Selwyn House School - Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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26 SELWYN HOUSE SCHOOL MAGAZINE Public Speaking Doctor S. Penton, Headmaster of Lower Canada College, kindly iudged the speeches this year and awarded first prize to Gregory Sheppard for his amusing, witty, and well delivered talk A Poem of Protest. Second prize went to Mark Lazar for his speech on Air Polution. Other speakers were: Peter Hadekel on French Canada and Confederation. Danny Delmar on Hippies - The Dissident Minority. Robert Seely on Nobody in Particular. Gregory Sheppard is to be congratulated on also winning the Westmount Rotary Public Speaking Contest. A Poem of Protest IThe Winning Speechj This morning I am going to devote my time and attention to an analysis of a well know poem, and I hope to show you that there is in this poem, a deep social significance and a strong protest against oppression. One should not be deceived by the apparent superficial simplicity of the poem, which I will read to you in a moment. The poet has been at pains to clothe his revolutionary message in the outward trappings of artless and simple rhyme. Often in this world of atomic weapons and computors, we are apt to overlook the wise and meaningful verses of yesteryear. The poem - you all know it - has been passed from generation to generation, in trouble and in happiness, in feast and in famine, in war and in peace. Baa baa black sheep Have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, Three bags full. One for my master, One for my dame, And one for the little boy Who lives down the lane. Let us examine this poem line by line, let us see once and for all, what that long gone poet meant to tell us, with subtlety and conclusively. This poem is of course as you will undoubtedly have realised by now, about the plight of the oppressed negro slave in the Southern States of America. Line I - Baa baa black sheep Here the rich white landowner is addressing his negro slave, portrayed cleverly in this poem by the black sheep. It must be remembered that the poet did not wish to openly cry out in support of the negro, but was forced from fear of censorship to clothe his poem in this clever disguise. Line 2 - Have you any wool? He says . . . have you any wool . . . not please have you any wool, or can I buy your wool, no, this is an order, . .. give me that wool . . .!!! Here a debatable point is raised when many critics argue... This poem could not be about the plight of the Southern American Negro, because no sheep are raised there.

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FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR 1967-1968 25 deb at ' ng At a preliminary meeting the following officers were elected: President: Peter Hadekel Vice-President: Robert Seely Secretary: Brandon Ayre Treasurer: Gregory Sheppard Time-Keeper: Edward Pitula House Debates - first round: Resolve that religious dogma promotes evil. Affirmative: - Lucas House - Robert Seely, Jeremy Clark Negative: - Macaulay House - John Despic, Edward Pitula Resolve that marriage is an obsolescence . Affirmative: - Wanstall House - Brandon Ayre, Gregory Sheppard Negative: - Speirs House - Danny Delmar, Peter Hadel-cel Mr. Hill judged Lucas and Speirs to be the winners. House Debates - second round: Resolve that capital punishment should be abolished. Affirmative: - Speirs House - Eric Hamovitch, Mark Lazar Negative: - Macaulay House - John Despic, Edward Pitula. Resolve that the United Nations has outlived its usefulness . Affirmative: Lucas House - Robert Seely, Jeremy Clark Negative: Wanstall House - Brandon Ayre, Gregory Sheppard Mr. Moodey and Mr. Hill judged Speirs and Lucas to be the winners. House Debates - third round lfinali: Resolve that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Affirmative: - Speirs House - Danny Delmar, Peter Hadekel Negative: - Lucas House - Robert Seely, Jeremy Clark Mr. Hill and Mr. Martin judged Speirs to be the winner, and Speirs carried off the debating cup for this year. P. H.

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FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR 1967-1968 27 However, I am glad to say Petrofsky the well known Soviet Psycholo- gist, quells most arguments when he says, and I quote, Presvetof nichania borevitch comistye trevidof which when freely translated reads The poet used wool instead of cotton as the produce, because cotton would not fit the rhyme, and also because when the poet discovered that in fact sheep were not raised in the Southern States, he had already written the poem. Line 3 - Let us return Yes, sir, yes sir The oppressed negro humbly replies yes sir he knows that he has to say Sir or face whipping or even worse, a white washing. Line 4 - Three bags full Here one can see very clearly how hard the negro slave has toiled to produce three whole, full bags of wool. You might think that three bags is not a particularly large amount of wool, and it is to you doubters that I address my next sentence. These bags were not small shopping bags, or even the size of coal bags, no, they were larger still. Great Big Large Bags of Wool . Line 5 - One for my master, one for my dame The negro slave is forced to give one bag to his master and one bag to his master's wife, what loyalty and humbleness exists in the mind of this slave. Now the poor negro slave after so much toil has only one bag left, what does he do with the last bag? Listen carefully to his touching episode, he gives it to the little boy who lives down the lane. He gives away his last bag of wool. This is very moving, we were not told anything about this boy, whether he was rich or poor, whether he was a good boy or a bad boy, and most important, whether he was black or white. ln conclusion, let me leave you with this beautiful quotation of Bas- quali iwhose name is well known for his profound critique of Goosey, Goosey Ganderl. Basquali said of this masterpiece of poetic subtlety, and I quote The snail moves slowly, but he cannot be crushed by the butterfly . Gregory E. SHEPPARD Air Pollution CAwarded 2nd Prizel Take a good look at the person on your right, now, take a good look at the person on your left. In 'IO years, one decade, I of the 3 of you will have em h sema. Em h sema? A disease causing the lungs to lose their ox gen P Y P Y Y absorbing capabilities, forcing a person to breath harder, but retain less oxygen. Man's malignant gift to himself, air pollution, is the T60 million tons of waste matter which is dumped into our atmosphere annually by North Americans. This huge amount of airborn matter is almost entirely the generous contribution of our booming industries. The chimneys of factories profusely belch huge amounts of dense acrid black smoke into the air each day. Until recently, the poisoning of our atmosphere was recognized by obscure beaureaucratic government agencies, but little else was done.