St Johns High School - Torch Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Page Five

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FORE W O R D A YEAR AGO, the school was instructed by the Manitoba Department of Education to find out what could be done to make the High School of to-day more efficient. In order that we may be free to experiment, the University has agreed to accept our students without examination. The experiment, or study, began with the 1945-46 Grade Ten Classes. Our first step was to define the purpose of the High School. The definition we have accepted is that the purpose of the High School is to maintain and extend the democratic way of life as it should be lived. From this we deduce that living, not learning, is the true objective of the school, and that our main task is to train up a better type of individual. For this purpose, we conclude that curriculum is less important than mind-training, and that, in turn, mind-training is less important than character training. These principles dominate the work of the school. Realizing that individuals differ profoundly and that complete adjust¬ ment of the individual is essential to the good life, we have greatly extended our counselling service. Each student will have two or three interviews in the course of the year, and everything possible will be done to make of him a well-adjusted person whose life brings him many and real satis¬ factions. We are laying great stress on the provision of increased opportunities for character-training. Each class is required to accept responsibility for the attendance, conduct and progress of each one of its members. It will take time to develop among the students a school spirit that will insist on the full and complete discharge of this obligation. An excellent start has been made, and we shall persevere, because we believe that the world’s great need to-day is for citizens with a well-developed sense of civic and community responsibility. And we know that only by giving persons responsibilities, can we develop in them a sense of responsibility. So we give greatly, and in return, ask greatly. We are also trying to explain to our students the world in which they live. We are trying to bring before them the important issues of the day, local, national, and international. We are encouraging them to read widely. In every way we are trying to get them to take an intelligent attitude towards life and the world at large. The enthusiastic co-operation of staff and students ensures that the school will benefit greatly from the experiment. It is within the bounds of possibility that the school may achieve an outstanding success through this experiment. To all the students who have taken a part in the preparation and publication of this admirable volume, my grateful thanks. To all graduating students, my sincerest good-wishes. G. J. REEVE Page Four

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EDITORIAL T IME has strange qualities. To the members of the teaching staff, and possibly to our worn old buildings, this year seems much the same as last year, or as next year will seem. But to us, the class of 1946-1947, this year is individual and will stand out in our memory as our first, second, or last year at Tech. In after life, we shall seat ourselves once more in the stands of Osborne chanting, “Hold that line,” or return to the gym on a day when a game was won or lost by a basket. Some insignificant letters placed together to form a name will unite us again with friends, well loved in their time, forgotten in separation. For awhile, we shall again be in a classroom, laughing at someone’s poor joke, or we shall walk across the stage, horribly nervous, seemingly indifferent but inwardly proud, to receive a bar. The bustling fair; the opera with its sweet notes and pleasant smelling grease-paint; “duked-up” boys and girls swaying to dreamy music at eve¬ ning socials; an athlete exerting his last dribble of energy to cross the finish line after a gruelling half-mile: all these and more will flood our mind. How sweet seem high school days, and how pleasant they will be to recall. The marks which seem so precious now will in those days lose their charm, and we’ll wonder why we bothered to pass. We’ll yearn to recap¬ ture just one day of this lost existence. A little thought on the cause of that relative happiness at Tech is well worth while, and an hour spent lovingly with a “Torch” need not be con¬ sidered wasted. Half the pain and trouble in the world is caused by preju¬ dice and ignorance, and a great deal of this springs from nationality. At school, we took for granted the harmony existing between Cohen, McPher¬ son, Karlinsky, O’Brien and Wong, and no Tech graduate should think of permitting prejudice or persecution be cause of nationality. This har¬ mony has been written about before, but while discord on account of these relationships goes on, such an outstanding example of success as ours should be stressed. At Tech the question is not, “Who are you?” but “What can you do?” We know it’s easier to preach by the mile than practice by the inch, so we take this opportunity of presenting a reminder. We hope that recollections such as these, brought by musing over this book, will help us da our share in making a better world. Society, in its broader sense, has produced an expensive, uneconomical book so that we may more easily become broad-minded thinkers and throw our weight into the fight for a world which is working as a whole towards a common goal, not destroying itself by petty jealousies. We are given a model com¬ munity working harmoniously under judicious leaders, as an example. Let this book show what our school is trying to do, outside of giving a super¬ ficial education which could be learned more quickly and efficiently in other ways. If we are shown the objectives of our education, surely we can achieve those objectives. We have tried to produce a book with pictures to flatter your vanities, write-ups to prompt your memories, art to please yo-ur cultural tastes, and jokes to make you laugh. We hope we have succeeded. Yet the more abstract purpose of the “Torch” is to capture in its pages that indefinable something which makes St. John’s a great school. Call that something spirit, or pride, or what you will, it still escapes definition. In years to come, as we leaf through the “Torch,” we shall gratefully find that spirit drawing us back into the amazing and wonderful life of high school days. By H. Page Six