Lisgar Collegiate Institute - Vox Lycei Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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VOX LYCEI 45 Q fi 2 Q dA i'tflZX 6 I N 'Nrr-- T' Z FF PF 'FP 'FF Hermes-fr-1 i ii f- I , A ul nn ' 'Y 9 T Q QQ I Q ' o Orchestra Director of Ilrlzzszl'-lD1'. bl. XY. Rearder, F.R.C.Q. H0lIOl'l11'j' Prcsfdczzt-Mr. F. A. Stuart, M..-X. Prcsidclzt-A. Harris Crowson. I'y1'l'L'-Pl'f'Sidl'lIf-l..llllZl1'1 de Olloqui. Sccwfary-lvlax Ginsberg. L1'brm'ia1zs-Edna Skutjfham and Evans Reid. The Lisgar Orchestra, this year, started off under a severe handicap, for most of the older mainstays of this organization had apparently graduated. Thus Dr. Bearder was faced with the problem of breaking in some of the students from the lower forms, an arduous task to say the least. After a short time, however, these soon became accustomed to orchestra 'life' and ever since September the orchestra. we think. has been improving steadily in its rendering of selections. Even it it is not quite so large as might be expected for the size of the school, the quality of the music produced does not suffer from it. Still, Dr. Bearder is looking forward to the day when our numbers will reach fifty, for, during the past few years the average attendance has only been between thirty and forty. True, once in a while the consciences of the lazy ones prick them and they, temporarily, come up to help us out, and then it reaches forty-live or so, but what we need most, instead, is a definite number of players who will turn out every morning. Those who turn out at present are not only benefiting themselves by so doing, for in many cases, it is the only practice they get, but they also help to brighten up the morning exercises of the school. Indeed, what would the opening exercises be like without an orchestra?

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ORCHESTRA THE VOQQLYLCEI

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im -A vox LYCEI Then, too, besides playing the lighter pieces on regular school mornings, heavier operatic works are attempted at our weekly practices, held at lZ.3O each XYednesday noon, under the able direction of Dr. Bearder, and onlv those who have taken part can realize the kick we get out of the playing. i This year three new songs were introduced into the morning exercises and they met with instant approval from the students, who apparently enjoy new pieces as well as we. A fme orchestra pin was also obtained and proved very popular. In conclusion, on behalf of the orchestra executive, let me extend a hearty invitation to any player who has not as yet joined our ranks to come and take his place in this, one of the school's most vital organizations. A. I-I. CRQXVSQN, IV-A. Books ana' Education From an address by M. Grattan O'Leary, Associate Editor of The Ottawa journal, delivered before the Students of the Lisgar Collegiate Institute on December 19, 1929. I speak to you as one who. compelled to leave school at the age of thirteen, has had reason all through life to know and to appreciate the value of educa- tion. And the education I have in mind is not that which merely teaches men to remember, but rather that which teaches them to think: the sort of education which helps men to debate a thing through to the truth: the quality of learning which Lord Morley had in mind when he said that an educated man was a man who knew when a thing was proved. There are several ways, I suppose, by which one might secure an education of that kind. But I suggest to you young people today that there are few better ways of doing it than by cultivating now and maintaining throughout your lives a knowledge of the great writers of the present and the past. Literature alone will not make a good citizeng it will not make a good man. History, indeed, affords all too many proofs that scholarship and learning by no means purge men of rancor, of vanity, of arrogance, of what somebody has called a murderous tenacity about trifiesf' But what I do hold is that books help us to distinguish the false from the true: assist us in interpreting virtue and justice: awaken within us the diviner mind and rouse us to a consciousness of what is best. That, after all, is education. I am far from supposing that everybody is born with the ability for using books, for reading and studying literature. On the contrary, I frankly admit that the habit and power of reading with reflection, comprehension, and memory all alert and awake, does not come at once to the natural man any more than many other sovereign virtues. YVhat I do venture to press upon you is that it requires no superhuman force of will in any young man or woman to get at least half an hour out of every day for disinterested reading. Some will say that this is too much to expect, and the first persons to say it will be those who waste their time most. Now, in half an hour you can read fifteen or twenty pages of Burke: or you can read some of the greatest masterpieces of prose or poetry. I ask you to multiply that half-hour by 365, and consider what treas- ures you will have laid up by the end.of the yearg and what happiness, fortitude and wisdom they might give you during all the days of your life. Not that you should try to read everything. The object of reading is not to dip into everything that wise men have ever written. In the words of one of the most winning writers of English that ever existed-Cardinal Newman-