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

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THE PRINCIPAL ' S MESSAGE TO THE GRADUATES OF 1961 Perhaps you remember a certain experiment from your high school Physics course. You sprin- kled iron filings on a sheet of paper, and you saw hundreds of separated little specks, with no ar- rangement to them at all -- every speck a little separated entity. Then you put a magnet under them. All at once these specks started to slide across the paper, to arrange themselves into a clear-cut pattern. A force had acted, and the hun- dreds of random pieces had become one whole, one world of their own. Every year in our College a similar piece of magic operates. Hundreds of strange and appar- ently random individuals shape themselves into a tightly interknit family. The force behind it?. . the goodwill to work together towards our com- mon goal. Let me give you several signs of this pattern- ing. It is the way that a whole form meets togeth- er at all hours, and at great inconvenience be- cause of our complicated schedules, to build an auditorium presentation that will delight the rest of the school. It is the way members of our choir trudge the darkness of Western Road for a night every week because they love to sing. It is Par- ents ' Nights, when the pride of our students in our school, and of our staff in our students, is such a heart-warming thing to behold. It is the way our hockey and basketball and volleyball teams journey to the four corners of Western On- tario to play for our school. It is the thousands of hours which our Yearbook committee puts into the splendid volume which you are reading now. It is the scores of decisions made and individual pieces of business transacted for your benefit by your Parliament. It is all the decorating and ar- ranging and programming done by your Social Committee to make our parties the happy things they are. It is the preparing at home which each of you does to make a worthy contribution to the group discussions which are such an impor- tant part of our purpose in class. And finally it is the little thrill which all of us on the staff get each time you meet us outside the College, not just this year, but in the years to come: the thrill which my colleagues and I get in the careers of our graduates. You leave us now, and yourselves begin to build separated individuals into interwoven groups. I can wish you no better luck in teaching than this: may you get the same happiness and satisfaction from your students that we in Lon- don Teachers ' College have had in 1960-1 from ours. F. C. Biehl

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THE VICE-PRINCIPAL ' S MESSAGE TO THE GRADUATES OF 1961 If one were to state that timidity and an infer- iority complex were dominant characteristics of the younger generation, his remarks would be greeted with derisive laughter, at least from some quarters. In spite of this I am convinced that a great many of our young people who choose teaching as a career seem to develop an inferior- ity complex so far as their profession is concerned. Why do so many members of our profession hes- itate to admit that they are school teachers? In the past it may have been low salaries, but now the teachers ' remuneration compares quite fav- ourably with that of other vocations. Teachers should hold their heads erect in any company and be proud to stand up and be counted among the members of the profession which has as great a potential for good as any other known group. As the years pass by, more and more responsibilities seem to be transferred to the schools, many of which properly belong to the homes or to other social agencies. The influ- ence of the excellent teacher cannot be evaluated too highly. To the majority of pupils the excel- lent teacher is a hero or heroine. The greatest compliment that can be paid a teacher is to have his pupils desire to emulate him. It is a privilege and an honour to be a teacher; to be entrusted with a responsibility in the train- ing of the children who will be called upon to face new and complex circumstances in the not- too-far future. Their philosophies of life will to no small extent be formulated from their associations with their teachers, both in the formal classroom lessons and in casual conversations. My hope is that each of you will be worthy of this great trust and responsibility that is placed upon your shoulders and that you will be able to fulfil your duty: to encourage pupils in the pursuit of learn- ing and to inculcate by precept and example re- spect for religion and the principles of Christian morality. May we be proud of you; and you, in turn, be proud of your profession. L. B. Hyde Vice-Principal