Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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THE VOYAGEUR :bs Hgugagcur Staff 19118 at H. P. Buchanan R. H. Perry B. A. W. Jackson T. E. Bamford J. Mcffulley IV. R. Henderson by constant pursuing, and who are so jealously sure of our right to that pursuit that we take it as tantamount to a sacred duty. Worst of all is this fact: that if we are not pursuing happiness we are discontented and that, since we do not know what the word means, we continually grasp at the imitations which are offered. Our upursuitw becomes a desperate chase after synthetic pleasures whose obtaining is even more disappointing than their inaccessibility had seemed. Yet let any factor challenge our right to that pursuit or make the pursuit impossible and our misery becomes the stuff of which crime and suicide and madness are made. In such a situation liberty becomes license, rights become prerogatives, and law becomes frustration. Happiness cannot be pursued, for happiness cannot be defined. If man has a sacred duty it is to grow, to realize to the full all his particular and special abilities so that late in life he may say to himself, ul have become a full man and completef' Let happiness and its pursuit be ignored. Let man work his work for the good of his soul, and so that he may not be ashamed when he speaks his own name. Let a man be what he will, poet or priest, merchant or grower or digger, let his work bring him tears or scars, disappointment or pain, frustration it will not, so be it he work. Let him ignore all soft and easy things, all short cuts to bliss, but rather grow to his full stature under the heavens and come to complete fruition under the sun. Then, god-like he may know the perfect happiness of the gods, and, being without desire, find peace. 20

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THE VOYAGEUR V OL. 13 1940 PUBLISHED BY THE STAFF AND STUDENTS OF PICKERING COLLEGE, NEWMARKE'P ONTARIO, CANADA Editorial URING THE MONTH OF JUNE 1940 again will pass out between the pillars of Pickering as in former years a group of students who have gained an academic standing enabling them to go on to a higher institution of learning, or enter into the business life of the country. Besides taking with them an education obtained from text books, it is hoped that they will also carry along one which they have learned from living in a community of fellows, everyone a different personality and having something to offer which will be of beneficial value to any person going out into a world of many and varied personalities. However, this world into which these graduates are going is not the same one that the students of former years went out into but one which is consumed with turmoil and havoc such as has never been known to man- kind. ln this world of to-day the Democracies are fighting for their con- tinued existence which is being endangered by a section of the human race saturated with the ideas of a fanatical power-seeking neurotic who cares not how he achieves his objective, and at the present no one seems to know what the future has in store for us. But whatever comes, let us all carry with us the memories, the resolve and the fine spirit of Pickering 1939-40. VAN LAUOHTON. UR FATHERS WERE told that every man had an indisputable right to ulife, liberty and the pursuit of happinessfi The wording of the final phrase of that slogan was unfortunate, for certain it is that we have misinterpreted it and set too much store by it until the lives of many of us are lived out in a frantic scramble after pleasure which we mistake for happiness. Our times have given us little help in the correction of this error. The world of advertising and cheap literature and motion pictures implies that a happy state consists in the ability to gratify each and every desire. More than this, much that we read and hear is a deliberate attempt to stimulate desire among a generation whose sales resistance has been so lowered that misery may actually result from the inability to obtain those nostrums for bliss which are recommended on every hand. Desires, impossible of gratification, are constantly being created for us who are so completely gullible that we reject none of them, who believe that happiness lies in the gratification of all desire, who believe that happiness is a state which may be achieved 19

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THE VOYAGEUR Education and the War by JOSEPH MCCULLEY Headmaster, Pickering College, Newmarket, Ontario NE or THE MOST IMPORTANT MOTIVES that can influence human conduct is love of country. lVlost of us probably learned in our youth those words of Walter Scott commencing with the line, 'cBreathes there the man with soul so dead. It is not merely the particular house or locality that one calls home, but that sum total of traditions, customs, conventions and attitudes that are associated with one's own country. The citizen of Rome prided himself on that fact even though he lived on the furthermost bounds of the empire. It is easy enough to point out that the nation-state is a comparatively recent political development, this fact, however, is truer- that man has always felt a thrill of pride in belonging to his own tribal, national or racial group. That pride has almost invariably been associated with or focussed upon some specific home land-amy countryf' As a motivating force in determining human conduct, love of country or patriotism has been as important a factor as religion, and in some cases the two have been so closely bound together as to be almost indistinguish- able. The reason is basically the same. These two motives are among the strongest human emotions, in the final analysis it is emotions which largely determine conduct. There is another factor which must be recognized. War's appeal is, primarily, not to the base in man but rather to many of his finest feelings. The cynic, of course, reminds us that man is a fighting animal-that wars have been a permanent part of human history and that they always will be. The truth of this is questionable. The great periods of human progress have been periods of peace when man had an opportunity to turn his in- ventive and social genius towards the arts of civilization. Sane men every- where today recognize modern war as the greatest tragedy that can touch the human race. In the last war millions died in the hope that their sacrifice would result in the establishment of a better world. Today young men are enlisting for similar noble purposes-expressed in general terms: to rid the world of Hitlerism and to preserve a way of life that is based on respect for human personality and its basic and inalienable rights. ln some form or other it is this appeal which is made to our young men and not only to our young men but to the total population. It must be recognized that modern war is not fought by professional soldiers alone but that it is the concern of the total community. All our leaders unite today in stressing the necessity of a new Europe-or a new world order based on freedom and equality in the relationships of man with man and nation with nation. 21