Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School - Echoes Yearbook (Peterborough, Ontario Canada)

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Gbe 'Echoes ly 93 Y Y Y Y T Y T tr T me ee ue V i no Amit L s. L Inceptis gravibua plerumque et magna professia, Purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter. Adsuifur pannus. Often to weighty enterprises, and such as profess great objects, one or two purple patches are sewed on to make a fine display in the distance. s- HORACE Tflrinteb Talaces FIRST PRIZE H YYENT into a house and it wasn't a house It has big steps and a great big hall But it hasn't got. a bookshelf - a bookshelf. a bookshelf It isn't like a house at all. VVe are quite sure Christopher Robin will let us add our bookshelf to the garden. the may-tree and the black-bird as constituents of a real home. For in- deed to many of us a house without books would be a friendless place. The joy of the companionship of books is one of ever-increasing delight. It is a boundless friendship. for in it we may travel all the way from the delightful nonsense of Alice in Wonderland to the profound seriousness of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. We may live in the rich fancies of Barrie: we may drink tea with the ladies of Cranford: we may chuckle over the lmmours of the Vicar's family. VVe may visit the courts of the kings in Granny's tvonderful Cl'liiil'uZ we may walk sedately with Jane Austen. We may sympathize with the weeping Brontes: we may stop for a chat with some of Dickens' shabby folk. VVe may go a-gypsying with Borrow or answer the call of high adventure with Stevenson. tVith Scott the pageantry of history will pass by. In short the world of books opens up to us a long vista of delights. Like explorers of old it is our privilege to sail on uncharted seas. The ports of call a1'e many-history. travel. biography, romance. and poetry. . tYliy do T like to read? I have often asked myself this question and yet have not satisfactorily answered it. Every time I ask myself this age-old question I an- swer differently. that group of twenty-six letters known as the tYe usually begin by learning alphabet aml oh! how pleased we were when we could recognize three-letter words. There was nobody just as clever as 1lother's Willie or Aunt Emma's Bfary Jane on that proud day. It was the start- ing point in our literary education. After graduating from the big: print primer we began, probably. the fairy tales. Succeeding the fairy tale era. would likely come Thornton Burgess' Animal Stories. Passing from fantasy to fiction we likely began with the Campfire Stories for girls or the Boy Scout Series for boys. The wealthy may learn of far-off countries first hand. But most of us must borrow another's eyes-the author's. As for meeting world dignitaries. that is highly improbable. and yet through the medium of reading we may get quite intimate with them. The history and legends of a country are often in print for us to see if only we so desire. For those of us who have to get our informa- tion second-hand I think Emily Dickin-

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Q4 Ghz 'Echoes son has expressed it best when she said: There is no frigate like a book to bear us lands away. Nor any courser like a page of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take without. distress or toll: How frugal is the chariot that bears a human soul. The question then arises-how ought we to read? First. we might say, with affection. If we do not like reading, we shall get no pleasure from it. and reading is generally considered as a recreation or at least as a means of relaxation. Then. too, we ought to read with criticism. It does not always pay to agree eye to eye with everything. It does a person good to form his own opinion and to stick to it until he is convinced of his error by an authority on the subject. Lastly we ought to read with the aim of understanding. YVe ought to try and get at least some conception of the book and not wade through it because it is a prescribed authority and our duty or obligation to read it. To read is to add to our own experi- ences those of other people: to read is to discover the work and investigations of centuries: to read is to meet beauty and beauty-loving personalities that we learn to know in no other way. To read is to increase our knowledge: to divest our- selves of prejudices and improve our personalities. H. BI. Clarke. I think. summed it up nicely when he wrote: Some may live their fair dreams. costly, jewelled. rare dreams: Some may rove the luring world as free as homing birds: But still l'll find my all for IHC, close- waiting at my call for me. In my printed palaces. bright tap- estried with words. Thus a whole world can open up for us in a single book. MARG. PARKER, Vb Acad. my ffavorite Composer SECOND PRIZE YERYONE who studies music or at least is interested in it. has doubt- less a favorite composer. This particular musician may have been chosen because of one composition which appeals especially to the student. llodern song writers may find themselves in the musi- cal spot-light for a time but their popular- ity is usually short-lived. Only the old masters have undying fame. If I were asked to name my favorite composer I would say without hesitation. Handel. George Frederick Handel was born on February twenty-third. sixteen hundred and eighty-five. and lfarch twenty-first of the same year was the birth date of his great contemporary Johann Bach. Han- del's father wished him to become a boy lawyer but very early in life the showed a great interest in music. All music in the home was forbidden. but had Handel. with the help of his nurse, managed to smuggle a wheezy old harpsi- chord into the attic. When his mother and father were out. he often crept up to the attic and played the music with which his soul was overfiowing. Almost everybody has seen the picture showing Handel's father finding the boy playing in the attic, The father died in the year sixteen hundred and ninety-seven and then the Prince of Saxe-lfagdeburg. whose valet he had been, agreed to finance the musical education of young George. He accepted the post of royal organist and later went to London, where he wrote operas. Due to the strain of competing with a rival opera company. in the year seventeen hundred and thirty-seven Handel suffered a paralytic stroke and was obliged to take a rest. XVhile ill he read and studied the scriptures and de- termined to put his genius to the task of translating the Bible stories into music. It was then that his one incomparable oratorio The lfessiahn was written. The first performance of the Messiah was in Dublin on April the thirteenth, seventeen hundred and forty-two. During the last seven years of his career Handel was totally blind but his musical activities continued and he accompanied his ora-