Toronto Teachers College - Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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First Prize: Search for Identity What is a Canadian? lt has been said that a Canadian is a person who wanders around asking what is a Canadian? There seems to be a strange psychological urgency underlying this question of identity which plagues so many people of our country. Sooner, or later, most of us come to a period in our lives when we stop and suddenly ask ourselves this most important of questions. Newspaper editors, authors, actors, playwrights and many others whose work has impact upon us, ask this question, both of themselves and ofthe community. Many high-sounding definitions have been given, but still, the true meaning seems to elude us. Much time, effort and financial resources have been expended in order to produce a piece of bunting, which, itwas imagined, would symbolize our nationhood and give us something of which we could be proud. This, ofcourse, is tantamount to saying that the cause would follow the effect, or, the pride of nation would follow the symbolization of it. One receives the impression of this vast country heaving and straining in a gigantic giving birth . All over Canada, we appear to be striving desperately to emerge as an identity, straining to achieve a kind of Hegllian triad of being, nothing and becoming . The sad fact is, though, thatwe are never just sure in which category of the triad we are, at any given moment. Even in our nationalism, the realization of which we appear to seek so earnestly and whole-heartedly, there is disunity. The English-speaking citizen hasn't much time for his French-speaking counterpart, nor has the Frenchman much patience for his Anglo-Saxon neighbour. The reasons for this distressing lack of identity are too numerous to discuss in detail. Suffice it is to say that they are - political, economical, geographical and historical . . . To mention iust two of these, the geographical and historical, it seems fairly obvious that the influence of two distinct cultures has profoundly and indubitably affected our national temperament. On one side, there is ofcourse, the mother country with all its staid and conservative traditions. Traditions of pomp and circumstance and old established methods. While, on the other side, the gigantic, sprawling and restless young nation with all its precocious strength, the mighty United States of America. These two vastly differing cultures lin practically everything except languagel, represent the thesis and antithesis of our dilemma. But might it not be fortunate for us in Canada that we are not tainted with nationalism? We are aware, through sad experience, how much havoc, destruction and misery have been caused by one or another nationalistically minded country. Might not our very indetermination serve as an advantage rather than a disadvantage? Would it not be a higher and nobler ideal for us to seek identity with the whole world, in the vast brotherhood of mankind, regardless of colour, creed or material considerations? If we must be labelled, let us label ourselves as humanitarians and tear down the barriers, not only those standing between nations, butthose in ourminds. When we are able to do this,vand not until then, will we be able to lift ourselves up to a truer and nobler concept of identity. Let us hope, for the sake of man- kind, that this day be not too long in coming. J. ARTHUR PEAKE, Form 30 Page I3

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Second Prize Somewhere - A Child She came from somewhere , they said, Yes that foreign land, where many lie dead, Where small ones cry in a red-reelced bed. With distended belly and skeletal frame, The badge of malnutrition remains the same. A wooden cross and a cold grey stone, And another child is all alone, We speak of peace, that holy dove, While children starve from lack of love. How long can we remai' .o mild, When somewhere - a child. . LINDA SILVER, Form 34 Wit s. f ix' ., g l l, J,'5e, , R 0 . il we lll. .cies Y ' l' if - 7 clit lb A - T ! , XX i X ,Q A XXX, '-ly lx fi 1. N lt c T , iii. Ty . :li f ' ttf' he f Ti -M D-RS A ' - v , , '-A lx, T,-tj ef 1 y HEATHER PATTERSON . ll + A T A i 'T it 1 , - fe -Q-- FORM4 ll9f g Str -- Si' I 3 N, 'S 1 'i - Villanueva y Geltru Another day breaks. The light of evening flickers, wavering between dusk and dawn. In villanueva life originates. The babble of three thousand voices - A myriad of narrow dusty paths - Dark holes peer out into a not-so-new ebulliency - lndistinguishable patter of racing feet- child or animal, Who can tell? Midnight. Music blaring - Poverty surrounds herself with superficialities. Those crazy Parisians on the next floor - boy do they sing loudly! At length into night, the shutters of Castell del Hostal filter a radiance that brings no rest. The advancing harshness of a Spanish day discloses not a sound. Such lies they tell, the sleepy eyes of Spanish men. A. BUSS, Form ll Page T4