Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

Page 22 text:

THE VGYAGEUR braces are needed and it fulfills its function. When this factory turns out its products, each of them is suited to perform some task. It is suited to perform that task because its makers have recognized the intrinsic values of the raw material from which it was made and have so wrought as to make its strengths of most use and its weaknesses of least harm. The analogy between the good factory and the good school may easily be seen. We old boys of Pickering College believe we attended a school which gave heed to the importance of craftsmanship. Out in the world of tofday we come to realize more and more just how significant such a school may be, and how valuable. For here we may see the results of the two errors mentioned above. In some nations of the world we may find what happens when the analogy of the factory is applied too closely. We discover the regimentation of youth, the attempt to Cast every man by a single die, the meatfgrinder process of educating. Un the other hand we find too, and this in our own country, the results of considering education merely as a matter of providing boys with certain of the rudiments of knowledge. These are the educators who, while they do not make the error of attempting to mold all material to one pattern, commit a fault on the negative side in that they do not realize that raw material may be improved and its usefulness as well as its beauty increased by a process which will intensify the effect of the good qualities in any participating piece. Both methods breed intolerance, the first by inculcating certain prejudices, the second by allowing -prejudices to go unquestioned and unnoticed. The years of the new Pickering College number now some odd dozen. The ranks of her old boys are increasing. Among their number will be found men in all stations of life. Some of them the world will herald as successes, some will pass unnoticed, some will earn the censure of their fellowmen. But whatever be the judgment of the world, it is our belief that, with few excepf tions, they learned tolerance at Pickering and with it acquired a sense of values that will do them yeoman service in the years to come so that, no matter what their station, they may see themselves as necessary parts of a society that is bigger than themselves but which owes them a debt of gratitude because what they were was carefully fashioned, so that what they now are is a realization of the best that was in them. OLD BOY 20

Page 21 text:

THE VUY.MlfiUR 159 -iff 5. wi' jffilglt . .jfit 1 . n Voyageufr Staff Henderson, Williams, Bowser fAdvert1'singj. Charters fPl1otograpl1yj, Mr. McCulley, Mr. Perry fStaff Editorl. Strouse fAtl1letz'c Editorj, Rudy Renzius fArtj, Buchanan flnterary Editorj. of the school and the factory may he again applied. This time however we will keep the matter of craftsmanship in mind and thus attempt to correct the two errors in interpretation to which the idea is suhject. A furniture factory may take wood to huild tables. To the workmen it is all wood, nothing more and nothing less. They saw and hammer and polish and paint. The result is a row of tables not one of which differs one whit in appearance from any other. Yet one tahle may last ten months, an' other only two. Une table may hreak a leg, another split down the middle. The difference depends on where the flaws were in the wood. The workmen had ignored them as well as they had ignored where the special strength of any single piece lay. There is the other type of factory. Here the raw material is studied and tested. The piece of wood that will make a tahle top hecomes a tahle top. Another piece, after the flaws are removed, seems Ht only for a hrace: hut 19

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THE X'UY.MZEL'R 1 l W, Y, ,W , MISS ESTHER ROGERS T is XVITH A DEEP SENSE or Loss that we record the death of Miss Esther Rogers at St. Petersburg, Florida, on April 27th last. She was a daughter of the late Samuel Rogers. It was due largely to her fathers efforts that the old school at Pickering was erected and her sister, Mrs. W. P. Firth, who survives her, was lady principal of Pickering College in its cofeducational days. Since the reopening of the school in 1927 she has been a quiet but enthusiastic supporter and it is only now that she has passed on that we are at liberty to disclose that many deserving boys have been enabled to enjoy the privileges of school by reason of her financial assistance. A substantial contribution to the school in 1937 enabled the Board to install the electric refrigeration system and to make other much needed addif tions to our equipment. In her will she has given a real and tangible expresion of her deep interest in our work and a generous bequest which she has made will be of great benefit to the school. Those of us who had the privilege of knowing her. will always remember her, not for what she did, but for what she was, a quiet sincere Quaker lady always ready to help those less fortunate than herself. 21