Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

Page 18 text:

an old boy looks at piclsoring tA Sptwli, gircn by John .llcisel at the Closmg Di'naer, .lime 7, 19542 T is TEN vE.xRs .too since I attended my last final banquet as an active member ot' Pickering College. I mention this not to bring tears of sympathy to your eyes for the venerable decrepit -old gent who is about to speak to you. No, I want to mention the ten year interval between my final banquet and to-night to show that I can look at P. C. with some air of detaclnnent, some perspective. I shall need this perspective, because I want to say something about what Pickering does for its sons. Drawing on my memories of my experience here as a student, of Blackie telling me to mind my posture, and more important, of Blackie showing me that while ill-health may debar me from playing games it need not prevent me from getting lot of fun out of helping t-o build a tennis courtg of Don Stewart laying the foundations which helped me last summer to find in Stratford, Ontario, breath-taking beauty and indescribable exeitementg of Harry Beer sitting with us o-n the School Committee, helping us in large measure to run our own school and more directly helping me, perhaps, to prepare myself' for what I hope to be a life-time of studying the Way people run their political aftairsg - drawing on these and thousands of other memories I shall try to tell what I think Pickering has done for me, and what it continues to do for you. But to make some sort of' assessment of our school I shall also have to draw on the experiences I have had since I left here, on meeting recent graduates of Pickering and of other schools at the two Universities where I have studied, and at Queens At Queens some of us are in the process of making a study of what happens to an average group of students during their three or four years at Ilniversity. We took all the freshmen who entered the Arts Faculty in 1949 and traced their University careers. Out of some 380 students 160 never completed their studies. The reason I mention these shocking figures is this: anyone who has managed to get a half-decent Senior matric, need not worry about passing at University. I don 't think that I have ever worked harder at my studies than I have during my final year at Pickering. The reason for so many I'niversity students' dropping out is not that the work is so hard, but that the students are unable or unwilling to organize their work intelligently. Most ot' them come to l'niversity from reasonably strict homes where their jNlfl'0'IltS make them work hard. Sometimes it is their tmt'licr's who see to it that their homework is kept up. At l7niversity, some of these young people twhose life has been so carefully run for themj go to pot, because for the first time they are on their own. No one wipes their noses for them, nor does anyone force them to work. Fourteen

Page 17 text:

WARREN SKUSE-from London-on-the-Thames, Ont .... first football . . . Secretary of the School Committee . . . Rooters' Club . . . Wrassling? . . . he plans on land we quotelz Arts at Western or ditch-digging . DAVE STEWART-from Toronto-Rosedale . . . Senior football . . . senior hockey . . . active in track and field throughout his years at Pickering College . . . ditto lacrosse and basketball and tennis land wrasslingi . . . Polikon Club . . . Food man on this year's committee . . . plans further study at the XIII level. JOHN TATTLE-also from Rosedale in Toronto . . . sparked the senior football team at the very beginning of the year . . . ditto the senior hockey team . . . played senior volleyball and was on the track teams . . . tennis . . . Rooters' Club . . . Dress man for the school committee . . . firm belief: that all weekends should be long week-ends . . . plans for next and subsequent years: Engineering at U. of T. DOUG THOMSON-a Montrealer who played on the first football team, soccer 119507 . . . active in track and field, lacrosse, basketball and wrestling VU throughout his five years here . . . Quaker relays: on winning Shuttle hurdle relay team . . . Rooters' Club . . . Camera Club 11950-15 . . . Quaker Cracker staff 651, 52, 533 . . . Glee Club for three years . . . stage lighting for Dramatic Club . . . next year: engineering at Quecn's. JOHN WESLEY-a young upstart from Thornhill, Ont .... Garratt Cane Winner . . . Senior football . . . a strong defenseman on senior hockey team . . . Blue team year captain . . . a slightly pink member of the Polikon Club . . . chairman of the School Committee . . . a Widdrington award winner . . . Doc plans on following in his Dad's footsteps: medicine at U. of T., then to get a few race horses. ELWOOD WHITE-hails from Pickering, Ont .... Senior football . . . second hockey . . . another charter member of the Commercial Club . . Woody plans to go to Ryerson next fall and then pursue a business career. RON ZWARYCH-from St. Catherines. Ron played senior football . . . volleyball . . . senior basketball . . . treasurer of the 30 Club . . . very active in track and field . . . captain of the winning Silver team on Sports Day . . . Ron will either start work right away or will go into Business Administration at University. The kingdom shall be where two or three of you shall meet in lore and in ll'07ld67' at the loneliness of life and in good cheer and in remembz-am-e Thirteen

Page 19 text:

Now, looking at my Piekering days, I see that one of the most valuable lessons Pickering taught me and my classmates was contained in the responsi- bility the school placed on our shoulders. As the Pickering boy grows older he is given an ever-increasing measure ot responsibility. Ile must make his own decisions about how to spend his time: how much ot' it he will spend on studies, games, clubs, dramatics, Hlee Vlub, the shop, social life, girls, and so on. He must elect his own School tfoniniittee, and through it, he himselt helps to run an important part of l'ickering's lite. In assuming these responsibilities he is helped by the staff but in the long run the important decisions are his own. XVhen he leaves the school to enter adult life through further studies or a 7 2 job, he is not punch-drunk with the sudden freedom and independence he has just won from his parents and teachers. He has already learned that most of the important decisions in our lives must be made by ourselves. The lesson the Pickering boy has learned is that the making ot' these decisions gives us freedom, but that it also forces us to go through the unpleasant business ot' having to make up our own minds. By gradually introducing the student to the responsibilities ot' running his own community, Piekering prepares its sons t'or a useful life in our tfanadian democracy. This may not be apparent to you at the time, but I am convinced that this is one of the important contributions our school makes to our country. There is one other point I should like to make about Pickeringg the way in which it is run teaches its members to live in a genuine community. They soon realize that individual desires must sometimes be suppressed for the common good. We must always be mindful of the well-being ot' others, but we must not allow others to interfere too much with the legitimate demands ot our own person. In Kingston, where I live, there is some concern among parents of very good students about their children 's attitude to studies. Apparently the less academically gifted youngsters, who are in the majority, think that to be a brain is a bad thing. Students who get good marks are considered to be strange and are treated as if they had some sort ot nasty disease. As a result some excellent students deliberately try to get poor marks so as to be liked by the gang. Now this is obviously a dreadful waste, for the world needs not only people with good looks, good muscles, and a good line , but also those with g-ood minds and a lot ot knowledge. Now I remember that when I was here, to be a fine student or a fine athlete or something ot a poet was considered to be rather admirable. Our motto might have been Unity in Diversity and I am sure that the same is still true to-day. So when you leave the School. or when you come back in the Fall, do not be afraid to be yourselves. Make the maximum use of your talents, whatever they may be, and if some of your pals think that you are strange or peculiar, ignore them. I sometimes think that what we need is more individualists, more Fl.ffl'l'll