Galt Collegiate Institute and Vocational School - Specula Galtonia Yearbook (Galt, Ontario Canada)

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SPECULA GALTONIA 15 YQESQIIEDITORI 11453, Gt , was P- 2- L i' i c, J: 1 A W N J- If Q9 Q9 Q7 ei-Y' W A When, during the storm of April 5th, lightning left a 9 Ccept jagged trail in the shingles of the North Tower, which is the 011'l67'l- the traditional vantage-point of this magazine, fearful Be It So! of what the portent boded, we consulted our Sibylline Books-in this case, Frazer's Golden Bough. To our relief we found that, so far from such visitations having been regarded as signs of divine displeasure, our rude forefathers held the oak in especial veneration, seemingly because it was more often struck by lightning than any other tree of European forests: They might naturally account for it fthis peculiarity of the oakl in their simple religious way by supposing that the great sky-god, whom they worshipped and whose awful voice they heard in the roll of thunder, loved the oak above all the trees of the wood and often descended into it from the murky cloud in a flash of lightning, leaving a token of his presence or of his passage in the riven and blackened trunk and the blasted foliage. Such trees would thenceforth be encircled by a nimbus of glory as the visible seats of the thundering sky-god. Certain it is that, like some savages, both Greeks and Romans identified their great god of the sky and of the oak with the light- ning ilash which struck the ground, and they regularly enclosed such a stricken spot and treated it thereafter as sacred. Let us, of a so-called modern and sceptical generation, brush away for a time the restraining bonds of the tangible and give sway to the fanci- ful, the illusive, which, veiled in the mist of centuries, has surely once more rent the shroud of reality and chosen as the sacred place of revelation, not as of yore the sturdy oak, proud sentinel of a mighty forest, but our own SPECULA GALTONIA, equally proud sentinel of a mighty youth. Truly, the visiting of Galt's watch-tower by the bolt must be an auspicious omeng the sky-god has thundered his sonorous approval of a watch well kept, scowling profound commendation, and has sent his fleet emissary to set his sign upon the favoured one and seal his covenant of requital. Every student of the Collegiate has witnessed the evidence of his passing-this mighty god who has deigned to observe and honour our poor efforts. If we have read the omen aright, after the fashion of our ancestors who saw in the mystery of the bolt a weapon in the hand of Zeus himself-

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ilu illirmnmun HARRIS SHELDUN He shall grou not old as ue that are le t grou old Age shall not weary hzm, nor the years condemn. At the gomg down of the sun and m the mornmg We wzll remember hzm

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16 SPECULA GALTONIA a royal seal of pleasure or displeasure-the SPECULA GALTONIA has been marked for reward. It remains for us who stand on sacred ground to approve our worthiness of so high favour. iam tempus agi res nec tantis mora prodigiis. AES The ancient Greeks were renowned for their experiments Advantages in democracy. It is where their teachings have taken of Sfudgnt root that government of the people, by the people, and for the people has been established. The majority of nations, provinces, states and communities enjoy a measure of self-government. Collegiates, high schools and colleges, then, as distinct communities playing an important part in the development of the nation, should have self-government. The best instrument to this end is the Student Council. Government Each and every citizen of Canada has a voice in the government through his elected representative. The collegiate students of to-day are the men and women of to-morrow and they should be rendered familiar with parliamentary procedure and the like in their youth. Only thus will they become capable of discharging their responsibilities in this growing Dominion. Student councils, conducted with a rigid regard for proper procedure, will furnish invaluable experience. Here will be a field for extempore speaking and debating that should be of inestimable value in later years. Questions of interest to the student body as a whole could here be threshed out. Apart from the gain to the individual student in the acquisition of confidence and a platform presence, the school itself would find its reputation enhanced. Such a council would in its operation promote closer relations between staff and students, en- courage better feeling, adjust disputes amicably, and serve as a clearing house for student opinion. Kms There has been some difference of opinion expressed in Mens Sana this province of late on the relative value of athletics in in Corporg high school activities. Some maintain that athletics constitute an integral part of the curriculum, while there are those who trace a decline in scholarship to over- emphasis upon inter-school games. Sana It is significant that the late Cecil Rhodes, in establishing the fund which enables students of the overseas dominions and the United States to continue their studies at Oxford, laid down the condition that in addition