Glebe Collegiate Institute - Lux Glebana Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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course 150 miles long. The 'drst race in 1912 was won by a French Deperdussin racer which attained the phenomenal speed of 45.75 m. p. h. However, in 1931 Great Britain, with a team from the Special High Speed Squadron of the R. A. F. consisting of Orlebar, Boothman, Hope, Long and Leech, Strainforth and Snaith won perma- ment possession of the trophy. Boothman and Strainforth were the lucky officers to pilot the fast machine in successive flights. The R. A. F. had developed it stations in the near and far East by that time and when revolution broke out in Afghanistan, the service was responsible for saving many foreigners from the capital, Kabul. Need- less to say the R. A. F. machines have been of inestimable value on the North-west Frontier, supressing the turbulent tribes- men of that region. By 1935 the Royal Air Force was using many obsolete machines. True, the Hawker Super-Fury was at the peak of its form, but many other types should have been discarded years before. Thus when Mus- solini played his hand in Ethiopia, the British were forced to say pass , although the Navy was strongly assembled in the Mediterranean Qwith scarcely enough am- munition to fire a single salvo per ship.J Since then Great Britain has been wide awake and looks with grave concern at the pre- parations of her cousin in the North and former friend in the South. Her armaments are being rapidly increased and the R. A. F. is not the last in preparing for trouble. Aircraft factories have sprung up all over England and are being worked day and night to bring Britain's air strength up to that of Germany's. Germany has a great number of aircraft but their equipment is mediocre. General Goering himself says there is no use putting a lot of money into expensive machines because most of them will be destroyed in the first few months of the war. This is contrary to Britain's policy and by the time we have reached Germany's might in num- bers we will double their strength by the efficiency of our equipment. Many cities, however, believe too much stress is being laid on speed. In a special test a few Weeks ago a fast modern machine was ordered to fight a duel with a 1918 Sopwith Camel . After the scrap the films in the camera guns were developed and it was discovered that the modern machine was theoretically shot down while the 1918 Camel did not have a bullet hole in it. Reason?-The modern ship took one-quarter to half a mile to turn whereas the Sopwith Camel could turn on the proverbial dime. Page 20 Now we are sitting on a powder magazine with the powder trail already laid and the spark waiting to be struck. If it should come to war, the R. A. F. will again do its part as it did in 1914 and the winged war- riors will fly again as they did in those happy-go-lucky-days of twenty years ago- no not quite! This time they will ily faster and in larger groups, but I doubt if this new way will appeal to the gallant lads who flew out so recklessly those autumn days of 19143 theirs was the last great frontier and theirs, too, the motto they helped to form with their blood, Per ardua ad Astra - Through difliculty to the stars . 20221412 A Song of the Sea Over the sea the dawn is breaking, Over the sea the birds awaking, Over the sea the ships are making Their solitary way. Over the sea the gulls are screaming, Over the sea the cormorants winging, Over the sea a breeze is singing To the sailing ships. In the sea the trout are drowsing, In the sea the salmon browsing, In the sea the shrimp is rousing From contented sleep. Over the sea we two are flying, On the sea our faces vying, In the sea to view the striving Of the luckless cod. E. LESUEUR. Sk if wk How to Write EEP practising the use of words, making them say what you want them to say-as a Violinist keeps practising his instrument. Words are your instrument. If you use them to say what you really mean when you speak and when- ever you write, you have learned the secret of Literature. Get your instrument ready. Keep it in tune. Learn to say simple things well to give the true sense of them. From Laboratory of English by JEANETTE LEE. LUX GLEBANA

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the greatest names of the R. N. A. S. is that of Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Colli- shaw, a Canadian ace who is still flying and who ranks with sixty victories next to the famous Colonel Billy Bishop ex-R. F. C. ace of seventy-two victories. Some R. N. A. S. squadrons were the most famous, being Collishaw's outfit, a flight of dull- black Sopwith triplanes. Contrary to common belief the R. F. C. served elsewhere than just the Western Front. A squadron was situated on Imros Island in the Mediterranean. Squadrons aided Allenby in Palestine and Mesopo- tamia and the famous Lawrence of Arabia had a few machines at his disposal, one of his pilots being a well-known Ottawa chir- opractor. At the end of the war the R. A. F. lost some of its finest pilots when they returned to their peace-time jobs. However, those remaining continued to make aerial history. In 1919 John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, both R. A. F. men liew non-stop from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Ireland fpreviously the American naval seaplane N. C.4 had crossed by successive steps using the Azores as a stepping stone.J The machine Alcock and Brown used was a Vickers Vimy, Rolls-Royce powered aero- plane, which had been designed as a, heavy bomber for use against Berlin but which had arrived too late to enter the arena of war. Alcock and Brown were both knighted for their feat, but unfortunately Alcock was killed in a crash at Rouen, France, later in December. In 1919 the British dirigible the R. 34 also crossed the Atlantic and re- turned under its own power. The officer commanding was Major G. H. Scott who was to lose his life in the crash of the R. 101 in 1931. In November 1919, the Australian crew of Captain Ross Smith, his brother Keith, and Sergeants Sheirs and Bennet flew to Australia in successive steps, a iiight of 11,924 flying miles. They used the same type of machine as Alcock and Brown, some of the parts of the latter's ship being used in the new craft. Up through the twenties, as wo1nen's clothes became more daring, so did the achievements of the R. A. F. Many fine records in height and distance were set up by these intrepid young men. In 1912, a Frenchman, Jacques Schneider offered a magnificient trophy for the highest speed set by a seaplane over a triangular Left-A Westland Lysander in Flight

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Socrates N HIS immortal Aeneid, Virgil said, Of arms and the man I tell . How- ever, it is not of great battles or heroes that I tell but of a man who,though he lived twenty-five centuries ago, still exerts an iniiuence on posterity. His life and career are somewhat obscure except to those who have studied Ancient History and Phil- osophy, and I feel it would be valuable to bring him forward in greater detail to everyone. His name is Socrates, philoso- pher of Ancient Greece. iklkvlf Socrates was born in Athens not later than the year 469 B.C. In his youth he received the usual education, being instructed chiefly in music and gymnastics. Later through his own efforts he learned mathematics and the doctrines of the leading Greek philosophers. He followed his father's profession as young men do nowadays and became a sculptor of no mean ability. As was the duty of a pat- riotic Athenian, he took part in military affairs, serving for some years at Sauros at Potidaea, where he saved the life of the celebrated Alcibiadesg moreover, he dis- tinguished himself at Deleum and at Am- phipolis by his courage and endurance. When he took part in public affairs he was equally courageous, standing firmly for what he thought right, at one time against the demands of the populace, at another against the unjust commands of the Thirty. He became convinced, however, that his divinely appointed task and patriotic duty was neither military nor political but ed- ucative and gave the remainder of his life to teaching sounder views on ethical and political subjects. As he left no writings his ideas and methods must be learned from the reports of his devoted disciples Xeno- phon and Plato. Socrates did not form a school or expect people to come to him. He walked about the streets, the market place and the gym- nasia conversing with all, artisans, phil- osophers, poets, politicians, rich or poor about their affairs and their ideas of right and wrong. One of his sayings was Fields and trees will not teach me anything, The life of the streets will . His attitude was that of a seeker after truth. Unlike most Greeks he did not love reputation but professed ignorance and by systematic questioning and by treating the most obviously-mistaken opinions with the LUX GLEBANA patience of Job, he argued his opponent first into a doubt of his own wisdom and thence into a new and better opinion. It was not simple ignorance that Socrates thus combatted but ignorance which mis- took itself for knowledge. Although he did not stress religion as the path to good conduct, he was a deeply religious man performing the orthodox re- quirements of the gods piously. But here again he sought for truth. He questioned the traditional accounts of the gods, given by Homer and other poets. How, he asked, could Divine Beings, the source of all good, commit acts that would disgrace the worst of men? It was a purified religion that he taught and he felt, like the Hebrew prophets, that a divine voice showed him the way. . Socrates discussed many things-trying to discover the true nature of beauty, truth, friendship, courage, honesty, virtue and knowledge. To him, men were wicked only through ignorance. He sincerely believed no man was willingly bad, and that all men could be brought to believe in and practise virtue by learning its true nature. He waged a life-long war against vagueness of thought and laxity of speech. The best rulers, he said are not the richest or the most powerful but the wisest. So he spent much time instructing the Athenian youths who were to be responsible in the future for the conduct of the state. Socrate's method of arguing by interro- gation was later known as the Socratic method and was famous all over the Ancient World. Many of the men with whom he argued, however, resented being discom- fitted by him in public and although Soc- rates had only a desire to help them, they felt they had been made ridiculous and could not forgive him. Socrates made other en- emies by his harsh rebukes when great wrongs and injustices were done in the state. On the whole, Socrates' appearance and mode of life were not such as to make him popular. His figure was short and thicksetg he was snub-nosed, had prominent eyes and thick lips. He looked both coarse and stupid. Then he dressed in beggarly fashion, often went cold and hungry. Those who knew him well, loved him 3 they saw in him one who was at once master, counsellor and friend. One of them said, He was a man so pious he never did any- thing without taking counsel of the gods, so Page 21