Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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ctivities the dramatic club ' Y lII+:AR'1 s IN Tim IIIGI-ILANDS celebrates the beauty, integrity, and dignity of 1nan's spirit, and his eourage before the dark powers that invade his peace and right, Wrote Herman Voaden in an introduetion to Saroyan's play which the Drainatie Club attempted last fall. lt was a more experimental work than the Club has attempted in some years, and its measure of sur-f-ess was due even more than usual to the brilliant three-part set designed by l+'rederir'k Hagan, and a eolnplieated lighting'-plot exeeuted hy Doug' Thomson with Bill Alg'er's assistance. Our photo does not do ,justiee to the groc-ery store, living- rooin, and front porch faeing on a street in San Fresno, California. Shifts of seene were effected by hlaekouts and spotlighting, and free use was niatle of the auditorium spaee fronting the stage for entrances, crosses and exits. The dwellers in this little world of sunshine and storm were Hen Alcxrunrlvr, a penniless poet, his son J0ll'7l'7l.U, .lolzningfs Hrandniotlier, Jlr. Ii'o.wul.' the grover, his hiautiful daughter Esther, Jnspel' fllut'!lregm', who sang' inovingly that his heart was in the highlands and renieinhered his fornier days of greatness as a Sliakespearean actor, and various friends and neighbours. No plot linked the lives of these peopleg rather, they touehed one another's hearts with love and pity, living' with the candid innoeenee of childhood. This mood was well estab- lished by Alfie lluys' fine creation of JOIHl'7IQIj,' relaxed and uninhibited, affevtion- ate and eurious, no one was proof against his eharni, least of all lisflnfr, von- Yl1ll lIIQ'lY and easily played by -lanie Vlifton. Jllilllllqlj, however, was in every Sl'l'l'Hll'4'lI

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people who have the courage of their convictions and who learn to live rich and creative lives in the face of jeers from the mediocre. In leaving you, I should like to say this: those of you who are about to join the ranks of the Old Boys have had good training in being members of a wholesome community and at the same time in being individual persons, not carbon copies of the dummies who populate most of our comic books and much of the silver screen. You have nothing to fear of the world it you apply the Pickering way of lii'c, even though Pickering may bc far away. . . . Those of you who are returning will have further opportunities not only for allowing Pickering to help you, but also for yourselves helping Pickering. a note on uso little for the mind E AT PICKERING COLLEGE Kxow VERY XVELL that the principle of progressive education is practicable. Miss Neatby contrasts the graduate of a progressive school to the graduate of a stricter type of school. She says that thc former is ignorant, lazy and unaware of the exacting demands of a society from the realities of which they have been carefully insulated. I believe that the exact opposite is true. The graduate of a strictly-disciplined school would become an excellent servant or a private in the armed forces where a person must conform to other people 's wishes, whereas the graduate of Pickering knows how to be a good citizen because he has had experience in choosing between the bad and good of everyday life. He has an inner discipline which n-o amount ot' outward force can instil in the mind of an individual. How can Miss Neatby say, with such straight-forwardness, that the progressively-educated person is incapable ot logic when every day, he is confronted with situations where he must use logic? If, indeed, he has managed to graduate and pass the Senior Matriculation exams, he has certainly had t-o use a little bit of logic and cer- tainly couldn't have memorized everything off, as Miss Neatby has implied. I have been at both kinds of schools, and can appreciate the value of the ideals of Progressive Education. At the latter kind of school, the student is much happier and relies m-ore on his own decisions rather than on those of his teacher. Miss Neatby has gone to extremes in her definition of a graduate of a pro- gressive school. Naturally most schools are not as completely progressive as Pickering, so that, as a result, her survey has not accounted for the ideal pro- gressive education aimed at in the ideals of Pickering College. I think Miss Neatby has rightly criticized the average public school, even though she has gone to the extremes about it, but she has assumed that the average public school student is progressively educated . The fact is that the student at the average public school is not nearly as educated by the school as by his parents or guardians. - PETEI: l.Em7c: S1',l'Il f'lI

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way his father's song he inherited from him a love of beauty, a passion for justice, a hatred -of violence, with all these attributes and more-among them tenderness and stoicism and hope-Arthur Burt endowed Ben rlle.rander,- the high point of his characterization was perhaps his moving' speech against. war, but his understanding' of the role was consistently expressed througliout. Dick Powell brought to life a grocer torn between a desire to help others with all he had and the necessity of safeguarding his own family, and Peter Leduc quietly portrayed the eternal old mother , patiently taking for granted the rightness of the sense of values of her younger family. Tom Connor handled the role of .lIaCGrcg0r with competence and understandingg it is no easy task for an actor to break into unaccompanied song, nor to quote effectively, as an old actor on the point of death, from King Lear, and to these particular challenges Tom re- sponded very well indeed. Craege McQuarrie, Garth Enerson, Ian Paterson, Derry Moore, Bill Patten, Fred Little, Tom Mc-Cann, and D-on Downs provided sound and colourful supportg Mct1'ann's entrance on a bicycle from the rear of auditorium, as the mailman, was notable, as was Downs' whistling approach as a newsboy from the same quarter. The play was directed by Mr. Stewart, but of direction in the formal sense there was a minimumg even more than in previous Club productions, the actors seemed to live their parts , and behave accordingly. spring production N MAY 12TH Mmimcks or Huixnns IX AND X took part in producing A. A. Milne 's The Allan in the Iiorelcr Ilat and Galsworthy's The Little Mlm, and much credit is due Mr. Vangeloff and Mr. Clifton for bringing these plays to the boards in the middle of a short and crowded term. Farce is difficult under the best of circumstances, but what the players in the Milne play lacked in finesse they compensated for in enthusiasm. The trying' and complicated inquiry into the whereabouts of the key to the hatbox in the check-room came off Well, and Don Harris, Clark Mexicotte, and Ron Sutton are to be congratulated for the villainy, bravado, and ever-lovin' loyalty they brought to their respective roles. The stuff of The Little .llnfn is more challenging. and Mr. Clifton skilfully developed in his actors a sense of characterisation so that although each was a consistent and well-defined type, all were still believable as people. Paul Feld- man sustained well the heavy role of the American, whose actions differed so markedly from his words, a Prussian ruthlessness was clearly conveyed by Alex Perron as the Hermang Dave Scatcherd was refreshingly uninhibited as the clownishly good-lnimoured Dutchmang Peter Feldman and Bob Macklin were towering' models of British reserveg Peter Campbell successfully overcame the dangers of female impersonation before one's friends so that the audience could F:l.,!Illll'!'lI