Havergal College - Magazine Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Havergal College Magazine liaries for church and hospitals. There are so many fields open for service nowadays that only under very exceptional conditions can one think it right for any girl of average health and capacity to declare that she has entered none of them. Most of us find plenty of time for the social opportunities, so we cannot plead that the days are not long enough for the larger responsibilities by which power and character grow. You will hear and read much, as you go forward, of indi- vidual and collective work, and your own work must profit by the laws which regulate both. The colour of your own person- ality will mix with all that you accomplish, and leave its mark there; but that personality which makes you dull or interesting, a help or a hindrance to others, will gain much when you work along these two different tracks. Your service as an individual, thinking her own thoughts, planning how best to help those in your home, your church and your city, should make you original, resourceful and full of flavour. Your work with others, bound by the laws which rule societies, clubs, and public bodies, will make you practical, broad-minded, and tactful. There is not a city in Canada that is not calling out for workers in every scheme of moral and social betterment, who can combine these qualities with what is equally necessary — the self-sacrifice that meets drudgery and difficulty with a smile. The cultivated braiu and the trained hand must be ruled by the will that is dedicated to the service of God and man. So may we reach and enjoy the splendid possi- bilities of a woman ' s life in the Twentieth Century, and in Canada. You will think that these words are only for those who are leaving, or have left us already. But it is not so. Here at school, especially in the residential life, we see the two lines of develop- ment growing or hindered by mistakes and thoughtlessness. Each room or cubicle, your possessions and dress, show your own per- sonality and ideas, and not merely those of the home from which you come ; and your voice and manner, as you move about the College, make that personality and your own character clear to all. J o one expects you all to be levelled down to one uniform type, like a composite photograph in a magazine article; but, by measuring yourself against others of your own age, you discover weak and strong points which your own family would not or could not point out to you. If you are wise, you do not wait for your form or bedroom mistress to point out the weak ones, emphasised 12

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Vol. VI. MAY, 1913 No. 1 PRINCIPAL ' S LETTER Haver gal College, Winnipeg, April 2nd, 1913. My Dear Girls,— Each year until now the frontispiece of our Magazine has supplied me with a text for the beginning of this annual letter. But this time it is difficult to find the right words, especially after reading the very kind and beautiful lines which the Editors tell me are to stand opposite my own presentment. When such a charming little tribute has been offered, it would be ungracious not to accept it very gratefully and humbly as a proof, not alone from the writer, I hope, but from all my girls, of the friendship and fellowship begun within our walls. These hurrying days give little opportunity for talking to present girls or writing to old ones, and I often regret, especially in the case of the day girls, the difficulties in the way of seeing much of them, except at class. With the boarders things are different; but, even with them, they pass out of one ' s life into far distances from which news comes at rare intervals, and this annual letter is my only chance for wish- ing you all, far and near, God-speed. Throughout the year news comes of the Winnipeg girls and their many activities. ' Not many of us, whether in town or coun- try, lead an inactive life: there is too much to do. I hear of some girls who are their mother ' s right hands in household mat- ters and in the management of the younger boys and girls; of others who are developing musical gifts or nursing powers — work- ing harder than they ever did at school of others who are praised as loyal workers in the Sunday school, and yet again in the be- ginnings of settlement work in the North End, on junior auxi- 11

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Havergal College Magazine by the usual bad marks and returned lessons, but you set to work to put these things right, each girl for herself. This is the self- education that can help you all through life — the seeing eye, and the hearing ear, and the quick understanding in the fear of the Lord — that will keep you humble no matter how high you climb, and very, very charitable to the faults of others. Criticism of yourself will not lessen the flavour of your own character — it will only refine and heighten it. And, so far as I know you and the lives you lead, there seems to me no danger of your becoming morbid through brooding over your imperfections. Your development on social or collective lines comes out in the way you help and are helped by the little society which for the time being is your world — the world of school. You will belong later on to a circle or organisation in which you may not like all equally, nor admire their conduct ; but social laws will re- quire you to meet them courteously and kindly and give fair treat- ment to all. Here, in class, at meals, in games and dancing and gymnasium, the same rules apply; but here, probably because you are on more equal terms than you will ever be again, it is much more possible to recognise the girl whom nature and education have marked out for leadership. I am not speaking of the easy- going, pleasant girl whose candy or clothes make her a popular centre of a friendly group, but of the girl who joins a certain dependable quality to a larger proportion of brain or heart than is owned by the rest of us. Faithful and thoughtful — these are the two roots of character; and right down to the lowest junior your words and jour deeds show whether in school and out of school you deserve to lead or be led. There is much merit in faithful following, but it is of leaders that I speak just now, for it is these that the school and the world outside is needing. Let me quote from a great schoolmaster, Dr. Arnold of Rugby, who measured the high-water mark of character thus : When I look round on boys and men, there seems to me some one point or qual- ity which distinguishes really noble people from ordinary ones. It is not merely religious feeling — it is not honesty or kindness; but it seems to me to be moral thoughtfulness, which is at once strengthening and softening and elevating; which makes a man love Christ without being a fanatic, and love truth without being O 7 O cold or hard. Shall we not try together, near and far, to make ourselves and our work more faithful and more thoughtful for the rest of this 13