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

Page 72 text:

GRADE XI VALEDICTORY Mr. Chairman, Dr. Lockhart, Honoured Guests, Members of the Faculty, Fellow Students, Ladies and Gentlemen. I want first of all to thank my fellow students for this honour they have bestowed upon me. Had I broken both legs, failed all my exams or had been sold into slavery, this past year would still be an un¬ qualified success by virtue of having the opportunity to meet and be friends with all of you. On behalf of my fellow students, 1 want to thank the members of the Faculty for their unfailing ap¬ plication to duty, their understanding and their friend¬ ship. No amount of coercion could convince me that there is a more excellent Faculty or a better school in the city, and if that isn’t school spirit, what is? Tonight marks the culmination of eleven years of schooling for the Junior Matriculation candidates from United College. The June exams will mark the turning point in many a career. Some of you will end your formal education this year. Others, and I hope this includes the majority, will pick up the books again next year and go onto complete their education. Re¬ gardless of your plans, your future is a weighty re¬ sponsibility and it lies on your shoulders alone. Aristotle is credited with saying that “The future of empires depends on the education of its youth.” This is my favourite maxim. My twisted mind has a pet habit of applying this adage to any and all the problems I may consider. For instance, world tension. If it were not complete¬ ly eliminated, it would be considerably lessened were the majority of the world ' s population well educated. This would, of course, mean the establishment of many schools in areas where they are unknown today. It would also mean the re-education of many millions of mis-educated men and women throughout the world. In some states and empires, men and women are educated in such a way that they become non¬ thinking, bonded slaves to a political ideology. In other countries, the state of education is such that college graduates go out into their country to join their fel¬ low citizens in a money-mad “rat race” balanced only by the grandest entertainment binge the world has ever seen. Perhaps things are not as universally bad as I have painted them. 1 may have called a spade a “black spade.” But the situation known as world ten¬ sion exists and I am sure that were the world made up of only well-educated, free thinking individuals united by a love of knowledge, it would soon disap¬ pear. Racial prejudice is not known among pre-school age children. But if these impressionable children are mis-educated they become segregationists and other forms of alienists. World disarmament is another current problem. Were the citizens of the world properly educated in the first place, they may never have armed. So you see how this axiom of Aristotle’s can be modified to answer many problems. But there is a variation of the rule which I heartily dislike. It per¬ tains to those of you who, for one reason or another, will not be going on to further your education. It will also apply to all of us when we have completed our education. It is not, strictly speaking, a variation of the maxim, but rather a conclusion drawn from it. It is the oft-heard cliche “The future of the world is in your hands, students.” The fault in this statement lies in its simplicity. It can be taken to mean that the world and the future of the world can be handed to you upon graduation. J. G. Holland said that “God gives every bird its food but he does not throw it into the nest.” The future of Canada is in your hands, but only if you grab it and hold on to it with a firm and well-protect fist. Calvin Coolidge once said that “few men are lacking in capacity, but they fail because they are lacking in application. Very few Canadian students lack the capacity for success, but how many will fail through lack of application. “The future of empires depends on the education of its youth.” The future of Canada depends upon the education that most of you will continue to seek. But do not assume an attitude of come to me education, come to me future, come to me success. Go out and grab it. Brace McCallum 70