United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Utopia in Flight The sun lies low on the sky’s brim; Shadows slowly steal across the earth, Brown dykes capped with soft snow Lie between me and the Basin, the berth Of snow and ice dyed by muddy waters. Snowbirds arise like a cloud of dust — They go out o’er the stubbly-armed land In search of food for sustenance. They must Search far and wide in the soft breeze. Far out over lofty heights and the distant dome Of mountains which rise stately and serene To heights where they blend with the sky. Then home They return—unlike mankind, bound by laws, They live as one—each equal to each other. Neither is one inferior or superior because It has one plume of a different colour than His fellow birds. Here in he differs from man. Approach of Spring The early buds we saw lifting Their soft faces slowly, As if to breathe air, now are drifting, And lilting leisurely. Slender and pale, they join the rime Of Life: the harbinger of leaves Are running in a dream. Heart flowering time Enlivens, green appears, and the eye perceives Perceives? Yes, but what? What principle underlies Al things? Why did Kant awe and not grin At the glory of starry skies, And the moral law within? Some may call it nature, But 1 call it God. 24

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Poems by Carle Brothers Winnipeg, After a Hoar Frost Slowly and stealthily the Artificer came As the solemn city slept; Unaware of the Visitor who crept Upon them. I gaze from my window and meet Dawn, ghostly and grey Which has chased away The ebony. Blankets of crystals before me lie On roofs, and each motionless tree In utter tranquility And peace Is garbed in an octopus robe of white Silent Artificer of the frost-bitten night! The sun shines and stands on the horizon It shines’ Now the star-spangled city sparkles and dances Every roof, street, park and steeple, To whom the Artificer spoke, glimmers; While each dome on United College stands Like a gleaming, glistening pyramid On a desert’s burning sands. Dusk The sun has set in his scarlet bed, Dust mingles with the mist overhead, Dusk has rendered gray the blue, The rustic road has a dappled hue. In the oak tree an owling owl, And all is quiet in the village now; Save for the call of the hawk of night As he proudly pursues his winged flight . The croak of a frog the stillness breaks, A flickering firefly his leisure takes In the humid air—the only light. Dusk, dusk, soon you’ll fade into night. A soaring bluejay screams his song, And seems to say he has done no wrong, While the rest of the weary world may be In the deeper realms of solemnity. 23

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THE INVISIBLE SUN E.P. SCARLETT, B.A. (Man.), M.B. (Tor.), F.R.C.P. (C) F.A.C.P., L.L.D. CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA An address delivered on the occassion of the Annual Commencement, United College, Winnipeg, Nov. 5th 1953 Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us. — (Sir Thomas Browne) R. PRINCIPAL, Members of Board and Faculty, Fellow - Students, Ladies and Gentlemen: When this College honoured me with an invitation to be its guest at this Commencement I was at some trouble to find a theme that would worthily fulfil the purposes of the occasion. Pro¬ perly such a theme should deal with this land, its people and the spirit that moves them. But that is not an easy task. Our history is still blurred, it lacks point and compelling distinc¬ tion. So many currents are stirring in this West¬ ern land, none as yet in a broad channel. No spirit of a great man or a transmuter of ideas has brooded over these plains. We are only faintly conscious of our past and of ourselves. We still have to produce our geniuses who will interpret us to the world at large and to our¬ selves. For one of the rare gifts of genius is its capacity to make roads along which succeeding men may walk in honour and confidence. Can¬ ada still lacks its Burns and its Scott. I have another difficulty to confess. I am a physician. We in my profession are children of Hippocrates. As such the magnificence of the Hippocratic Greek language with the aid of Latin tags helps to preserve for us what little influence we have over mankind. On an occa¬ sion such as this I must come out from behind this veil of language, drop the air of gravity and the bedside manner that convey a sense of deep knowledge and the subtle suggestion that the disorder from which the patient is suffering hurts the doctor as much as it disturbs the patient. Now I must shed all this, stand before you as a plain man and ask you to show me some of the charity which I hope your physician has shown you in times past. My credentials are plain and forthright. As a physician I love the battered old human body and the things it can endure and think nobly of the spirit of man and the things it can create. As a citizen my posi¬ tion is slightly more involved. As Chancellor of the University of Alberta I must perforce practise civic bigamy, giving allegiance to two cities-—Calgary and Edmonton, and further com¬ pound that bigamy by serving two mistresses— medicine and education. In search of my theme I harked back to the early days of United College in this city. I was a charter student, so to speak, of the institution which came into being when Presbyterian pride and Methodist vigor joined hands, and, when history and poetry failed to provide any inspira¬ tion, adopted the term “United” to pl ace on its banner. After forty years it would seem to have been a good omen and to have found favour with the gods. Thinking back to those days I found the clue to my theme. And I now propose to address myself primarily to the young people in this audience—nymphs and shepherds who have worked and played together in this College and, I hope, not lost too much time in dalliance. To those of you who are older (and at this moment may be wishing that you had spent more time in dalliance during your college days) what I say may appear as foolishness to some, and to others a stumblingblock. But I shall have to abide that. Will you forgive a personal note of reminis¬ cence? Those of us who were students in the first days of this College were fortunate beyond measure. We shared in the sunset of the Vic¬ torian age. We were innocent of war and only later learned to face time with fortitude. We were “up” at university during what I like to think of as the closing years of the Golden Age of teaching. Our professors cultivated the higher reaches of art and morality. Men like Elliot and Fleming wrestled with the problems of philo¬ sophy and religion. Others were stirring dis- 25