University of Western Ontario - Occidentalia Yearbook (London, Ontario Canada)

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You can, correctly, reply that your government did not request your services in any other capacity. A more effective reply consists in proving that a man who profits from University training, is a better fighter Cor a better producerj and a better peace-time citizen, because of that University training. You should not allow the barbs of criticism to disturb you, if you have used your 'iuniversity time profitably and are now prepared to deliver the type of goods which you are best fitted to Hproducef' War creates, even in educated people, a disastrous amnesia, or at least an extreme myopia. Worse still, this blackout of memory and partial blindness, spreads over into eras of peace. Nations lose wars because they overlook certain crucial facts. Nations, victorious in war, lose the peace for the same reason. ln the midst of conflict, martial or industrial, remember that at Western you found it possible to co-operate and be friendly with people of entirely different interests and back- grounds. ln the midst of war remember that peace is possible, and highly desirable. And yet don't blind yourself to the ease with which misunderstanding may arise, and the fact that some people must be profoundly changed before co-operation is possible, if at all. Do not blind yourselves to the fact that, particularly in time of war, men and women show their true greatness, as well as their despicable weakness. lf you observe greedy egoism, parading as patriotism, don't indulge in hasty generalization and vow that all men are selfish beasts. Remember that many ordinary men and women are unhesitatingly sacrificing themselves, to the limit, for the fruits of a victory which they in some cases Won't enjoy. This is no pious platitude, as you very well know. Men in the Air Force, Army, and Navy have proved beyond all shadow of doubt that a man will freely give his life for a friend-or even a stranger. Those who say that all ordinary men are incurably egoistic, lie. ln the fields of production and distribution, what was regarded as impossible in the lazy days of peace, has been achieved with startling ease. War has shown us our unexpected capacities-for good as well as evil. We shall be worse than fools if we for- get this when peace comes. And so, when the going is tough, remember those l'idle hours at Western, when occasionally chatter changed to the expression of blazing idealism-a new world was out- lined and constructed in imagination. Remember those visions. Unless some of them are realized-brought down to earth-and they can be-we, and all our kind shall surely perish. Human beings, for centuries, have spent too much time imitating the worm, the monkey, the tiger, the wolf, the pig, the peacockveven the dullest among us recognizes that life under these auspices is nasty, brutish and short. This is a turning point in the world's history. You are among the few people who are in a position to realize it and do something about it. Before you succumb to the siren lure of the comfortable routine of some conventional social groove, take a long look at yourself, your world, your fellow men,fand, if by chance you have ever visualized some- thing better, then, in the name of everything that is holy, don't turn your back on that ideal. For where there is no vision the people perish. But, vision by itself is not enough. There must also be efficient action. A. H.. TOHNSON, Honorary Class President, Arts '43