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

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This does not mean that their viewpoint is that of the antiquarian who is interested in anything ancient merely because it is ancient, and who is more than likely, because of this, to get lost in the past. Nor does iit mean that they idealize the past or take an uncritical view of it. What it does mean is that they have a truly critical attitude to it, that they see it as it really was, at times noble, at times ignoble, at times creative and progressive, at times destructive and reactionary— but considered as a whole, a mighty contributor to the values enjoyed by them and their contemporaries. And the effect of this is to fill them with a sense of responsibility to the past, a feeling that they them¬ selves, in their own day, must add to the values in their cultural heritage. The writer of Hebrews states this very clearly when he writes: “And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” Only those who isolate themselves from contem¬ porary life, those who rationalize it to accord with some preconceived theory springing, perhaps, from bitter personal experience, fail to develop a due and proper sense of the fact that the living past lives in the actual present, and that our partnership, as Burke puts it, is with the dead as well as with the living. 3. Finally, the great statesman and the writer of the Epistle are alike in this that each has a sense of the relevancy of the immediate present to the future, a confidence that the higher values for which men strive in the present will appeal to generations yet unborn and that progress will be made toward a more satisfying fulfilment of them. It is to be remarked that neither thinks of progress in terms of mere change. For them there are no short¬ cuts to the high goals of social experience. It is to those who seek mean ends that short-cuts through violent force appeal. If, for example, the end in view is the subjugation of one class in society by another, violence may promise to open up a shortcut to such a mean end. Burke makes use of quite a different figure, the figure of partnership. To live in any society is to become a partner in its quest for values, the values which reside in goodness, in beauty and in truth. And at the very centre of the concept of partnership is the idea of the personal responsibility of each partner to all his partners. A partnership is a sharing of values by those who have made an equitable contribution to the creation of those values. Here, then, are two men living thousands of miles apart in space and centuries apart in time who find in the life of their own community in their own day a challenge which absorbs not only their interest but stimulates them to marshall and use all their personal capacities and powers. In such a case, however, the promise is as hollow as the end is mean and the inevitable result is change without growth, the mutilation and weakening of the tree of life. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrew states his attitude to the future thus: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (from our past), let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” The end he had in view, then, was the end which Jesus had preached, the redemption of the human race as a whole, and he knew that the way to that end would be long and hard. This is exactly Burke’s view of the human struggle when he declares that society is a partnership also “with those Who are yet to be Just as the writer of the Epistle says of the stal¬ warts of the past that they cannot be made perfect without us, so you and I have to recognize our depen¬ dence on those who come after us. We, too, cannot be made perfect without them. Looked at in the large, the job of education is to build up in each rising generation the sense of being essential to a continuing order of things, an order which has established its right to continue both by virtue of great achievements in the past and by virtue of still greater promise for the future. What the nature of that promise is is made clear by the writer of the Epistle in the clause, “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” In him, and in no one else, we find adequately crystallized and fore¬ cast the destiny of a humanity redeemed by the love God manifested in him. W. C. GRAHAM Page Seven

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“Ttle Vaice “7%e ’PiiocifraC ■ “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Sampson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets . . .” “All these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had fore¬ seen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” “ Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Selected from Hebrews 11:32-12:2 I have chosen as my theme for this farewell message to the collegiate these selections from the Epistle to the Hebrews. I have done so because it is always stimu¬ lating, if not exciting, to find people living widely apart in time and space saying much the same things and adopting much the same attitudes to life. There is such a correspondence between this passage from the Epistle to the Hebrews and some words written by Edmund Burke, the great 18th century English states¬ man and orator, 1,600 years and more after this Epistle was written. “Society,” wrote Burke, “is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be attained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be bom.” 1. The first point of similarity between these two writers which strikes us is that they both react to contemporary life in much the same way. Neither of them was content to play the role of spectator, to stand aside and merely look on at the human struggle as it worked itself out in his own com¬ munity in his own time. Each felt himself to be closely and significantly involved in that struggle. They use different figures of speech to express this feeling but the import of these is the same. The writer of Hebrews uses the figure of an athletic contest held in a stadium packed with witnesses. To him there is nothing casual about life. It demands of him the dedication of all his powers to achieve a distant goal over a rugged course. Concurrently it demands of him the self-discipline by virtue of which one makes choices between lesser and greater values. 2. There is, in the second place, another point of similarity between them which, because of this, be¬ comes more striking and significant. The writer of Hebrews and the great Burke are alike in this that they feel the present to be an outgrowth of the past. To them the social process is a genetic process. This means that they conceive civilized society as a growth, not a mere structure, as a tree with roots imbedded deep in the past, the very life of which de¬ pends upon maintaining the vitality of those roots.

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Voice 7 e ' Dean All REVOIR, UR. GRAHAM The Collegiate Year Book, “Trie-Ties”, has most fittingly dedicated this issue to our esteemed and beloved Principal whose retirement in June rings down the curtain on seventeen years of inspired leadership at United College. It was in June, 1938, that the tradi¬ tions and the Charters of the Presbyterian Manitoba College and the Methodist Wesley College were merged by a new charter into United College under the United Church of Canada. However, while charters alone may combine they do not necessarily unite the varied tradi¬ tions and patterns of the original entities. The Board of Regents, therefore, was confronted with the difficult task of searching for a man who could in his own per¬ son do what charters alone could not accomplish. Its Choice fell upon Dr. William Creighton Graham, a brilliant Canadian scholar who for thirteen years had occupied a professorial chair in the field of Old Testa¬ ment Language and Literature in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. That he forsook the relative ease of the Chair in Divinity to accept the arduous duties of administrator and teacher as the principal of United College was in itself evidence of the unselfish and idealistic character of the man whom the Board had selected. The uninterrupted sequence of successes and the growth of United College under his leadership vindicate the members of the Board in the wisdom of their choice. From the beginning, Principal Graham recognized in the composition and spirit of United College an unique academic experiment and a great Christian challenge. He recognized the peculiar educational op¬ portunities presented by a college consisting of three departments, ranging from Collegiate through Arts ' and Science to Theology, under one administration. He was captivated by the potential values of inter¬ departmental stimulation and contact and particularly impressed with the opportunities thus provided through a Christian college for youth not only to achieve a sound education but also to understand the value of a Christian philosophy of life. With these ideals in mind, he has given unceasing support and encouragement to all departments alike. And now as he relinquishes his leadership of the College, he is surer than ever in his belief, supported by convincing results, that United College with its unique composition and dis- tinot academic and spiritual goals has opportunities to offer to youth that are not only valuable today but will become increasingly important in the years that lie ahead. To those of us Who have shared his enthusiasm, his vision, his work, his disappointments and his suc¬ cesses, it is difficult to accept the reality of his retire¬ ment. But having shared these experiences with him, we are among the first to wish him every happiness in this well-earned release from administrative duties. To all who have known him, even casually, his retire¬ ment marks the close of a recognized era of great growth at the College. It has been an era of physical growth in numbers of students and in buildings, and an era of academic growth, for Dr. Graham is above all else a scholar. To all the students who attended the college during his term of office, his retirement will mark the removal of a symbol which in his person embodied the spirit and soul of United College itself, the spirit of friendship, of kindness, and of thoughtful concern for others; the soul that strove for truth in honest labor, research, study, and the Christian way of life. For all these things we will miss him greatly. Now we say au revoir and thank you for every¬ thing, in the sure knowledge that past, present, and future generations of students at United will say of him as Wordsworth said: “And, when the stream Which overflowed the soul was passed away, A consciousness remained that it had left, Deposited upon the silent shore Of memory, images and precious thoughts That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.” C. N. HALSTEAD Page Eight