Saltus Grammar School - Yearbook (Hamilton, Bermuda)

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Editorial The functions of a school magazine are threefold: to record the activities of the past year: to publish original work indicative of th« intellectual life of the school: to link the Present with the Past. As far as the first is concerned, the magazine performs its func- tion adequately: in the second case, ONE voluntary contribution has been made to this issue, and one suspects that the articles are culled from the English Examination Papers: the third — and entirely ne- glected — aspect of Saltus life should be remedied forthwith. In front of me I have a High School magazine, edited by the pu- pils, not the staff, in which I read that X has just been demobilised from the Royal Marines, that Y was married at such-and-such a church to Z, and that A passed his final examination for the degree of B.Sc. Would it be too much to ask that Old Boys kept the Editor (better still, the Headmaster, as the most permanent institution) informed of their wanderings, promotions, and marriages, so that the maga zine might become a true record of the life of the school? THE EDITOR.

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Governing Body His Honour Sir John Cox, T. W. P. Vesey, Esq. C.B.E., M.C.P. Hon. B. T. Gosling, Esq. C. Vail Zuill, Esq., J.P. Hon. Sir Eldon Trimingham, C.B.E. Headmaster H. J. Hallett, Esq., M.A. Secretary-I ' reasurer Mrs. M. E. Dill staff J. H. Kerry, Esq., M.A. F. L. Stephenson, Esq. E. Walton, Esq., M.A. W. G. Rosser, Esq., B.A. P. L. Helm, Esq., M.A. D. E. DeSilva, Esq., B.A. R. S. Alger, Esq. A. H. Dixon, Esq. Mrs. Edith Trott Miss Edith Smith Mrs. J. H. Kerry (Art). J. R. Bridge, Esq., (Music).

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5 Empire Day Celebrations On May 25th. the school was most fortunate in having aa its dis- tinguished Visitor and speaker Vice-Admiral Sir J. Felgate Stevens, K.B.E., C.B., who was accompanied by Lady Stevens. Vice-Admiral Stevens is Deputy Allied Supreme Commander in the Atlantic, and in command of the American and West Indies Station. At the beginning of his speech, he stressed that Empire Day should be a day of particular pride to Bermuda, as she was the oldest British colony, possessed the oldest representative parliament outside West- minster, and had always been British. Referring to his own schooldays, he remarked how he had looked at Mercator ' s Projection, and noted the vast areas of red denoting the British Empire; since then- there had been great changes, and a Com- monwealth of Nations had sprung into being, with self-government and independence by constitutional agreement the keynotes. The last revolutionary success in Empire history was in 1776, with the conse- quent loss of our American colonies; but it was a fine thing that we shared our history with the United States; he felt that some inscruta- ble providence had made that beginning of the States develop to its present power to redress the evils of the world. The Commonwealth of Nations was unique in its freeness, having no written rules, and possessing a coherence that had never been matched before. The touchstone of the whole organisation was the binding power of the Crown. Wherever Empire in the strict sense of the word had passed, we had left another empire behind. Long years before the changes, Macaulay had foreseen the ultimate destiny of the Empire of British India, when he wrote: The sceptre may pass away from us, but there is an empire exempt from all natural causes of decay — the imperishable empire of our arts (by which he meant our ' skills ' ) and our morals, our literature, and our laws. Although British Imperialism and Colonialism had sometimes met with opprobrium, our record was one to be proud of; we had brought good government and better conditions wherever we had gone, and the members of the Empire had grown by gradual degrees to a state of greater responsibility, while the Mother Country still remained the centre and heart, as it was also the centre of communications. Today these communications between one part of the Empire and Great Britain were still largely carried on the seas, which both divided and linked those foreign stations that covered the whole globe.