Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

Page 8 text:

713?; in W Ema! LEAFING back through the slowly fading pages of memory may not be one of lifeis more profitable occupations, but it can be one of its most pleasant. The old soldier didnit really enjoy his days in the line, but what- ever he went through then has been made up for a dozen times over by the oft-savored joy of telling his story. So it is with the years we spend at school: often we seem to get the most out of them when looking backward, recalling this game, or that teacher, or some problem or project which may only have engaged our attention for a short while but which is ours, as a pleasant memory or a lesson learned, for life. Psychologists tell us that we remember what we want to remember, and forget what we would rather forget. Perhaps itis just as well that we do, although in future years we shall probably be guilty of shaking our heads over those who have come after us, sadly proclaiming that g6the old spirit just isnit there any more? But surely now, just a few short months after the class of 52 has been sent on its way with speeches, handshakes, cheers and tears, we can look back over the record of the past year with some assurance that the pride we feel at the achievements there set down is not wholly due to the mellowing influence of time. WILLIAM FORBES President, Council of Student Representatives. Perhaps no one but we ourselves will ever be quite convinced that our football and basketball teams were splendid, fighting outfits for whom odds really didnit count. But thereis just no answer to the fact that the hockey team won its fourth Conference championship in a row: its in the record. And perhaps the effort put into the iidrivesii to clean up the Cafeteria, for instance, or 'to bring Christ back to Christmas, didnit all show up in the results achieved; but the drive to get blood for the Red Cross was more successful at Loyola than at any other college in Montreal, and that, at least, is in the record. The headaches involved in putting on a good play or putting out a good magazine never show up at curtain time or on publication day. But ccMurder in the Cathedralii was called a milestone in Canadian amateur theatre by Montrealis senior critic; ccThe Game of Chessii on the Inter-Varsity Drama F estival; this yearis Amphora was the best yet. And itis all in the record. Thereis lots more down there, too. The C.S.R., the L.C.A.A., the Sodality, the News, and all the rest, all seem to make a pretty good showing. Of course, you can waste time looking at a record. But you can learn something, too. You can learn that if you give your best to whatever happens to come up, the record will take care of itself.

Page 7 text:

Wk With; ---- , Maw wane ' g oyol AC Ile ge Address all communications to: LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW, SHERBROOKE STREET WEST, MONTREAL Price: THREE DOLLARS THE COPY, paper bound. All subscriptions will be gratefully received. 1952 MONTREAL, CANADA No. 38 Our readers will notice that the 1952 edition of the Loyola College Review includes a few innovations. Though we have done our best to please every reader, it has at times been difficult to do this. N everthclcss, we do feel that the ,52 Review is in most respects universally acceptable. For the second consecutive year, two books were printed. A High School staff publishes the High School book, while a College staff does corresponding work on the College edition. Each book covers its own particular aspect of Loyola, and each book is a separate entity in itself. It will be noted that this year the book has fewer pages than usual. Over the years, printing costs have skyrocketed, while the Review has remained virtually the same size, and always the same price, $1.00 per copy. In our first year under a new policyeone of sound nnancial basis-we have not been too successful, and the result is a cut in size. However, we did manage to shy away from a deficit, and we have learned some lessons which will be of great value in the future. Our readers are requested to take a close look at pages 26 and 27, and note that this year, not only have we recognized the leaders in athletic and other extracurricular activities, but for the first time in a good many years of Review publication, the academic leaders are recognized. These are the men who won prizes at the Convocation exercises, June 2nd, 1952. Note them well. They are to-morrowis leaders. We are also placing a certain emphasis this year on what are termed uthe artsii. Note the increase in interest in Debating, which included the debate at West Point Military Academy. There is also emphasis on drama, for it was Loyolais presentation of gThe Game of Chessii which won the Inter-Varsity Drama Festival, and with it the London F ree Press Tmphy. And was it not Loyolais production of Eliotis 2Murder in the Cathedralii which was so widely acclaimed throughout the city? At the request of Montreal critics, the play ran one extra night. Note also the guest articles on page nine. This is a reprint from the CCLoyola Newsii, and 18 one of the finest pieces of critical analysis that we have seen for some time. hContinued on Page 36i

Page 9 text:

ZMat 7m 9m 7m. 8664: 776m .7 Reprinted from the LOYOLA NEWS of April 4, 1952. Anyone baek-stage at last Saturdayls performance might have reasonably wondered why this sleepy, wizened old workman of Canterbury sat in the wings listening with such marked interest as the Four Knights apologized for murdering their be- loved Archbishop for the umpteenth time. But I had learned in the months of rehearsal that every recitation brought a new meaning to certain phrases and a deeper insight into the ultimate meaning of the whole work. I listened avidly to those speeches because I knew that up to that time the meaning, the true moral of the play, had eluded me and because I also suspected that there, in those queer, intimate epilogues lay its secret. If anyone had been there and known these things they would have realized, when they saw me suddenly straighten in the Chair as the last Knight finished his apology; that I had found it. Some have said that the play interprets Beeketis murder as the death-knell of the English Church. On the other hand Mr. Eliot argues that Thomas martyrdom laid the foundations of the long light between Church and State which ended in the separation of the English Church from Rome in Henry the Eighthls reign. To anyone who has read any of T. S. Eliotls poems this statement seems lueidity itself. I believe he is actually being more obscure than ever, Although there is a great deal of waste verbiage llanguage used the right way at the wrong time, to be more exaetl in the play, it does make two points Clear to even the dullest listener. The first and most obvious is Beeketis sanctity and courage; no one doubts that he is the hero. Secondly and almost as a baek-ground to the martyrdom is the clash of Church and State; but the baek-ground in this play isnlt a painted curtain. It more closely resembles a rnob-seene in which the mass tends to drown out the principals. Thus the obscurity. Becket has no elear-cut per- sonality. At one moment he is tempted to the most human weaknesses, those of the flesh; yet the next brings hope of temporal power; and the one follow- ing even introduces a baron, not a personification like the first but an actual political personage. It is true to say that Becket is hardly himself all through the play. He is the Church and what kills him is the State. One can say that Hamlet died, and Romeo and Juliet died, but itis impossible to say that Becket died and feel at all conclusive. It is equally wrong to say that the English Church died, for Mr. Eliot gives no reason for such a statement. He believes in the Anglican Church. He believes so firmly that he is willing to stand up and attack it, in his own esoteric fashion, when he thinks it has taken a wrong step. In short, Mr. Eliot has written this play because he wants to reform the Anglican Church. The secret lies, as I mentioned above, in those mysterious and often-eritieized apologies given by the Four Knights after the murder, T. S. Eliot it a clever enough playwright to be conscious of their ineongruity; clever enough not to destroy the unity of his work without a purpose that warranted it ; clever enough to break his mood to broaeh his moral. Donit think that the Four Knights are delivering his prose speeches to the twelfth-eentury congrega- tion that saw their murder. All the poetry is gone. Romance and fiction have dimmed out ; the cruel light of actuality beats upon the Four Knights as they address an audience of twentieth-eentury An- glican. Listen: First Knight: ii . . . You are Englishmen . . . your sympathies are all with underdog . . . but you will not judge anybody without hearing both sides of the ease? Second Knight: I . disinterested . . . ll Third Knight: ii . . . You are hard-headed sensi- ble people . . . if you have now arrived at a just subordination of the pretensions of the Church to the welfare of the State . . . we have been instru- mental in bringing about the state of affairs 'that you approve . . , if there is any guilt in the matter, you must share it with us? . . We have been perfectly Fourth Knight: ii . . . Render a verdict of suicide while of Unsound Mind. tContinued on Page 60l