London Normal School - Spectrum Yearbook (London, Ontario Canada)

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OUR MASTERS ' I Keep Some Portion of My Early Gleam You go forth somewhat distrustful of your knowledge and your skill but with confidence in the ideals of youth. And yet these ideals may have to undergo rude tests. But remember always that the ideal is ultimately true. The Jerm idea was defined by Plato as essence or true nature. Hence your ideal self is your true self. Keep faith in it. Strive toward it, strenuous for the bright reward, And in the soul admit of no decay. You may never fully realize your ideal, for a man ' s reach should exceed his grasp. But in proportion as you do realize it you will enjoy both the satisfaction of present achievement and the challenge of the advancing ideal, that alluring gleam which Moves as I move, and leads me on forever. T. E. CLARKE, B.A., B.Paed. Science of Education, Methodology of Grammar and Composition. A Parting Word It is the falling acorn buds the tree, The falling rain that bears the greenery, The fern plants moulder when the ferns arise. For there is nothing lives but something dies, And there is nothing dies but something lives. — Francis Thompson, Ode to the Setting Sun. You, the class of 1936, will soon see the setting sun of another school year. During the year you have been given a practical training that has widened your scholarship, deepened your understanding, and developed your personality. Many old ideas and attitudes have shrivelled and in their place have sprung up the spirit of investigation, co-operation, and good-will. May this new meaning of life ever remain green for you and may it continue to stimulate in you further moral and mental growth. You are about to enter a wider field of great responsibility and influence, and for this you need courage, determination, and common sense. As long as you are a teacher, be a diligent student of matter, method and management, and always strive to see things in their proper relationship. Then you will reap satisfac- tion and success in your chosen work. GEO. W. HOFFERD, M.A., D.Paed. Methodology of Science, Agriculture and Horticulture, Nature Study. Page 5

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C. E. MARK, B.A., D.Paed. Principal ' s Message to the Class of 1936 W OU are standing on the threshold of your chosen profession. Three doors ' confront you. One offers the way of least resistance and proclaims that training days are over. It opens on the road of easy living and short-range pleasure and, needless to say, leads to professional oblivion. Another admits to a route where there is much plodding effort, albeit of a routine kind, and void of inspiration. Too many there be that find it. The third is the door at which I hope you will knock. It opens on the way that leads to the summit. The ascent is never over steep. It is the way of the ambitious teacher for whom real training has just begun. Difficulties are but challenges and invitations. The most arduous passages are illuminated and made attractive by the gleam of a goal that lies just beyond the horizon. Happiness, satisfaction, and self- realization hover along the way, and await the pilgrim at the end of the journey. Page U

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OUR MASTERS Making provision for the future is accounted the evidence of wisdom and the proof of a developed char- acter. Everyone realizes the necessity of such a provision as far as the physical necessities of life are concerned, but there is a more important provision that but few ever consider. It is the building up of a fund of dependable happiness for the time when, through the certain vicis- situdes of life, the usual sources of happiness fail. It is inevitable that in contact with people in the daily round, competition will bring its train of lost friends, sorrow and defeat, or success often more bitter than defeat. Only in Nature and its study is there freedom from those elements that make life mean and sordid. In the yearly round of days, Nature presents an infinite variety of interesting and beautiful things for study and enjoyment. In this study there is naught but happiness. Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. Lay up, therefore, for yourselves treasures of happiness. E. H. McKONE, B.A., B.Paed. School Management, Methodology of Arithmetic, Primary Reading, Algebra and Geometry. In this era of doubt and uncertainty, when men are seeking those things in life which are more or less transitory, permit me, in a parting message to c ommend for your serious and systematic study the Great Masters of Literature. Their works contain the noblest thoughts of man, couched in his most perfect speech, and will afford a permanent source of wealth from which you can constantly draw with benefit to yourself without in any way imperilling the supply. From such study you will obtain that general culture so necessary to the well- balanced individual, a culture that will enable you to render more effective service to that community in which you might find yourself as teacher. May success attend you. J. G. McEACHERN, B.A., B.Paed. Advanced English, Methodology of Literature, Reading and History. Page 6