Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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THE VOYAGEUR I cannot think of Paradise a place Where men go idly to and fro, With harps of gold and robes that shame the snow, With great wide wings that brightly interlace W heneler they sing before the Master's face- Within a realm where neither pain nor woe, Nor care is foundg where tempests n-ever blowg Where souls with hopes and dreams may run no race. Such paradise were but a hell to meg Devoid of all progression, I should rot, Or shout for revolution, wide and far. Better some simple task, a spirit free To act along the line of self forgot- Or help God make a blossom or a star. or this: ulnto the Sunsetl' Let me die working. Still tackling plans unfinished, tasks undone! Clean to its end, swift may my race be run. No laggard steps, no faltering, no shirkingg Let me die working! Let me die, thinking. Let me fare forth still with an open mind, Fresh secrets to unfold, .new truths to find. My soul undimmed, alert, no question blinking Let me die, thinking! Let me die laughing, No sighing o'er past sins, they are forgiven. Spilled on this earth are all the joys of heaven, Let me die laughing! That may seem like small comfort, but it is the best philosophy I can give you! It is the secret of the gay, the happy, the joyous, the gallant attitude to life. I happen to be an admirer of your late President. Of all the stories about him there is none that I like better than this: Mr. Roosevelt was speaking with Dr. Peabody, who asked his erstwhile student if it was hard work being President. President Roosevelt replied, HYes, it's very hard work, but it's great funlw Yes, it's great fun-always looking ahead and working for the tomorrows that sing. And I can assure you that it is also great fun to have a task to do, a goal to strive for. I suppose on this occasion it is inevitable that we should look back. After all, ulVlemories are given us that we should have roses in Decemberf, And I have no doubt that you who are graduating today wfill' find that there are some moments that will stand out in your memories: Your arrival 24

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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

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THE VOYAGEUR at school, your first glimpse of your classmatesg some game or other, the dramatic or glee club, maybe one of the school parties, or it may have been some rather more personal incident, a bull session, lone of those truly edu- cational sessions, without evidence of faculty anywhere in the neighborhood! lb Or it may perchance be that you remember some of the mistakes you made, out of which you have.learned something, fwe hope!J. All these you have loved!-as did Rupert Brooke-and may for you: Time hold some golden space Where you'll unpack that scented store Of song and flower and shy and face And count and touch and turn them o'er.', All that is justifiable and human and good. I hope that your memories for all of you will provide roses in December. But donit ever think that all the good days were in the past! It has been a tendency always for men to look back! on the ugood old daysf, We inevitably think of the past as a 6'Garden of Edenw. uOur fathers have told us the wonderful works thou didst in their days and in the old time before them!'7 Every boy looks back on his school as the best school, it is true here and I find the same tendency in the boys of our school. But if that were true there would be no such thing as progress. I think this little rhyme expresses it very well: My grandad viewing eatrth's worn clogs Said :Things are going to the dogs. His grandad in his house of logs Said aThings are going to the dogsf' His grandad in his old skin togs Said :Things are going to the dogs. His grandad in the Flemish bogs Said uThings are going to the dogs. There is one thing I have to state: The dogs have had a good long wait! If the good days were all in the past we would still be swinging by our tails from the palm trees in the African jungle! To believe that all Utopia is in the past, that all golden ages are in the past is already to admit defeat! History travels in grim cycles and Man is broken on the wheel. But the road winds up, not down, And it is worth the travelling! If it were not so, man would have Let the wagon mire long ago. The road winds up, not downg forward not back! Where does the effort lead? Always ahead, to the tomorrows that sing! In talking this way I don't want to be accused of being a sentimental Mr. Chips! I know that approximately one year ago we Hnished fighting a War-a war that we thought was being fought in the terms of the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter. I know that a year ago at San Francisco 25