Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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THE VOYACEUR Tl-Ili TDMUIQIQCWS THAT SING Text of the Commencement Address given by the headmaster at Cran- brook School, Michigan, on lane 8, 1946, reprinted by permission of Cranbrook Alumni News. IT WAS IN MARCH, 194.3 that Mr. P. J. Philip, for many years the Ottawa correspondent of the New York Times, told the students of Queen's University in Kingston, of an incident of the war then still in progress. The incident was so striking that I have taken the liberty of using it as my theme. lt occurred in the Paris prison. of Cherche-Midi where Gabriel Peri, a French Communist deputy, was a prisoner of the Nazis. Informed that he was to be shot as a hostage the following day, he sat down and wrote this farewell: 4CThe prison chaplain has just come to tell me that I shall be shot to- morrow morning. I should like my friends to know that I have been faithful to my lifelong ideal. I should like my fellow-countrymen to know that I am dying that France may live. I have made a last examination of my conscience and am satisfied. If I had to begin all over again I would travel the same road. In a few hours I am going out to prepare the tomorrows that singf' The phrase was in Frenchzi ale 'uais preparer tout a Flieare les lendemains qui chantent. Adieu et que vice la F rancef' wllhe tomorrows that sing. What a lovely phrase it is-what a lovely ideal of life it presents-gallant and joyous! And the man who wrote it was to be shot in the morning along with the others-some of them Com- munists like himself, some of them members of political parties with differ- ent ideas as to how the world should be organized, some of them believers, some of them free-thinkers. But when they faced that Nazi firing-squad together, they died singing the Marseillaise: Hfflllons enfants de la Patric- le jour de gloire est arrive? Your headmaster has done me the honor of asking me to deliver your Convocation address. I take it, however, not as any tribute to myself as an individual, but rather as a recognition of the affection that you, here, hold toward Canada-and the relationships that for over I25 years have existed between our two countries, yours so large and so powerful fone of the two titans of the world todayl, and mine, relatively so much smaller and less powerful. I presume that my task today is to try to give to you who are leaving this beautiful place, who I hope will have many tomorrows ahead of you, some guidance for the road that lies ahead. How can I? How can any man give advice on the exact road ahead? Who can be so clever as to give you the chart or the blueprint of the new world, or the road that leads to it? Remember this: Any man who tries to tell you that he has the answers to all the problems that lie ahead is a liar! Every demagogue of history has 22

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THE VOYACEUR peace, etc. Dr. David Maclsennan of Timothy Eaton Church, Toronto also spoke during the spring term, Major Alex Edmison addressed the school on the work of UNRRA and the problem of the displaced persons in Europe. Both these meetings were also followed by discussion groups. Other services were addressed by members of the staff and the head- master. Grades XII and XIII also planned and directed one service each. Duncan lVlcNab was the faithful pianist throughout the year. Beauty and .loyv Creator of life and light, We bless thee for the beauty of the world, We thank thee for physical joy, For the ecstasy of swift motiong for deep water to swim ing For the goodly smell of rain on dry grounds, For hills to climb and hard work to dog For music that lifts our hearts in one breath to heaven, For all thy sacraments of beauty and joy, we thank thee. We thank thee, O God, for the poetry of movement, For a bird on the wing, a hare at the rung For a train thundering through the night, For a yacht with spread of sail, For a man running and a child dancing. Amen. FRAGMENT I gaze up at the sky watching The clouds passing in their stately Procession across it. I often Wonder whether they are solid. Can you imagine dashing Across the untracked halls Of space,-climbing up the Mist through the strata, up To view the world from the Height of a cumulo-nimbus? I might run, sliding of The cirrus, the mareis tails Which lash the sky to fury, and Gently sink to a cumulus on Which to sail for hours, Viewing the world and the Slow fulfilment of Spring's promise to Summer, Oh what I should see! . . . The countless thousands of lakes Like fragments of a mirror laughing Among the somnolence of the autumnal fields. A wisp of smoke here and there And ojff in the distance, the Noise and grime of a great city. H.H.D. 21

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THE VOYACEUR tried that. Every demagogue of history has gained his mob following by promising that he has the answers. Rather,- 6'I will not say to you: This is my way, walk in it, For I do not know your way Or where th-e Spirit may call you. It may be to paths I have never trod, Or ships on the sea Leading to unimagined lands afar, Or haply to a star! lust this I'll say- I know for very truth, there is a way for each to walk A right for each to choose A truth to usefv In spite of the fact, however, that we cannot give exact advice about the future, there are general principles, there is a general direction, there are lessons that can be learned from the past. Someone, I think it was George Bernard Shaw, said that Wllhe only thing man learns from history is that man doesn't learn from history! I believe, though, that we can and do learn some things. I lVIany of us have learned that the only reward for successfully completing one task is that there is another and a tougher one to do! As, for instance, a student going ,through a mathematics exercise knows that each successive problem will be a bit harder than the last! Robert Louis Stevenson said, 'GTO travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive-and true success is to labour. Does it sound discouraging? No one knows how little a college degree means except the person who has one. If of any use, it is merely an invitation to further, more continued, more protracted effort. It is of the essence of life, it is of the essence of common sense, that We should early learn that it is thus with all life. We plan Utopias but we never reach them. The fun of life is in the struggle-the effort to transform the bad to good, the good to better, the better to an ever-illusive. ever-changing, ever-alluring, impossible best. Perhaps there is too much talk these days of security, of freedom from want. I wonder if we really desire a world devoid of all effort, all struggle? A world of physical comfort in which the simplest tasks are performed by pressing buttons or arranging mirrors-in which we gradually lose the use of our limbs while our brains become absorptive sponges for the drivel of a sponsored radio program instead of creative organs in a marvellously sensitized physical body? A man's reach should exceed his grasp-else what's a heaven for?,' 23