United College Collegiate - Tric Tics Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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THE FACULTY. Page 15

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MR. J. H. ASHDOWN. Chairman of the Joint Board of the Co-operating Colleges.

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It’s a great work and exceedingly interesting. Every pro¬ fessor says so. He will always tell you that the greatest pleasure of his life is to watch his student as he develops, to watch the intricate processes, the mighty struggles, as the life gradually but certainly grows and unfolds. No one knows and under¬ stands the student mind as does the professor, and no one is more sympathetic. Unique, however, is the student’s opportunity to know his professor; and his regard and appreciation is keener and more enduring than that of all other friends though they be legion. Appreciation cannot be measured; with difficulty can it be expressed,—it can only be felt. We appreciate our faculty be¬ cause they represent the greatest institutions of learning in America and Europe and have brought to our service a scholar¬ ship brilliant and consecrated. We appreciate them, not only because they see visions and place before us ideals, but more because they make their ideals con crete and become for us examples worthy of imitation. Of course, they have their peculiarities; if they hadn’t they wouldn’t be human. We think of the little smile that creeps over the face of our professor of Latin and remember all the things that that smile may mean. We think of his genial assist¬ ant, so far above us and yet so really one of us. One greets us with a hearty smile, slips his arm around our shoulders, and walks away with us talking more rapidly than we can think. One tells us of his college days, how he fell at the first glance, and, to complete a romantic program, proposed in French. One says, “Now watch me class,” and begins to whistle in medita¬ tion. As we study the English novel how effectually it is staged for us, and in our history we never tire of the rapt expression of a great social ideal. These things strike, but they seem only to make us consider the large life behind them. The men and women who are en¬ trusted with our leadership are men and women of high ideals and purposes. They are great souls, honest and fearless in the search for truth; and tireless in their endeavor to instill into us a heaven-born craving for all that is beautiful, true and good. How crude and uncouth we come; how diverse the motives that impel us! We enter our college career with little idea of the inestimable opportunity that lies before us, little dreaming of the richness of thought and life that may be ours. We do not proceed far on our way of learning before we become vividly aware that after all we are not omniscient, after all we have something yet to realize, something to attain. But we leave, we hope, with a new and larger vision of life and its meaning, a more earnest desire for all that is good and noble, and a more profound determination to pursue and attain a life ideal. What greater tribute could be paid? What larger service could be rendered? Thus we feel, and though our expression of gratitude be feeble, we hope that we ourselves may be its fuller expression in years to come. H. H. D.