Elmwood School - Samara Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

Page 7 text:

SAMARA 5 Through Service and Love ' An address given by H. R. H. Princess Alice at the dosing exercise June 12, 1945 I HAVE a particular interest in coming here this afternoon to present the prizes to the successful candidates, because in the first place I am Patroness of Elmwood School, and in the second place my youngest grand- daughter has been a scholar of the school and has been extremely happy during the time she has been one of you. It is an added pleasure that I have been able to present her with a prize this afternoon. I shall shortly be returning to England on the co nclusion of my husband, the Governor General ' s term of office, so that this is the last time, I regret to say, that I shall have the chance of seeing you all together. And as it is the last time, there are just two matters I would like to speak about and which I hope you will perhaps think about after I am gone. In a school like Elmwood all you girls come from what I call privileged homes; you belong, most of you, to families who are in one way or another in positions of some importance in the community. For that reason and because you have rather more advantages than some, you have to set an example, you should give a lead in all that is best. The greater your privileges, the greater your responsibilities to others. Now I have been rather worried about the way so many children pronounce their mother tongue, English. I do not refer to accent, there are many accents which have an historical and geographical significance. Cer- tain counties of England each have their peculiar accent, Australia has another. South Africa another, and here in Canada you have your own. But what I warn you to be particular about is how you pronounce your words. For instance when you speak about black currants, I have heard lots of children say black curnts. Now a curnt is not a word at all but a currant is in the dic- tionary. There are many, many words that are never pronounced distinctly. I had the greatest difficulty to persuade my own grandson to spell film f,i,I,m, because he pro- nounced it with his school friends, flm. So if you begin as children to swallow all your words or to put a wrong accent on one of the syllables, by the time you grow up it will be difficult to understand you. Then when you have children and they cut your words it will sound like the way the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Africa speak, mere clicks and grunts. You are taught to write carefully as children, so that when you write rapidly as grown-ups your writing may be reasonably legible. The same thing applies to your speaking. You are fortunate at Elm- wood where you study speech and voice production and exercise it in your excellent dramatic productions. But I beg of you to cultivate clear diction and the use of a wide vocabulary. The second matter I want you to think about is courtesy. There is an ancient and famous school in England, founded 500 years ago, but even in those very faraway times their motto was, Manners Maketh Man. Manners maketh girls, too. This does not mean good table manners or bowing and scraping; it goes far deeper than that. Emerson says manners are the happy ways of doing things, each one a stroke of genius or of love, repeated and hardened into usage. Courtesy is a quality of the heart really; and nowhere in this world do you find kinder hearts than in Canada, and yet for some funny reason

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4 SAMARA JMagajine taff Editor Lois Davidson Janet Edwards Assistant Editors , . I Ann a Cameron Art Notes Gretchen Mathers Bazaar Notes Betsy Allen School Calendar Margot Peters Boarders ' Notes Pauline Coulson Dramatic Notes Suzanne Mess Exchanges Angela Christensen Old Girls ' Notes Ruth Osier Photography Paula Peters Sports Notes Janet Edwards Toe H Notes Anna Cameron Convener of Advertising Committee Philippa McLaren Cynthia Powell I Stephanie Hale I Patricia Ballantyne [Ann Patteson Magazine Advisers {S MaTskill Advertising Committee EXCHANGES The Ammonite St. Hilda ' s School, Calgary The Ashburian Ashbury College, Ottawa The Beaver Log Miss Edgar ' s and Miss Cramp ' s School, Montreal Bishop ' s College School Magazine Bishop ' s College School, Lennoxville, Quebec Edgehill Review Edgehill, Windsor, Nova Scotia Hatfield Hall Magazine Hatfield Hall, Cobourg Inter Muros St. Clement ' s School, Toronto King ' s Hall Magazine King ' s Hall, Compton, Quebec Lower Canada College Magazine Lower Canada College, Montreal Ludemus Havergal College, Toronto Ovenden Chronicle Ovenden School, Barrie Pibroch Strathallan, Hamilton St. Andrew ' s College Review St. Andrew ' s College, Aurora The Study Chronicle The Study, Montreal Trafalgar Echoes Trafalgar, Montreal Trinity University Review University of Toronto, Toronto

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6 SAMARA courtesy is not one of the outstanding quali- ties of Canadian young people. I have a horrid feeling that lack of courtesy, that is being thoughtful and civil, is due to selfishness and disregard for what other people feel, or like, or mind. When I meet three school girls linked arm in arm on the pavement who push me off into the road, it is of no great consequence but it is very discourteous to push an old lady who might be their grandmother into the gutter. They don ' t mean to be rude; they just don ' t think. I may tell you though, I don ' t let myself be pushed. I stand quite still till one or another makes room for me to pass or else we should knock each other down. But that is just a crude example. Courtesy in the home means much more; it means thinking of others before self, having what is best expressed in French des 6gards pour les autres, pretty little courtesies which make all the difference between people saying what a charming THE VISITOR I found a young bee in my mug, And I said to him, You silly bug. Your stinger is bent And it ' s time that you went And stopped sitting there looking smug. Shelagh Nolan, V B Nightingale Peggy Edwards, V B Keller LIMERICK There was a fat lady called Tore Who at times w as really a bore. She talked on and on While our faces looked wan On the same thing she talked of before. Diana Ramsay, V C Keller child that is, or saying she is quite a good child but so rough. Everything we can do in these days where we have to restore inter- national life to the ways of peace and happiness after the bitter years of war is a help in our relations with one another. Even beginning by smoothing the ways of life in your own home is a step in the right direction. Courtesy is important amongst nations as amongst individuals. It is the little things that count often so much more than the big ones, because they require effort on our part all the time. You remember what St. Paul so eloquently tells us, Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are of good report, think on these things . I would go even further and add, act these things. In conclusion I wish you all that is best in life and may you find your greatest happiness in being good Canadian citizens through service and love. A POEM Pat and Pip Went for a dip In a lake Trying to make A lazy bloke Take a poke At a dive Instead of jive; But when the dope Began to mope Pat and Pip Cut his lip With a strike; Him no like. He ran home, So ends poem. Pat Ballantyne, VI M Nightingale. PippA McLaren, VI M Keller.