Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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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

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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 there was idealism-that men everywhere hoped that in the United Nations we were laying the foundations of a world order that might bring peace. I know that in March, 1945 the President of the United States of America addressed Congress in these words: uThe structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation. It cannot be an American peace, or a British, or a French, or a Russian, or a Chinese peace. It cannot be a peace of large nations or of small nations. It must be a peace which rests on the co- operative efforts of the whole world .... There can be no middle ground here. We shall have to take the responsibility for world collaboration, or we shall have to bear the responsibility for another world conflict. But I also know that since then we have seen the effect of the atom bomb at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I know that we have seen the United Nations drawing farther and farther apart. I know that one year after there is NO peace! I have seen, with my own eyes, something of the misery and starvation and destruction that is Europe today. I have seen scrawny, undernourished, half-naked little children. who had lived the previous winter on tulip bulbs, crying for crusts outside the gates of an army camp. I have come back here to this continent ashamed of our self-complacency and our plenty. I know that there are those who talk glibly about the next war. Talk of war today is not only criminal but insane! And if I-a guest and a visitor may say so-I know there are those here, and in my own country, who rejoice at what they believe to be the setting sun of the British Empire, and who cloak their desires for a new imperialism for the United States that denies the fundamental postulates of the American Constitution-the spiritual equality of all men and the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The seeds of Fascism are sprouting on this continent today and perhaps the guise in which they now appear is an effort uto save democ- 77 racy. I know that ignorance, selfishness, intolerance, greed, bitterness and pre- judice still exist in the world. fAfter six years of war it could not be other- wisell All these things are the inevitable aftermath of war. But there are signs of encouragement on the horizon of international affairs. There is, I am assured, the dawning of a new conscience in the realm of national and international responsibility fyour own Mr. I-Ioover and Mr. LaGuardia are today the true voice of the American consciencej But it is not of these things that I would speak. It is in places like this- this school, my school and every school and playground on this continent that the real answer is being given. In your war memorial you are making it possible for others to enjoy the privileges that have been yours, others who will enter to grow in wisdom and who will depart to serve their country and mankind. 26