Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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The Voyageur CHAPEL SETTING FOR THE CHRISTMAS SERVICE LTHOUGH Sunday morning at Pickering is left free for church attendance in Newmarket, the evening is reserved for a religious service of our own, inter-denominational in character, at which the Headmaster, the Staff and occasionally outside speakers, address the students. The first three services of the Fall Term are taken by the Headmaster, as they are an appropriate time for the explanation of the philosophy of education, underlying the school. In a sense these first services are the most important of the school year, for it is in them that a new student catches, for the first time, the true spirit of Pickering and the heterogeneous group begins to feel that sense of community without which our school could not function. At the close of the third service the new boys are enrolled as full-fledged members of the group and thereafter there is no distinction drawn between them and the other students of the school. Other services throughout the year that have proved to be particularly inspiring are the Thanksgiving Service, the Christmas Carol Service, which many friends and visitors attend, the New Year Service, the Easter Service and the Farewell Service at the close of the Spring Term. These are all taken by the Headmaster and constitute, in our opinion, the best teaching that Pickering provides. In a school such as ours where so much stress is laid 19

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The Voyageur that government departments of education recognize the great need and provide adequately for it. The folk high school movement in Denmark revitalized a decadent economy and in little more than a generation pro- duced a sane, co-operative and highly cultured people. A programme of adult education, intelligently conceived and suited to our own needs might, similarly, improve our own Canadian life! Status and Training of Teachers We must develop a new respect for the place and importance of the teacher. In 1939 the Canadian Teachers, Federation made a survey and reported that Hmore than half of the teachers of Canada were living on the lowest possible level of self-supporting penurious existence? A more recent report indicates that in 1942, 32 per cent of all Canadian teachers received salaries of less than six hundred dollars a year. This is not good enough! How can such a profession attract persons with the ability, the training and the personality that the importance of the task demands? No fee is too high for engineers who develop power or run our factories. No fee is too large if we can save the life of one sick child. But we expect those who train their minds and souls to work for less than a pittance. At the same time I believe that we must improve our teacher-training institutions throughout the whole country. Their courses must be modern- ized and extended in terms of the new needs and demands of the new age. It must be frankly admitted that, to-day, the qualifications of many of our teachers are far from adequate if we are to demand of them the vision, the intelligence, and the training that are necessary. The Cost I Such a programme as l have outlined will take money-a lot of it! Considering our ability to finance a war l do not believe that any longer will the excuse of lack of money be satisfactory to the Canadian people. The costs of educational reform have been carefully estimated in the recent C.N.E.A. report. We know that Canada can afford it, she can not afford DOI tO. uWhat shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul . What shall it profit a nation to win a war and lose the peace by paltry, hesitating and inadequate provision for the nurture of its most precious asset-its children, in which any hope for the future rests! STAFF NOTES . . . To our Tutorial Staff which, in September, was the largest in the School's history, and gradually was whittled down by the armed forces until only one was left, many, many thanks for all the variety of tasks they did so well. To Dan., Ghent, Jimmy, Doug., and Des., we wish best of luck and a speedy return! '18

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The Voyageur on self-discipline and co-operation within the community, the other activities of our common life would become just so much ubrick without mortar , if it were not for these attempts on Sunday evenings to bring closer the ubeloved conimunityw. During the year other services were conducted by the following staff members, Mr. Rourke, Mr. Statten, Mr. Beer, Mr. Blackstock, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Mosey and one service was taken by the school committee. We print below extracts from a chapel talk given by Mr. Jackson. HAT THEN is the attribute upon which depends the vitality of a nation or a man? BELIEVE it is the ability or power to wonder, to look with awe and rever- ence at all things and to find in their mystery a challenge to our human faculties and our human spirit. The attribute necessary for the continued vitality of men or of nations then is wonder. It has been with man since the beginning, but like the tides of the sea, it has had its ebb and How. I believe that when wonder has been predominant among a people they have risen to a position of eminence among the nations, when wonder has been deadened or lost altogether they have slipped back into the rank and file of history. What is this quality of wonder? It has been said that a genius is a man who in his adult years retains the outlook of his boyhood,-in other words, a man who may stimulate his maturer faculties with that freshness of vision and vivid imagination which is the constant result of the childis wide-eyed survey of the world around him. As the poet Blake put it in his Aziguries of Innocence: Wlio see a world in a grain of sand, And Heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hourfi For it is wonder about the world around him and his fellow men which vitalizes man and keeps him alive. It is wonder which produces the adven- turerg for adventure awaits him because he has the power to recognize it though many men pass it by. Wonder about people in their social relation- ships produces that understanding which is the prime faculty of the great novelist or dramatist. Wfonder about man, the animal, produces the doctor or the anthropologist. Wonder about the earth produces the geologist, and about the earth's creatures the botanist and zoologist. Wonder about the heavens produces the astronomer and astro-physicist. Wonder about abstract truth produces the mathematician and philosopher. Wonder about the spirit of man produces the religious mystic. 20