Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

Page 15 text:

This is the unique occasion also because it is the only chance any of us will have to hold our 100th and 125th birthdays at once - or even separately. This is also the unique school. For me it still recalls the happiest and perhaps even the most profitable days of my life. When I finally tore myself away, I made sure of a permanent connexion and free meals by picking out the man most. likely to succeed and introducing my sister to him. As Mr. Rogers talked about the history of this, one of the oldest schools of Canada, I know we all felt happy to be part of that distinguished tradition. I 'think we are all aware further- more, much more aware than they are themselves, of what we all owe to the remarkable Rogers family - and I am not just thinking of the fact that Sam Rogers used to sign the first pay-cheques I ever got. There are so many old friends and worthy people here that I shall be in trouble if I start mentioning them. If I miss any of you I shall pick you up at the next centennial. However, I cannot refrain from noting with respect the great Headmaster who brought me here and put up with me. The McCulley impact on Canadian education was a remarkable one. I find myself remembering him today, however, less as the great educator he was and more as the towering figure who had almost as much vitality in his thirties as he has now. When we used to try to play tennis where these floors now rest, we could always hear Joe rendering for us from his bath the entire choral movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. This year, 1967, is being proclaimed a year to look forward, a time to con- template our second century or, in the case of this College, the last three quarters of our second century. I am all in favour of the forward look, but on this occasion I would like to defy the fashion and direct your attention backwards. Sometimes, like hockey players, we have to turn backwards to see our own goal. Put this down to my extreme old age if you like. I don't pretend to be the voice of youth, I am getting ready for my own personal second century, and I feel like it. I promise, however, to end up on the note you have every right to expect - that young people of today are a very good thing and on the right 4 V .lflrf--,.T 'P I '3 f ' 'TCE' 5 XB'- gg :- '. 1----'T' gqs-:lf-5'-4 Q.. Centennial Dinner Speaker, John W. Holmes, with Eric Ferguson, Edmund Ryncrd, The Headmaster, and Clark Lockley. Eleven

Page 14 text:

Centennial Dinner Address An address given by John W. Holmes, Director-General of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, at the official opening of the new Dining Hall of Pickering College on March llth, 1967, in honourof the one hundred and twenty- fifth anniversary of the founding of Pickering College and the one hundredth birthday of Confederation. Mr. Holmes is a former member of our staff. Ladies, students of Pickering College and other gentlemen. If I tell you it is an honour and privilege to be here, you will assume that is the first line I use on every speech day. You would be wrong. This is an occasion like no other. For one thing, it is the first timel have ever been asked to open a dining hall, blessing its rafters and christening its china. I am more often asked to talk about recognizing China. The last time I opened my mouth here at lunch was in com- pany with Nobby Wirkowski, a very nice guy who was then coach of the Argos. But on this double anniversary I am not associated with a lost cause. It is a special joy for me also to give my first lecture to the wise man who taught me to want to be a historian, Dr. Arthur Dorland, and to whom I owe an early inculcation of the principles of generosity and tolerance in looking at man's history. I profited from the Quakers even before I came here. In such company I am unwisely going to be a bit historical this afternoon. My subject on the programme seems to be, O Canada , but whether it should be spelled this way or OH, Canada! I am not sure. Ten

Page 16 text:

track and we all have great hope in the future of our country and this school because of your shining faces, clean, fresh minds, and short hair - sheared every September by the Headmaster, I am told, without any regard for artistic values. So now that I have given you my finale, I can get on with the speech. I have proved, I hope, that I am not anti-youth, I wouldn't dare. Still I am going to stick up for your ancestors, now that I am beginning to feel more and more like an ancestor myself. Recently The Times of London published a special supplement on Canada which began with a statement of a young Canadian from Alberta where, if you believe the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, people stay young till the age of ninety. She said she had a lot of faith in this country, and that was nice of her. She and Edmonton seemed to be doing very well, but she had a great big chip on her shoulder about everybody who had had anything to do with Canada up until about February, 1967. The only way to make progress, she seemed to sug- gest, was to kick over the traces. This isn't unusual, I shared the same view until about September, 1933, when Istarted confronting thebrute facts of life as Master in charge of the senior corridor. It was during the Depression, and as jobs were scarce, tired parents used to send their sons back to school till they were about 44. At least, I was 22, and that's how old they looked to me. Now I have aged, like a piece of old Ontario cheddar, and I have acquired more interest and affec- tion for the ingredients that went into me. We can't build a strong country unless we understand the nature of its foundations. Surely that is one of the elementary facts of construction. In our case that means going back much more than one hundred years - back to the more glamorous parts before our souls were deadened in the noble but boring struggle for responsible government. Professor Purdy may leave the room. One of the crazy ideas we must get rid of is the illusion that we are a young country. We are young in the sense that we have good teeth and our best years are ahead of us, but there has been a country called Canada for three and a half centuries. It is important right now to get our vision of this country straight by recognizing that we didn't start with Sir John A. Macdonald or even Sir Guy Carleton but with Samuel de Champlain - the man from Orillia. This is not the hundredth birthday of Canada, it's the hundredth birthday of Confederation. Even as a Confederation we are about the same age as Germany and Italy and really ancient compared with most members of the United Nations. And we are older even than Champlain because our political and cultural roots began in Britain and France and the many other countries from which our ances- tors sprang - or were sprung. For too long we have used this excuse of youth to explain away our failures - as the reason why we don't produce great plays, beautiful cities with sidewalks, or beautiful television shows like The Beverley Hillbillies - or win international tournaments. Moscow is, after all, over nine hundred years oldg so how could we expect to stand up to their hockey team with a few nice boys from Winnipeg and little Carl Brewer. As a respectable old lady of 350 - well partly respectable - it is time we got off this youth kick. Tll'L7llfC'