Saint Laurent High School - Milestone Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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SECOND PRIZE THE EVILS OF MATERIALISM The trouble with our modern society is that a man ' s acceptance and success is measured in money. The fact that this is the criterion in the western world leads man to steal, lie, cheat, rob and murder in order to achieve this level of acceptance. What has happened? Where did man fail? What went wrong? Why is it that when you talk of a friend you are asked what kind of a job he has, how much education? People are not interested in his intelligence or his wel- fare; they simply want to know his economic, and in a way, social status. Why is it that the criterion of success isn ' t a life you find challenging, a job you get satisfaction from, people, friends that you make happy and make you happy in return, but a split-level house, two-car garage, a good address, one or two latest model, chromiest cars, a private school for your children and wall-to-wall carpets? What has happened to change the values of society into those where security no longer means the assurance that you are loved and cared for, but that you are loaded down with Life, Health, Car, Liability Insurance and every other kind of financial security that can be imagined? Was man always this materialistic? Did he always pui such an inflated value an money? Perhaps there was a time when man ' s truest enjoyment came from nature and .fellow man, but in this modern age I see so many people taking refuge in the premise that materialism brings happiness. How much happiness can you derive from a thing ? No matter how many clothes, cars, jewel-encrusted goblets and Eiffel Towers you possess, they are still only things . They don ' t grow, breathe, live, change, respond. And common to all things , the pleasure and happiness you get from them will dwindle and thoughts of more exciting and beautiful things will fill your mind. So many young people are disillusioned by the pros- pects of materialism. When I ask students their ambitions, the answer invariably is fame and fortune , wealth and happiness money and success , or some variation. Little do they understand that money will not lead to happiness, but au contraire will lead to frustration and unhappiness because they will be up to their necks in payments for things that have long since lost their ability to please, and which they couldn ' t afford to begin with. Materialism is a trap into which the unwary and unhappy too often fall. Lured by the vain promises that materialism will be a means to their opal of happiness, success or recognition, they find that it is an end in itself, an end from which there is no escaping. Mary Louise Holubek CAN MONEY MEASURE SUCCESS? Can money measure success? This question raises another query — what is success ? The dictionary defines it as a termination of affairs; attainment of an object according to one ' s desires, now often with parti- cular reference to wealth or position . Immediately the question of money arises. The origin of the word money is of special interest in this case. It was named after a special power of the goddess Juno and meant warning . Indeed, today money is worshipped as a goddess was in ancient times. Does the majority of people in the world strive primarily for material wealth? Unfortunately it does. Therefore once one has earned a considerable amount of money, success has been attained. From the point of view of a person who works seeking emotional satisfaction, money definitely is not a measure of success. To this individual, only the extent of his own sense of fulfillment and humanity ' s appre- ciation determine the degree of his success. This person is often financially poorer than his opposite, since he will take any job at any salary if he feels that he can do it well and benefit mankind by his efforts. By defini- tion he is successful since he has achieved his goal, al- though his family may starve in sufferance of his beliefs. Thus opinions are in conflict. I do not believe it is right to generalize in this situation. Rather, upon consider- ing both points of view, one must agree that the solution to the question lies within the individual, depending on his goal in life. This conclusion is based on the assumption that success can be measured. I feel that since success is abstract it cannot be reckoned. Does a smile gauge happiness? There can be joy without a smile and a smile without joy. The same principal applies to the validity of money as a measurement of success. Sheila Chaplin THOUGHTS ON THE FILM OUR UNIVERSE Deep, vast, empty. These were the impressions which swept over me upon viewing Our Universe . The idea of space being endless in depth sent a shiver through me, as I saw the vast emptiness and loneliness of space. Amazement was my second reaction as I saw the wonders of the sun. The film showed how the sun, by constant nuclear explosions, sends out rays to the earth 45

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III. VOICES: What a sight he is! It ' s a shame. A pity. Woe. Woe. It ' s not his fault. A derangement. Definitely. A pity. A pity. He ' s on an odyssey (of a sort). Prometheus laughed and the gods laughed too. Ugh! Ugly, isn ' t it? Will not fit. And dripping. Disgust! Where shall he be put? Ugh, over there in the corner — I see only what I want to see. Never heard a peep out of him. Thought I heard a noise. There was a wee voice. He could not fit. IN UNISON: We did our best. CURTAIN. by Grante Fox SENIOR ESSAY FIRST PRIZE THE THREE ITS You might find a group of these people — uneducated, unemployed and unhappy — aimlessly clustered in a neighbourhood drugstore, or hanging around a street corner gloomily smoking cigarettes. Some sit idly on the front steps of cheerless houses thinking, and dreaming and weaving useless hopes. They are young, mostly in their teens and early twenties. Yet the problem they face is serious enough to make them old. Right now it is particularly acute and threatening to become worse. What is this all about? Who are these young people? What is their problem? Surprising as it may seem, these young people make up the largest single age group of unemployed workers in Canada. Almost all these youngsters are so-called dropouts, students who left school before earning a diploma. Theirs are the faces that were missing from the high school yearbooks. Over two-thirds of those who enter school eventually drop out without graduating. This situation is potentially the most dangerous social condition existing today. Uneducated, these teenagers will have to become part of an adult world in which education is a must . What are the hidden reasons that cause teenagers to leave school besides obvious low grades? Some are the underprivileged products of city slums. They quit to get away from their area and the unhappiness which may prevail in their households. By going to work and living on their own, they escape. But many come from rich homes. They are perhaps spoiled and to obtain the things denied, they leave school to earn it themselves. Another type are those who unfortunately get involved with the wrong bunch of friends. Maybe one of them has found himself in trouble with the police and become convinced that his record was ruined. What, he thinks, is the use of trying anymore? Others leave school after they ' ve had a summer job and a taste of earning money. Explanations are as varied as the faces of the teenagers. Some are compelled to leave to help support a large family, thousands come from broken homes. In some areas the would-be dropout is now being looked after by a process of early detection. It may be possible, by starting in the primary grades to influence and reduce the number of dropouts. Some symptoms are easy to discover, playing hookey and being continu- ously tardy are two; getting a report with low or failing marks is a probable third. Behaviour problems are the hardest to find and those are often the causing factors. Such youngsters are not just statistics or bodies. They ' re people. They need encouragement; they need understanding. But what about those who are presently uneducated, unemployed and consequently unhappy? It is essential that these young people be provided with the kind of education and training that will give to them satisfying working careers in today ' s world. Generally the picture is grim. As society becomes more and more highly mechanized, certain jobs disappear. The remaining jobs, as well as the new ones that are created, require in- creasing degrees of skill. The mass production industries no onger absorb the large number of unskilled or semi- skilled workers they once did. Of the jobs available today, only a very small number — four out of every 100 — do not require any education. Reliable predictions say, moreover, that this small percent will decrease in the years ahead. Unskilled, they will try to find employment in a labour market in which jobs often vanish at the click of a switch. The new jobs that machines have created demand what the dropouts lack — a better education. The problem the unemployed dropout faces then becomes painfully clear. He is trapped in an impossible situation. First, he is unable to qualify for the skilled jobs that are open, and second, the supply of unskilled jobs he might be able to fill is decreasing rapidly. These then are our dropouts, who compile the great tragedy of our time — youngsters who failed in high school because they couldn ' t do the work, or youth who could have done the work but wouldn ' t. They are the cruelly mixed-up teenagers with family, school, or social problems who didn ' t graduate and for whom we can ' t produce jobs. Now, when it is too late, they realize that education and training are the keys to a better future. All of them are uneducated, unemployed and unhappy. This statement is as true now as when Thomas- Jefferson said: — If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be . Gloria Kolker

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and other planets. I thought of what would happen if earth suddenly lost this source of heat and light. The film showed asteroids drifting aimlessly through space, and various planets, empty and barren, which set a mood of utter desolation. Mystery was an interesting aspect of the film as it displayed comets hurtling through space and bizarre worlds such as Jupiter with its moons and Saturn with its rings, also Pluto a forbidding and distant world. I feel you cannot view this film, and not think about the creator of this strange, hidden world. Who could pos- sibley have created a world of emptiness and vastness, and yet not have created one living being? What was His purpose in creating two worlds, one of life and love, and one of solitude and infinity? If, on the other hand, the planet known as earth was created when an as- teroid ' s fragments settled here, we should be happy to have such a world, where we enjoy the wonders of sum- mer and winter, day and night, unlike the moon where one side endures perpetual light of two hundred and twelve degrees and the dark side an equal amount of coldness. The idea is quite depressing when I think that space, with its infinite size, should be so forbidding and lonely and this only makes me question, why, and for what purpose, if any, The Almighty, if he exists, created this vast, emptiness known as Our Universe . Lionel Dubrofsky and each time a new discovery is found the gap bet- ween man and God widens. There are still, however, several unanswerable questions: Who or what is behind the creation of the world beyond our earth, the universe, something so im- mense and so perplexing to the eye of even an astron- omer? Why are there galaxies and meteors? Why are they so plentiful and so distant, but most of all, why are they there? All these questions come to mind when we get close up, and with the help of telescopes, nearly right in space. When, however, one falls back to earth, the universe again becomes something distant, minute and unimportant. Materialistic sights and sounds take over and vanquish the wonder in man ' s mind, reducing the planets and stars to unmeaningful and unnecessary bodies which are nice but have no use. To go back on another trip, however, through the universe makes man want to delve into the mystery of its creation more than before. The need to find the source of its immensity and strangeness. The feeling cannot be lost and there comes a great faith out of the doubt, for doubt does cause faith and from this faith comes a feeling of a power too great to imagine, for someone or something great enough to create the uni- verse is unimaginable to Man. Ann Otto The universe in its immensity is an awe-inspiring subject to all mankind. Man begins to wonder at the size, the distance and the chance of there being other life in distant timeless space. All the romantic ideas of the stars, sun and moon are shattered when one is cata- pulted upwards ino their midst. How would lovers feel, if, on looking upwards at the stars and moon, they had only visions of burning spheres and reflecting globes? While we do not see them as these, there may come a time in the future when all men will be scientifically trained and every child will know the number of rings around Saturn, the path a comet takes, and what makes the sun burn like a fierce oven. When this does happen all mankind will suffer. There will be no more romantic thoughts and everyone will be concerned with knowing and being familiar with the empty yet full world of space. Was it not better when the Egyptians worshipped the sun, and the Wise Men read a sign from God in a glowing star? Then there was true belief in a superior being, one who made all the heavenly bodies for beauty. Now the people of the world are turning into skeptics The universe around us is one of the greatest mysteries that has ever interested mankind. From primi- tive man to modern man the stars and planets have filled humans with awe. Primitive man watched the sun rise and set, day after day, season after season, and wondered why it kept on going. He saw the moon and the stars give him light when the sun disappeared. A comet or nova filled him with fear, for it was unusual and incomprehensible. Modern man has solved many mysteries of the universe, but as his knowledge grows, more mysteries appear. He now knows that the stars are actually suns, but he wonders if there are habitable planets in their solar systems, too. He finds that there are other planets in our solar system, and wants to know more. He, like primitive man, wonders how the universe was formed. Primitive man, to explain what he saw, incorporated the universe into religion. The ancient Greeks created Apollo, the sun-God, who set out every morning in his golden chariot, to race over the sky. The moon was deified also. A comet or nova was a message from the Gods. 46