Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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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

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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 On May 7, 19415 a Canadian sporting writer wrote: uThe war isnit over. The war isnlt over for the maimed, the blind and the bereaved. The war isnit over for the weak and the hungry. The war isn't over for our own dead. The war isn't over until we have learned to recognize another Ethiopia, another Spain, when we see it. The war isnit over until Gentile can live with Jew, until intolerance and bigotry have been banished. The war isn't over, for instance, until Negroes can play baseball on the same field with whites. 4'The war isn't over until China-which for a decade, has stood out against, aggression--has been freed. This war was fought for a simple principle which, reduced to simple terms, reads, LNO bully is going to shove the little fellows aroundif' That war is not yet over! Some of you were not called to fight and to die, but you are called to live, to work, to prove uthat every man, woman and child has worth and dignity, that all human beings are one in ultimate destiny and in striving faith, and that out of hope and effort the good society shall yet be bornf' It is as you carry this determination with you from these walls-that you will do your part to prepare the tomorrows that sing! .-1.- 1 1 w Frank Wood, Prep. cDepartment, Veteran of six years, winner of the Firth House Award for all-round leadership, 191145-46. 27