolution while it squared the specialization in industry, cubed the human suffering and misery. Specialization has its drawbacks. Complaints, founded on lack of specialization in the curriculum, are to be heard especially in fourth year. Many grumble that they must imbibe the fundamentals of mathematics and cram scientific formulae, when their only interest is in languages. They bemoan the fact that they are not free to pursue to the ultimate end the subject of their heart's desire. Dreams are dreamed wherein they see themselves controllers of the educational system and gloat over the ingenuity of their airy reforms, which when viewed through the eyes of experience have numerous foibles and errors. The claim that schools are producing Jacks-of-all-trades-and- masters-of-none is false. The curriculum with eight compulsory subjects is a guarantee against the Hnished product being an educated idiot. Such a curriculum stimulates divers and sundry interests, it is inducive to a general and cosmopolitan knowledge of the events of the world 3 and conducive to concentration, versatility and skill. It saves the ranks of the profession from being soured by the lemons of super-specialization. Just as the general practitioner is the backbone of the medical profession so is the general student the engineer of higher knowledge. The student who shuts his eyes to his aversions and dwells only on his pet obsessions cannot help but lack virtues, which perpetuates his obscurity. He who opens his eyes to all and shuts his ears to none attains more true useful knowledge and will be better fitted to-tell the world of his presence. 13