Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

Page 9 text:

This issue of the Voyageur is affectionately and gratefully dedicated to Samuel Rogers, Qc., Chairman of our Board of Management since 1933. Over these many years Mr. Rogers has given much to Pickering College through his careful stewardship and unfailing interest. He is shown addressing the school at our Annual Closing Dinner held on May 31st. This occasion, honoured by the presence of former masters and old boys, served as our Farewell to the Old Dining Hall. The new Dining Hall brought into being through the active interest of our Chair- man will open this September for the new school year. -Harry M. Beer.

Page 11 text:

A Personal Word From the Headmaster There is another kind of integration which schools should strive to attain and which our own school has always held as a basic aim. Ever since 1842, our founding year, our forerunners have established this school as one where students of different races, creeds and colours could live and play and study together to the mutual benefit of all. Such integration we must treasure and continually nurture. Because of our Quaker heritage we have been able to do this. The other kind of integration which we have always attempted is not always as easy for us to achieve, that is, the integration of purpose of the two generations which make up a school community. Officially the older one has the task of teaching, counselling and moulding, and the younger one has the opportunity of learning, cooperating and growing. To tell the truth, I have found that these roles are sometimes reversed, for learning does not stop at the magic age of twenty-one and much can be learned in a community such as ours from young as well as old. Unfortunately, the traditional relationship between the two generations is often that of tug-of-war . At Pickering we have always tried to combat such a spirit, sometimes with success and sometimes not, by attemping to develop a cooperative and friendly relation- ship between masters and students. True integration may be attained only when individuals, both masters and students, dedicate themselves to a common ideal which envelops all personal ideals. The two generations may thus pursue the common purpose of working unselfishly towards the Quaker goal of the beloved community . The great achievement of this past year has been the zeal shown by our student leaders in trying to attain such a goal. A feeling of mutual trust was established between the two generations, the members of the School Committee on the one hand and the masters of the school on the other, to such an extent that their concern for the welfare of the school enabled them to exchange views in an amazingly frank and honest spirit. The student leaders placed loyalty to our School Code above loyalty to the traditional schoolboy code . For this they were at first criticized by their fellows and yet, by courageously sticking to their ideals, they gradually won the support of the student body which continued to re-elect them. For their part the members of the older generation believed that, in such an atmosphere of mutual trust, firm and friendly counselling would help a boy grow more truly towards maturity than the traditional adult resort to punishment. I want to express my thanks to the students and masters who worked during the past year towards the integration of spirit which characterized our school. Next year let us build even further on this feeling of mutual trust and understanding. Harry M. Beer. Seven