Elmwood School - Samara Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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MRS. D. W, BLYTH 2 Mrs. Blyth and the editor Mrs. Blyth and the head girl

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SAMARA June 1963 SUCCESS IS NAUGHT; ENDEAVOUR ' S ALL - Browning

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Head Mistress ' Letter Dear Elmwood: You will probably not read this Samara until it is late summer, but I am writing to you in early April. Outside my window our Elmwood grounds have some snow lying on them still, but there are grassy patches which are getting bigger every day. The rink has melted and looking at it now I can picture all those gay fancy-dress skating parties that the Juniors enjoyed so much last term. The lilac bush is not yet in bud, but soon it will be out in all its beauty. Some of us the other day saw a robin perched on one of its branches and then we knew that spring was not far behind. The view from my window is rather like your lives at Elmwood. You are in a transition period from your childhood to maturity, just as the grounds are gradually losing their winter dress and slipping into summer. For many of you this is a difficult and sometimes painful time; you feel grown-up and yet you have not yet received the freedom which the adult world seems to enjoy. You are free and yet not free and as Mr. Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss kept on remarking, it is a puzzlin ' world if not quite often an agonizing one. Like this time of the year you are betwixt and between - skiing is over and sailing has not yet begun. It is an age for you of waiting. When I was at school I used to think that Milton ' s famous line: They also serve who only stand and wait was dull and unattractive because it seemed to be passive and uncreative. I did not want to serve that way (nor, of course, did Milton choose his blindness. Now I have come to realize that the waiting -periods of our lives can be especially fruitful and exciting. When one day you are married you will look back with joy on the weeks of your engagement; there was so much to do before the great day arrived. Make the very best of this transition period of your life which you are living at Elmwood. Be PATIENT in your growing-up. If spring came to our grounds too suddenly we should have floods; there are girls to-day who have tried to grow-up too quickly and whose lives have been swamped with troubles. Be CONSCIEN- TIOUS in your work and in your day-to-day routine, just as nature takes infinite care to prepare the good earth for the flowers and fruit of summer and to develop the seed and the bulb. Be GENEROUS in all your thoughts and acts, compassionate and uncritical with each other and greathearted to all those less fortunate than yourself. No deed of self-giving is ever really wasted. Nature herself is extravagant in her bounty - walk in the woods of midsummer and see what she has done ! Would you have less of it? Above all be BRAVE and JOYFUL. There are people today who feel that the world is in such a mess that there is nothing to be cheerful about, but history makes it clear to us that most generations have lived on the edge of a precipice. In 1801 Wilberforce said: I dare not marry - the future is so unsettled. In 1806 William Pitt said: There is scarcely anything round us but ruin and despair. In 1892 Disraeli said: In industry, commerce and agriculture there is no hope, and in 1892 the dying Duke of Wellington said: I thank God I shall be spared from seeing the consummation of ruin that is all about us. Yet, here we are today! — living dangerously, perhaps, but surely not hopelessly? Shakespeare has some lovely lines describing the first wild flowers that brave the cold of early spring: ... Daffodils That come before the swallows dare and take The winds of March with beauty. So too you must be courageous as you face the future, for you are the heralds of tomorrow ' s world. Nearly two thousand years ago the Romans were cynicals and disillusioned as they faced what they felt to be the end of all ages but out of that atmosphere of insecurity and despair arose the greatest Hope that men and women have ever known or ever need to know. That Hope is alive now and says to you the words that Bernard Shaw put into the mouth of his St. Joan: His friendship will not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His love. In His strength I will dare and dare and dare until I die. God be with me. And with you all. Your affectionate friend and headmistress. 3