University of Toronto - Torontonensis Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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MENS EXICC'U'l'lVl'1. VLASS Ulf' ITS l7NlX'ERSI'l'Y ff1ll,l,lillli I IJ. Rr-ul, fllll'UllfUllt'llNI5 RCILIQ M. lt. llxll, 4Iwcc1'ctzn'yD3 ll, ml. lwhly, fP1'k'NlllL'llt1I .l. Bl. lhtuly. Kln-:u11l1'1'i3 XX. H. Hun lS.:X.f'. Rvlv. D. VYOMEN'S ICXIif'l l'lYE, CLASS Ulf J'l'5. l'NlYliRSI'l'Y 4'Hl.I.lililC c fxflllbtfllllg. lVV,S.A.l'. RQ-11.11 Mzlrjcwic VVLLIIQICC. fx'iCk I11'k'SillQ1lf,Q llnmtlmy lingers, f1'l'QNi1lk'11tfQ Irum- Blu1'xx'ick, 1YlNl'C.lNlllAk'Ti Pluwlwu Ruse, tScc1'ct:1ryT. H91

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Zlaistnrp uf the Qlllass of 2055 Wt ll 'R short years ago a history of 2T5 was written wherein it was said: Ours is the largest year in the history of University College. XYe hope to be noted not only for our numbers but for our ability, intellectual, social and athletic. How far has the prophecy of that Freshman Historian been realized? .Ks we became in turn Sophomores, juniors and, at last, Seniors, so in turn our numbers were reduced, year by year, through the energetic endeavours of the faculty to establish and maintain a higher intellectual standard. A number of our members have won scholarships. The fact that we have survived repeated attacks of examinations is necessarily sufficient' for the rest of us. VVe have made generous contributions to intercollegiate debating teams and the inter- year shield testifies to the argumentative skill of our orators. ln dramatic circles the name of 2T5 has been creditably upheld by men and women alike in both the Player's Club and the Players' Guild. The Senior year has been ably represented in all branches of sport and has held the inter- year athletic shield since 1922-23. Rugby, both Intercollegiate and O.R.F.U., owes not a little to the players it recruited from our ranks. Swimming and Vllater-Polo especially acknowledge their debt to 2T5. In Hockey and various other sports too numerous to mention we have participated and given our best. Our social functions have been extremely valuable in aiding the diffusion of amicability and sympathy among the members of the Class. In the fall of 1923 we commenced our junior year under the new and politic system of separate executives. Our class parties of the first two years always proved to be successful but we felt that the newer arrangement filled a greater place in the undergraduate life of both men and women. No other year has had a greater opportunity than ours to witness the growth of College Spirit. Wie entered the University with the newly organized U.C. Literary and Athletic Society which has done so much to promote a College feeling among its members. Later came the innovation of split executives and added its contribution to the good work. To help matters along Simcoe Hall was built and we joyfully bade good-bye to Sir Robert, the misunderstood Mr. Brebner, the bursar and all their executive officers and We became transformed from a main building into a College, free from the intrusion of members of other faculties coming to pay their fees or pray their petitions. The climax was reached in the fall of 1924. A common room for the men and one for the women were opened, largely through the efforts of the Seniors, and in one short year they have awakened in usa greater feeling of unity and have revived half-forgotten traditions. Vve have played, danced and studied and enjoyed it all. lt is, therefore, with the hopeful expectation of youth mingled with regret that we leave the University to commence our activities upon a larger scale, confident in the friends we have made and ambitious to be an honour to our College and of service to our Country. l18l

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u the Qrahuating lass uf Tltinihersitp allege BY Pkmeiinxi. Hu'rToN T is the tendency of human institutions and controversies to move in cycles, though sometimes T there is also a spiral and ascending movement concurrent with the circular revolution. The University of Toronto is illustrating this tendency and the wheel has almost revolved full circle since 1880 or thereabouts. Up to those years the University received only a small portion of the youth of the Province, the hand-picked few who were aiming at the liberal pro- fessions, who proposed to be lawyers or doctors or clergymen or fa few of themj schoolmasters. Then came the fiood tide of democracy sweeping so far and high that in the mid-western States of the Union it is sometimes urged by University Presidents engaged in the research for endowment that every girl and boy born into the State has an essential, a congenital and a prescriptive right to a university education therein. , Our own local Premier a year ago appeared to have this mid-western point of view, and argued against the higher standard of matriculation, which was then contemplated, and by which the number entering in the first year were likely to be diminished. But further thought seems to have taken him back to a point on the revolving circle much nearer the new point of 1880 or, say, of Professor Goldwin Smith. The Premier suggests that the students of the two first years should be retained in the schools and thus attendance at the University proportionately reduced. lt appears to me that the resulting compromise is, like many compromises, unpromising. If a large number of students not specially qualified for universities-and nature abhors intellectuals no less than a vacuum for her ordinary purposes, and has nothing to gain by an unlimited supply of academic minds to the Province and no employment to offer such minds- were to stay two years longer at school, and then pass into business life, many of them would gain thereby and the Province would gain. But it is a very different thing to give them two years after their school-days at a university. A university has its own atmosphereg an honour course is of no good with less than four yearsg even a general course isof little good, the atmosphere to be effective must penetrate slowly and gradu- ally, a man does not learn to think for himself, which is the only justification for his presence in a university, in a few weeksg let him not come at all or come and stay for the full four year periodg he has to learn to stand on his head, in every sense, and to see all things new and from new angles, it can not be done in a short course. I venture to think still that the remedy for slipshod and inaccurate reading, for lack of thinking, for absence of scholarship and for half- built and half-baked products is a long course and not a short course in universitiesg preceded by a more serious and searching matriculation. If many who come here unprepared, stay instead for two years longer at school and then go into life, the Province will probably derive more benefit from them and the university less severe criticism.