Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

Page 23 text:

LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW — J= onc third of his life in what is implied by the word leisure. The right use of leisure is the burning problem of every age; on the use of it depends everyone's temporal and eternal success or failure. It 1s the burning problem which every individual must settle for himself, and a man's character and culture are the determining factors as to how he will employ it. But the influence of character and culture is not merely confined to leisure. Their influence embraces the whole substratum of human society; in fact we may go so far as to say that the degree of civilization of any people is directly proportional to the degree of character and culture found among them. What were the reasons for the superiority of the ancient Greek civilization if not character and culture? Excluding morals (the only sphere in which the Grecks did not conquer), they attained a perfection of civilization which many believe has never since been equalled by man. So high a place do character and culture deserve that no greater tribute could be paid to any individual than the eulogy, so rarely heard: ‘‘Such a man is a man of character’’; and when the encomium of culture is added to that of character, then we may assume that the ne plus ultra of individual achievement has been attained. But why should we рих іп such general terms about character and culture? Why should we mention them at all through the medium of a college annual? We generalize because particularizing on them would entail volumes to do them justice; we mention them because of their utmost importance to us, because they are attain- ments to which every thinking individual should aspire, because they are the things for which education primarily exists. A college training is successful, not merely when it turns out professional men, or men ready to grapple with great business enterprises (for the world is already too thoroughly saturated with mammonism), but a college education is successful when it turns out what the world needs most in this materialistic civilization—men of character and men of culture. 7 ғ 7 This year the Class оҒ”28 established а rica which will, in all m live long after them at Loyola. It consisted in inaugurating a general closed retreat T ; for the graduating class immediately before the final examinations. he Graduation The retreat, called the Graduation Retreat, was held under the да auspices of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin and was preached by the Rev. T. J. Lally, S.J. It received the whole-hearted approbation ini support of the Senior Class who, as a body, are to be commended on their generous response and on their superlative efforts to make the retreat the highly successful undertakin it eventually turned out to be. But besides giving birth to a custom which shoul be followed by all succeeding graduating classes, the spirit and the zeal shown by the retreatants was an excellent source of example to the younger undergraduates who were undoubtedly inspired thereby. The appropriateness of such a retreat, antecedent to the change of life which graduation always implies, hardly demands mention. The custom 15 an annual one in many Catholic colleges and universities throughout the world, and has invariably been prolific of good results. Such retreats, figuratively, give the student the oppor- tunity of taking an inventory of his conduct and of replenishing his depleted stock; they enable him to check up on the accumulated weak points of his character, and help him to repair and perfect the mechanism of his daily life. With such motives in view in inaugurating the retreat, the Senior Class can feel that they have рег- formed a task that will reflect credit on themselves, a task of which not only they themselves will be the recipients of the resulting plenitude of good fruit, but also one which will have its effect on those who tread in their footsteps towards gradua- tion. 13}

Page 22 text:

LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW -------------------------------------------------------:-:-:2-2----2-2-2-2-:2--:-:-:::-5-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:---і- Іп 1909 he founded the parish of St. Ignatius, Winnipeg. Іп 1910 he was Associate- Editor of ‘‘America,’’ one of the foremost Catholic periodicals of the day. Later ће was Associate-Editor of ‘‘The Canadian Messenger. Before going to the Novitiate at Guelph, Father Drummond was Spiritual Father at Loyola for many years. The Loyola Review takes this opportunity of congratulating Father Drummond on his splendid record, and of wishing him many more years of health and labour in the Society of Jesus. 7 7 7 Character and culture аге words of astounding significance. Around them аге built the structure of everyone's individual life and upon them rests each individual's tower that is built for eternity. Etymologically, character means an engraving; it is the chiselled form of the individual soul; culture, on the other hand, consists in those embellishments which beautify the stolid granite of human character. When we say that such a one is a man of char- acter, we mean that ће is steadfastly motivated by certain high and distinctive principles of conduct which make him reject what is vile, and degrading, and ig- noble, for what is good and true, and representative of real manhood. When we say that such a one is a man of culture, we mean that he is the possessor of manifest education and refinement and all that accompany them. To be cultured, according to Matthew Arnold's definition of the term, is to know the best that has been thought and said in the world. But the true interpretation of culture embraces a broader order than merely the knowledge accumulated by book-learning and academic ab- sorption. The word culture implies also the refinement and delicacy of А апі action which should supplement such knowledge. It is this refinement and delicacy which is the practical application of the knowledge of the world's best, and these are the things which in the real sense go to make up the cultured man. Character and culture imply all that education stands for,—they are the raison d'étre of all our colleges and universities; and if our educational institutions fail to bring about the development of character and culture, then they have failed in the essential requisites for which they exist and their work shall have been writ on water. On education, then, depends both character and culture. It affects character in that it is the formation of the solid principles of human conduct—it is the mould- ing of the plastic clay of the human soul. Education is the determinant of culture also, because culture is the result of education—it is the finished product from the potter's hands with all its finesse and finish. Character and culture are the prerequisites of the superior man, they аге the clements that coalesce to make the superman—if such exists. The difference between a man of character and culture and one without these adjuncts is more than a differ- ence of degree or of category. It is a difference of spheres. Their contrast is akin to the rude elementary implements of surgery used in the Middle А рез, and thedelicately- wrought and studied instruments that all the ingenuity of modern science has devised. The elements of character and culture go to make a veritable chasm be- tween the two extremes of the noblest work of divine creation. On the one side we have the uncouth, illiterate, uncultured savage type, whose guide of conduct, like the beasts, is his animal instinct, and the superior man of the other extreme per- fected by character and culture to the highest degree of human possibility. Aristotle once said that the main object of education should be to prepare man for the right use of leisure. In point of fact, the word school is a derivative of the Greek word meaning eisure, ' Тог school was originally looked upon as a place of leisure and of preparation of further leisure. It is estimated that man spends about 12F Character and Culture.

Page 24 text:

LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW fi No year ет but takes its toll; all men must die; all flesh is grass. But the proximity and inevitableness of death never seems to impress us until we ourselves mourn the loss of those whose lives were linked with ours. This ro ART - year, and when we come to think of it, every year in the history 5 of a large institution, is one of mourning; such is the pathetic human story. The College has felt sincere sorrow, not that her sons, having fought the good fight, have gone to their reward, but that so many of us who remain have sustained such touching and irreparable losses. But every year too, as the Christian knows, is peopling Heaven and, as Christian Hope would whisper, it is only a matter of a few such years till we, who have survived a few hours longer, rejoin our loved ones in never-ending reunion. We Who Have Loved We who have loved must put away The Songs, the Dreams of yesterday, And go with cheer adown the bill Pretending we are lovers still. We must not search each other's face Too keenly, lest by chance we trace Death's shadow in our questing eyes, And we must needs beat back the cries That plead for freedom on our lips; But make speech through our finger-tips; For when our hearts are aching so, A tightened clasp will too well show The Pain, the Misery of each Without the Agony of speech. We must not let our Pain find words, But silent be as nestling birds... With lavish hands we fed Love's fire And piled high faggots of Desire. We joyed so much in our Fame's might As it leaped up against the night. We never dreamed it once could be Grey ashes of Maturity. We never dreamed it was Love's pyre, That Consummation slays Desire, Until we stood with hearts grown cold, And sudden found each other old. JOHN К. Cummins, 28. {4}