Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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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

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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 Much talk is heard nowadays about the better world we will create. Do you realize that you are to be its architects and its builders? Some founda- tions may be laid before you take over but the principal structure will be yours to erect. Even at that, part of the foundations will need relaying for there will be those who will try to sabotage this new world of yours. Evil will not be swept from the face of the earth with the defeat of the axis powers and may you be specially on guard against those who imply that it will. In closing I would ask you then, is manis sense of wonder still alive in you? Do you look forward to progress and change? Are you ready and eager, each man according to his capacity, to accept the challenge that will be and is already yours? Do you see your education as a pathway to a broader and a fuller life? Do you see as did Ulysses ueach experience as an arch where through gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades forever and forever as we move . Have you, in short, a zest for living? Six thousand years of our history have gone by. No longer may we share in the magic beliefs of the primitives. The paganism of Egypt is denied us at this time. The heroes of the Greeks have passed away. The ghosts and goblins of Shakespeareas day have left the earth. What Copernicus and Galileo found in the heavens is our common knowledge. We inhabit the very continent which barred Columbus, way to the Indies. Science has multiplied our creature comforts to abundance. Do you, therefore, complain of monotony or futility or boredom? Then come to me and tell me that the great mystery of the source of life has been solved. Then come to me and tell me that you have spanned eternity or measured inhnity. Come then to me and let me know the meaning of man's existence here. Reduce to a theorem for me the problem of good and evil. Sum up in a few well chosen words the meaning of truth and beauty. Say to me that you have conquered death itself or visited the outer reaches of the cosmos. Tell me then that you can define the true nature of art or that you can put down on paper the eternal appeal of music. Show me a work- ingmodel of the brave new world you have created where men may live in continual peace and happiness one with another. When you can do all these, l will admit that life no longer holds a challenge for you, that monotony and boredom have set in and that you may rest, for wonder has indeed passed from the face of the earth. But until that day I would urge you: be aware. Learn all you can. Do all you can. Give all that is yours to give. Remember that adventure awaits the adventurer alone, the stuff of poetry lies ready to the poet's hand, the secrets of science are for those who have eyes to see, and the joys of living are to be tasted only by those who have zest for life. 21