Royal St Georges College - Georgian Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

Page 8 text:

HEADMASTER FAREVVELL CHAPEL ADDRESS ,,, 'S Q i 4

Page 7 text:

:Q- f

Page 9 text:

It was ten years ago this September that I stood in this pulpit and said my first words to the school as their new headmaster. Save for some members of the present staff, none of you were here at that time. Yet, in many senses, the school I speak to now is the same school I spoke to then, for the idea of this school binds us all - the present, the past, and even the future - into a larger unity which is the true St. George's College. Ten years ago I expressed the firm belief that this chapel is at the very centre of the life of our school. In the intervening years I have found no reason to change that belief. Our coming here regularly, as we do, has many purposes - and many benefits, if we but open our ears, our eyes, our minds, and even our hearts. This, we have so often been told, is a place in which to worship God. There are many ways of doing this - many more than most of us, perhaps, suspect. But somehow we have allowed ourselves to become locked into the idea that worshipping is listening impassively to prayers intoned, to psalms chanted, to lessons read, to sermons preached, and to hymns sung by a captive congregation. What does it all mean? we ask. OR Can it mean all that much? OR Who cares? There are in English grammar, as I hope most of you know, three persons in the singular CI, you, and he, she or itj, and three persons in the plural fwe, you, and theyl, the latter being but extensions of the former. Taken together with their verbs, these six persons allow us to express most of what we know and understand about human experience. Of these six persons, surely the most interesting, the most revealing, and at times the most dangerous, is the first person singular: I. Everytime we use this person, we say something about ourselves - sometimes more than we wish to say. It is most especially the first person singular which announces, for better or for worse, our humanity, and which gives that humanity its particular characteristics. One of the most remarkable of those characteristics, I think, is that, although we are all separate, individual beings, no two of us being exactly alike, each of us thinking his own thoughts and living out his own destiny, it seems that we search for a larger unity, that we yearn for a one-ness with our fellow human beings that cannot be satisfied within the individual. That search, that yearning, finds its expression in our wishing to live together in societies, in our sense of nationality, in our sense of team, in our sense of 'college', in our sense of purpose in striving toward a common goal. Each time we sing our national anthem or our school hymn, we ex- press, however unconsciously, our larger unity. Each time we cheer on our fellows on the playing field, we express the fact, however unconsciously, that, as a school, we are one. And each time we come together in this chapel, we engage in a corporate act which, in its special way, reminds us of that unity which transcends our individual selves. Self-realization and personal destiny are most im- portant elements in that phenomenon we call 'human nature' and deserve their rightful place in the ordering of our lives. Yet there are times, and they are many, when the 'I' in us must give way to the larger need of the 'we', or the 'you' or the 'they' - when individual interest must give way to the larger interest. Indeed, one could say that the greatest task the human spirit has set itself here on earth is to find that ideal and proper relationship between the first person singular - the 'I' - and each of the other five persons. No society, including this little community we call St. George's College, can survive and flourish, if the only voice that is heard is 'I'. No society, including this little community we call St. George's College, can survive and flourish, if its individual members always insist upon putting their own interests ahead of those of others. No society, including this little community we call St. George's College, can survive and flourish UNLESS each and everyone of us is prepared to consider always the effect of his thoughts, of his words, and of his actions upon his fellows - UNLESS each and everyone of us is prepared to give the 'I' its proper place, but no more - UNLESS each and everyone of us is prepared, con- sciously, to make his conscience the master of his will. The task that the human spirit has set itself is, as I have said, a great one. And if we ignore the implications of that task, we do so at our peril. Our coming together in this chapel affords us, then, the opportunity to reflect upon our relationship with our fellows - upon the relationship of the 'I' with the other five persons. In this is the beginning of worthy knowledge. Our coming together in this chapel also affords us the opportunity to sense and to express our awareness of the larger unity for which we yearn. In this are the seeds of true worship. Our prayers, thoughtfully said, our psalms gratefully chanted, our lessons and sermons attentively heard, and our hymns joyfully sung, are but extensions of the first two opportunities we have when we come together in this chapel. Taken together, these three elements of chapel worship afford us the greatest opportunity of all: to recognize the greatest unity of all - our unity in the one God, who is our Father. My dear boys, as my retirement approaches, this is the message I leave to you, and to those who follow. God bless you all. Amen Farewell Chapel Address St. George's College Friday, May 27, 1988 5