United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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A Mes sage From The Honorary Editor TTHE editors of Vox have graciously permitted me this space to discuss some of the problems of their publication. (It is theirs; no one else has helped much.) They have been confronted by two obstacles. First. In spite of their efforts, the student government body, backed presumably by a powerful sentiment among the graduands, has refused to relinquish the “year-book” part of this publication, or to authorize the separate publication of “literary” and year-book material. It would seem that they think of Vox primarily as a souvenir. Let us hope they will buy it; records of sales in the past to graduands are not encouraging. One would think that if they wished a genuine souvenir of their days at United Col¬ lege they would prefer a magazine which contained the best they and their fellows could produce in intellectual and artistic achievement, rather than the unsightly mess of photos and wisecracks which they seem to admire. Junior High stuff. Second. The editors, encouraged by members of the faculty, have begged, cajoled, blackmailed the student body to contribute to this maga¬ zine. (This is, I think, almost their only unsolicited contribution.) Well, the results are here. With what little advice I thought proper to give them, they have weeded out certain efforts which smelt of the locker-room and the Salisbury House, those merely incompetent, and one or two simply frightful. The students who can write are almost all silent. They seem to have fallen into a way of life where encouragement or contempt alike can¬ not reach them. They actively fear the discipline of composition. I wish they were as afraid of projects and films, of graphs and terminology and tests, of committees and rallies, of pep and poison. They are competing for membership in a new Academy of Lagado. Yet a few minds remain fresh; a few students find there is excite¬ ment in setting the pen to the blank page. In these pages you will find a student with a feeling for nature and stillness, another with sentiment and a wild wit; and some echoes of scholarship. Upon these I pin my hopes. Page Eight

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Editorial O NE or two references to VOX have been made in the past few months. (The phrase “Have you contributed to VOX?” may perhaps be dis¬ tantly familiar.) The reason for these little allusions was that we wished to make United VOX-conscious; and the student reaction has been favor¬ able, as advance sales have indicated. We only hope that this year’s edition does not fall short of the expectations that may have been engendered by the extensive publicity. Although the response was slightly less encouraging with regard to literary contributions, we offer our sincere thanks to all those who did take the time to write. Particular congratulations go to David Blostein for his prize-winning story. Thanks are also extended to our committee, to Dr. MacLure, to the Wallingford Press, and to the advertisers. It is a pleasure to have worked on VOX. But, to be perfectly honest, we the editors must confess that it is still indistinct through the gloom whether VOX is a literary magazine or a year book. RAY TULLOCH and GLEN MacKENZIE Co-editors. Page Seven

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DR. W. C. GRAHAM M.A., S.T.M., Ph.D., D.D., F.R.S.C Principal of United College A S I write this I hare not been privileged to examine the contents of this number and must, perforce, confine myself to generalities. In years gone by this College has had not a little success in the encouragement of creative writing in the undergraduate body and this is still one of the aims we of the faculty cherish. We are hearing a good deal these days about the way Canada is forging ahead in the more material aspects of its life and we are unfeigned- ly glad that there is substantial ground for this optimism about our future. But a nation is like a person in this respect that what IS is always, in the long view, more important than what it DOES. The long road of history is strewn with the wreckage of nations and peoples who failed to perceive this, nor are we without contemporary evidence of what such failure means. This being so, the function of literature may be seen to be of first rate and very practical importance to any society, and particularly to one so recently to appear on the stage of history as our own. For literature, along with the other creative arts, is a very important means by which we may be confronted with and made more critically aware of the intangibles of our life, of the values we really pursue and the spirit in which we pursue them. The truth about our relative maturity, as a people, will be most clear¬ ly revealed through these media. Without boasting it may, I think, be said that our capacity for authentic self expression through literature is definitely increasing. Certainly this is so in poetry, in fiction and in biography and history. But it will never be adequate for the material promise of this great country of ours until youth takes more seriously than it does today the literary responsibility which must be met by them if it is to be met at all. The road to literary achievement is long and hard. I covet for this college the achievement of setting a goodly number of its student members, in real earnest, upon that road. W. C. GRAHAM Principal Page Nine