Shawnigan Lake School - Yearbook (Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia Canada)

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ohawnigan Lake Ochoo Magazine £ 1939 « yjr »

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« Editorial » IN OFFERING to the small, but critical, circle of our readers the 1939 number of the School Magazine, we crave their sympathetic indulgence if they find that the new copy is somewhat restricted as compared with the fine effort of last year ; but we have to cut our coat according to the cloth. Now that the uneasy peace since Munich has been broken, and Canada, with the rest of the Empire, is once more at war, the School can hardly expect to escape all the consequences of such an upheaval. The first of these to affect us has been the loss of some valued members of the staff, who have joined the army. To these, together with all our Old Boys who are in the fighting services, we wish a speedy and safe return to civil life after the successful conclusion of the great crusade in which they are engaged. Our readers must not imagine that the School has been reorgan- ized to adapt itself to a war economy, or that its members have developed a Avar mentality to the exclusion of all activities proper to the conduct of such an institution. On the contrary, everything goes on a usual, and in the profound peace of Shawnigan Lake, and British Columbia in general, except for the occasional uniform seen on the streets, it is hard to realize that the co untry is at war at all, and man goes about his lawful business unmolested and unafraid. The year past has been memorable for other reasons, of which the visit of the King and Queen to Canada is the most noteworthy. For this unique occasion the School was given a long leave to enable us to see Their Majesties, and to show our loyalty to the Crown. This feeling seems to have been genuine and spontaneous, and we still are unable to solve the problem as to who saw the royal visitors the largest number of times, or who was nearest to the King, or, still more important, nearest to the Queen. Loyalty to the Crown is the binding force which unites the many and diverse parts of the Empire ; but the King, while he symbolizes in his own person the ideals of freedom, justice and fair-play for which the British Commonwealth stands, cannot preserve them without the co-operation of his subjects. It is the duty of the citizens of each state to hold fast to these ideals, and by ' collective pressure to force the government to base its policies on such ideals. In a school things are rather different. It would be obviously impossible for the Middle School, or for any other group, to dictate the management of the whole; but this does not imply that no boy should have a high standard of conduct because perhaps he feels unable to compel its general adoption by the prefects and the default- ers. There should be the same personal standard for all — clear-cut and unmistakable — unswerving loyalty to all good influences in the school, and uncompromising opposition to all harmful ones. The pursuit of such an ideal, though we may never measure up to its full [ 3 ]