Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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- ,--A i i'L'af' T' i l i W'1 77 ' if?- W MQ... SIR WM. MULOCK Speaking before the laying of the corner-stone of Firth House. '79 4.4 ..4

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l l ' ' is 3 iinmii llllhli A Personal Word HL Y OYAtlEI'R has now completed a four year journey-a trip which has compassed in its course many varieties and types of experience, in sunshine and shadow. It has come through the uncertainties of its early years, pushing its way through the undergrowth where it was difficult. to see the pathway very far ahead. It has climbed the rocky path of trial and experiment, but it emerges into a clearing where it is possible to review the past and to see at least a short distance into the future. Since this is the official publication of the student body and the statf of Pickering College it is only right that, while the following pages tell the story of the. year just concluded, opportunity should here be taken to comment on the general scheme of education which we have endeavoured to put into prac- tice. On re-opening the school it was with the feeling that Canadian education, public and private, might profit by the existence of a school definitely experi- mental in character. It was also felt that the experiment should follow along the general lines indicated in the basic philosophy enunciated by Dewey and Kirkpatrick, propagated in England and on the continent by the New lflducation Fellowship and in the United States by the Progressive Education Association. VVhere we have differed from existing Canadian schools it has been with modesty and with the consciousness that ultimate truth is large, and that there are many roads by which it may be reached. VW may be pardoned, however, if, still in our adolescence, we glory even a little in such successes as have been ours. In the usual spheres of academics and athletics, and judged by the usual standards, We have had more than an average share of success. NYe think we have proven that the task, understood by the majority to be the normal task of education, can be successfully carried out in an atmosphere that varies far from the usual. And it is of this latter that I would speak briefly but most emphatically. In an age, the outstanding characteristic of which is freedom of thought and expression, we have endeavoured to encourage frankness as a primary virtue. It has led to the establishment of a relationship between teachers and taught in which the fear-force element has been eliminated. For a mere teacher- pupil relationship there has been substituted the more positive one of friend- ship. Instead of repressing youthful energy we have tried to direct it into creative and constructive channels. It is to friends now going out into wider fields that I would now say Thank you, Au revoir and Bon Voyage. May the memories of your Cl w 7 time at Pickering College ever be a stimulus to finer and nobler effort in the making of the better world that is to bc. For the future shall be as you are and as you make it! This preface would bc incomplete without a word of particular thanks to the staff to whom I am deeply and constantly indebted for loyal co-operation and quiet and persistent enthusiasm in quest of an ideal. Through their help it will become a reality. I would also like to thank all those who have in any way contributed to the following pages. The fact that this record of a year's work and he c 2 play is possible is due largely to 04 the efforts of a conscientious and capable staff. 21

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f WHY? XZX The Staff Editor'-in-C11iff--HARRY M. BEER - Assoc-into Edif0l'.9-HPIRBER'F I . Mn,1,i:R, li. EMi:Rsox lt',xt'i.Ds Sporting Ed?:f0l'--XNAl.LAL'E McN1t'Htn. Art Editors-LAWRRN HARRIS, JR., BILL timxosn z4dl'0l'fiSi7lg-ERIC XYEALE, RICHARD .JRFFRRY Advisory Ii0lII'd-JOSEPH 3It'CI'I,I,ltIY. tl. N. T. XVIIJIPRIXQVIWDN Editorial HIS volume is dedieated to the memory of Ur. XVt-hh. All tit' ns who had known him during the first three years of our life here were det-ply shoeked when we heard of his death. The sight ot' his ear drawing up at the end of the first period, so regularly that the period hell might well have been rung by it, and his unfailingly eheerful ministratitins were an integral part of the common suhstant-e of our living. The health rt-tttird tit' tht- selititil alone bears testimony to the soundness of his shrewd diagnosis and advit-e. -X thread of endearing personality has been torn from the pattern tit' our t-tim- munal existent-e. To him, an oltl boy of this t'ollege. and our lieltwt-tl physit-ian for years, we pay this last htnnage. VVhen, eeasing for the moment to strain torwartl to our next tihjt-t'tivt', we sit baek in our editorial ehair and attempt to take sttwk tit' the year gone hy we are almost lost in the tangled growth of retrospetttitmz the t-tinst-ittusness both of goals sut-eessfully at-hieved and ot hright hopes that faded fittully, liiekered, and then fled jostle eaeh other for preeedent-e in our rt-eognititni. l'ppe1'most from this welter of retleetion, l10XYt'Vl'l', emerges a startling realization of the amazing many-sidedness of our activities. Stnnetnit- has recently bestowed upon us the title of An At-tivity Sehool . The truth ot' that title strikes with full foree as we prepare to edit the wide variety of t-ontrilnitions whieh The Voyageur t-ontains. In our first year we had a big idea: it was suflieit-iitly lmig to ahsorh the whole of our energies as we struggled with the prtmhlenis whieh that tlietiry raised as we put it into prat-tiee. The year sped hy with little time to devote to the aeeessories and emhellishments of our mat-hine. but we had a g'ltiritmus time keeping the engine running. In our seeond and third years we lit-gan gradually to initiate and develop further aetivities. 23