United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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us have been too occupied with this conception. We have been too ready to seize upon it as an excuse for mental inertia. The majority, how¬ ever, have not. We do not in the least feel sorry for ourselves. We do not, under any conditions wish this explanation of our position to become an apology. It is true that these con¬ ditions have molded us, as the great dynamics of history have always profoundly influenced the youth of the world. Our modes of thinking ORY...I943 Grads’ Farewell, February 16, 1943, at the Royal Alexandra Hotel. have to a great extent been conditioned by these calamities and more particularly by the breakdown of values that accompanied them. We have cited these overwhelming in¬ fluences as factors that must be considered in any objective evaluation of our generation. But we have demanded that they must not be con¬ sidered as an excuse or an apology, but only as an explanation. Our attempts to explain our position are not successful. Criticism of our generation has not lessened. If anything the-war has intensified it. The men and women of this generation, especially those of the Universities and more especially those training in the liberal arts are under censure. It is said that they are de¬ structively minded, that their outlook is based upon the narrowest cynicism, that they believe in nothing and are therefore floundering aim¬ lessly without guide-post or guide-star, that they are selfish and defeatist, that no positive force sweeps them toward clearly-defined goals. What basis have the critics for statements such as these? The only possible answer to this is an analysis of ourselves. We must find the causes of our attitude, an attitude that has been interpreted so widely and variously as one of cynicism and non-belief. One of the prime contributors to our posi¬ tion is our inheritance of what has been var¬ iously called the “dissolution of faith” or “the breakdown of authority.” During the last cen¬ tury and this one industrialism has transformed the material world almost beyond measure. Distance has been whittled. Commercialism accompanied industrialism and together they produced urbanization. The great metropolitan areas, around which our economies are centred, arose. This was the beginning. The old physi¬ cal order c ollapsed and the new framework brought with it disorder and dislocation of old ways of life. Brutal war was followed by even more brutal war. Men could see little but chaos and confusion in their new civilization. It became increasingly difficult for them to reconcile the confusion of daily living with the idea of an abiding and omnipotent power flow¬ ing through all things. They no longer pos¬ sessed the sure and certain conviction that a supreme authority governed the universe, or if they retained the conviction, their conception of the supreme authority as a “literal” King, Father, Judge and Lawgiver, became unten¬ able. Men could no longer convince themselves that the supernatural had a place in the actual structure of the universe. With these pillars removed, their edifice of faith was shaken. Church authority broke down. It was complete¬ ly alienated from business and politics. Even in the family its power waned as the modern urban family developed. In art the religious sanction disappeared and “art for art’s sake” became the slogan. The men and women of the new generation have had the results of this trend of dissolution thrust upon them. When they inherit the new economic life, religion becomes not the central force to which all their activities are related but instead one aspect of an increasingly varied world of experience. For them the authoritar¬ ian beliefs of their fathers are unsatisfactory. They do not wish to break with these beliefs— indeed, they often passionately desire to cling to them—but the very conditions of their life dictate that they must break. The position for the individual is not a happy one. He feels the void. He feels the in¬ security of his position, for he must somehow resolve for himself new religious conceptions. The majestic ideal of service to an all-powerful Ruler of the Universe is no longer enough. It is within himself or within his fellowmen that he must find the answers he is seeking. Until that time he has few points to guide him and in some ways must indeed appear to be flound¬ ering. But it is no situation upon which to assess blame. 9 13 r

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Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: HAVE the very great honor tonight of de¬ livering the valedictory of the class you are toasting at this banquet, the class of 1943. It is more than an honor, it is a supreme privilege to speak for this particular class. Those of you who know the class of ’43 will agree that with¬ out doubt it is a paragon of all graduating classes. The more discerning of you will have realized before this that in this small group of men and women is caught up every possible virtue, every imaginable attribute, and every conceivable merit. United College has never seen before, nor will she see again such a model of perfection, such a consummate master¬ piece as she sees exemplified in this class of 1943. Now that we are all friends . . . Actually the class of ’43 is not an unusual class. We have our brilliant people, they who carry away the scholarships, who continually amaze—and embarrass—the rest of us with their keen and steady learning. I do not believe that we have any fanatics, either religious or political. We have duly sent our quota of men to worship at the shrine of The Manitoban. Members among us have won the usual awards and prizes. Some of us are minutely sensitive to crisis and defeat. Some among us are phil¬ osophers—members of that doughty clan who instead of crying over spilt milk would prob¬ ably console themselves with the thought that it was four-fifths water in any case. We are not an unusual class. No one of us has done anything great—no one of us has done anything particularly ridiculous—except at stunt night—on which occasions we took first prize. As was once said of another class, we have given the college several good laughs . . . one or two of which sit at the head table to¬ night. However, there is no hesitancy in describ¬ ing one accomplishment of the class of ’43 as unusual—that accomplishment was tq produce from our ranks a lady stick so completely charming, and a man who has mErcle so excep¬ tional a senior stick. Superficially, that is our class. Its com¬ ponents are a diverse lot, and I feel that at the present moment many of them are uneasy. They do not know what I am going to say about them. They do not wish to be included in any generalization of class opinion for they would feel misrepresented and they would feel embarrassed. Thus, while I am here this evening speaking to you for the one purpose of interpreting the class of ’43 for everyone here, for the college as a whole, indeed, for the whole of our society —for presumably our society has not only a stake but an interest in us—while I must inter¬ pret the class of ’43 for the members of that class of ’43, while this is my task, I think it will VALEDICT The Valedictory Address delivered by John H. Howes at the annual become evident that valedictories are actually personal things and that any attempt to assess individual opinion and consolidate it into mass opinion is impossible in a college class. I do not claim to speak for the entire class as such. It would be interesting to examine the trends in valedictories during the last quarter century. If allowances were made for com¬ pletely personal idiosyncrasy, these ' documents would form a pattern of thought of the young men and women of the times. It would be even more interesting to note the gradual shift in that pattern of thought from a light-hearted and even light-headed optimism in the twenties through a period of confusion, blurred outlines and bewilderment in the early thirties, de¬ veloping into a dead disillusionment as the decade ended. And now we see that the whole process has apparently culminated during the last few years in a hard core of cynicism. We have all felt it. We have all at some time or an¬ other felt the despair of a defeated idealism— when that fervent idealism of youth is crumpled by circumstance. But how much more power¬ ful is the result of such a process when the forces of pircumstance that defeat the natural buoyancy are world-wide convulsions—the great economic collapse and now this great war. It has been said almost too often to bear repetition that we are another lost generation, born in the aftermath of 1918, adolescent in the aftermath of 1929, and now adult in the midst of a fierce revolutionary war. A few of 12

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This influence is integrated with the trend of modern life. We have broken the continuity of life by cutting ourselves off from the past. We have wrenched ourselves from the soil, from that way of life in which deep faith in eternal laws is an imperative. And we have placed ourselves in the great cities whose in¬ fluence has penetrated everywhere until whole countries have almost become immensely ex¬ tended urban areas. The new generation has not been able to escape this, nor have they sought to escape it. We were born in the very midst of it, in that impetuous optimism con¬ cerning materialism and during the “debacle of idealism.” And if we have accepted the new ways of life because we knew nothing else, we also accepted the consequences of that life be¬ cause we could do nothing else. In the thirties, which is not so long ago, we saw the results of that glorious ideal of un¬ restricted individualism. The skyrocket of shaky speculation crashed down about us, pull¬ ing down with it the pyramid on which the mechanism of our society was anchored. The pyramid crumpled from the top, melting away until the whole broad base was affected and the apologists could do nothing but remain silent. Then followed the grueling period of re¬ examination. While governments sought im¬ mediate remedies, the organization of society was painstakingly scrutinized. The economic collapse was world-wide. No one living in the age could dodge either its concrete pressures or its implications. Again our generation inherited the skepticism of the age in this sphere. If we were bom too late to have connection with the causes of the disin¬ tegration itself, we could at least observe its effects. If we did not look hopelessly for work, our elder brothers did. Thus, we became aware of our social and economic system by the insistency with which its collapse thrust itself upon our minds. We became aware of it at a time when it was ex¬ hibiting its shortcomings and, as we were cer¬ tain, proving its inadequacy. We saw that liberalism had become a facade behind which only the strong and privileged were free. We saw that a society without safe¬ guards was a ruthless society, not at all exist¬ ing for the betterment of all the people of that society. Above all we saw that an acquisitive norm of activity within society was fundament¬ ally incompatible with the democratic ideal. These were the conclusions we reached. We saw human needs hammered into any mold that conformed to the standards of the business man. We realized that the failures of the new industrialism as a provider of a humane and just social order were basic failures. In the long march towards war our eyes smarted at the sight of betrayal after betrayal of what were supposedly our ideals. We sought for an explanation, and found one. It was this: that the stabilized and established elements within our society have certain ends they must pursue if they are not to become unstable elements. If democratic institutions in any way obstruct the achievement of those ends their existence is hardly justified. We see evidence of this attitude in Canada today where parliament has been ignored in the growing ascendency of bureaucratic con¬ trol. And an offshoot of this attitude has re¬ cently struck close to us: the feeling against the liberal arts course that is current in many circles today. I have purposely avoided labels for they are unnecessary and confusing. Our story is a clear one. Our generation grew up in the midst of what might be called the decay of an age. We examined our society as objectively as possible and discovered certain anomalies and discrep¬ ancies. We have no magic formulas that we wish applied, formulas that would transform the world into a paradise immediately upon their acceptance. We have endeavored only to make an honest appraisal of the society in which we live. If we have been bitter in our verdict, it is because we were first aware of our society when it was in unfortunate circumstances. This is the background of the class in 1943. It is a background of destructive forces, of dis¬ solution, of breaking down. It is a negative background. It was and is our background not because we chose it but because we were born into it. It is a background that might well lead to the cynicism of Which we have so often been accused. But such is not our position. We are not disillusioned cynics without guide-post or guide-star. They who label us as such are mis¬ directed and mistaken. They mistake our real¬ ism for cynicism. They mistake our healthy skepticism for some innate will to destroy. (Continued on page 32)