Vaughan Road Academy - Acta Studentium Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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Page 38 ACTA STUDENTIUM gold, with swallow tail wings a foot long: or one of those mosquitoes, that made your life miserable last summer, securely spitted on a pin. If you are a studient of Latin, you might trace their family history back as far as you wish, for there it is, like an epitaph, beneath all sorts of microscopic insects, set out in long rows of glass jars-truly a mausof leum of the insect world. I'm not through telling about the small percentage of the animals my weak memory brings to me. There are lions and tigers, apes and eagles, bears and baboons, and any other animals that live, or used to live, all as large as life- and twice as natural. Then there are the prehistoric mon' stersg I don't believe there is one with a name und'er twenty letters long. Bef side them are pictures of the sort of country these nightmares used to ram' page around in. By all appearances the great grandaddy of all chickens was about a dozen times the size of an ostrich. A horse and a cow used to look so much alike, that until very recently they could not be told apart, and men would often hitch up a cow in mistake for a horse. This difficulty was surmounted by call' ing them both oxen, in way of a general name. There are thousands of specimens, of different kinds of rocks down there: set lenses are focused on them, to give you a good close up view. I dare say there is a ton of rock in that section, for every ten dollar bill you have ever seen. The next time you get an invitation to a fancy dress ball, your costume prof blem will be solved, if you have visited the museum. There are the dresses of kings, and princesses, of bishops, and queensg in short, there is every type of dress that was wo-rn in the middle ages. There are completely furnished rooms, arranged as special illustrations of the lives of our forefathers. Nothing is omitted to give them that, 'xHome Sweet Home atmosphere, even the warming pans, these ancients used to take the chill from their bed, and the grandfather clock, Speaking of such clocks leads me to say, that they are especially numerous in that vicinity, just note the time of the 'day when you see the first one, and then look around, you are sure to find one with its hands stopped at that time. Near these you will come to a showing of about a hundred watches, that could give the time in any style you ever heard about. Une watch is wound by snap' ping the case open and shut, another reads from right to left, and the hands automatically snap back to zero, when they reach twentyffour. Have you ever seen the first set of china dishes, made in Canada? It is down there in some corner. You will pass literally hundreds of vases, images, statuf ettes, axe heads, beads and other curios, no two alike. Watch for a seashell mounted on a skillfully engraved gold baseg try, yes just try to read the story painted on some of those plaques. Keep a weather eye open, for wood carving, and filigree work, you will see things no antique shop can afford to keep in stock. There is a totem pole, as high as the four stories of the niuseumg its base is on the ground' floor, and the top towers into a skylight, specially altered for it. I wish that I could read the history, on that stately wooden shaft. It has not been so long since the ladies first got their vote, and I am sure any fair minded man respects them, for what they have achieved. At one time in some far off country perhaps, their value in Sword Mo1iey , was represented by a piece of iron, about four feet long and three inches wide. You will find the Sword Money in the basement, near the Eskimo kayaks. No doubt you have heard, or read some gruesome tales of how different tribes of Indians mutilated people, now come and see a few examples of it. The worst of these is a human head shrunk to the size of your fist, or smaller. The grotesque effect is increased by the long black hair, which did not shrink, and the braided string hung from the lips. A card explains in gory detail, that the skull was broken into small pieces, which

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ACTA STUDENTIUM Page were drawn out through the neck. The head was then dried and' shrunk, by ref peated insertions of hot sand and pebbles. Although Halloween is a long way off, a look at the curious ceremonial masks of Indians, of various sections of America may give you some ideas, thait will stay with you until you have occasion to degrade your appearance. You cannot miss the Indian groups, for they are in monstrous glass cases, as big as the grand salon of a bungalow. Une of these groups, shows an Indian youth making fire by twirling the end of a stick in a boardg a note says that this job was usually left to a man of the tribe, perhaps that is the reason, I have to light the furnace. My memory is failing me now, so I shall wind this up, so to speak. Very few museums have the edge on this one. You contribute to it, indirectly perhaps, nevertheless, this makes it partly yours, and as such it is worthy of your interest. I. Sliambrook IVB. Allbllb lllflllllliolllill AIRIIEB llPs1DlIRlINIl llEllPtlll3lllf5 AIINIIIID IEBQIUAIB LL men are born free and equal. But are they? This belief has become a fundamental one in our social system and it is with this idea that governments have worked for the wel- fare of nations. They have indeed accomplished a great deal that is un- questionably beneficialfincluding the abolition of slavery and the reduction of the power of the nobility. Unfortunf ately, however, through this belief they have established other institutions not quite so beneficial. They have established in most counf tries a minimum education and each child is sent to an identical school for so many years and does practically the same work. just as so much raw material is put through a factory machine and emerges to be stamped with the Trade Mark of the company, just so we line up our youth on commence' ment night and publicly present them with diplomas which proclaim that they have been through the machine and the company now guarantees that they pose sess certain qualities. This all seems very systematic and practical except that what we put into the big equalizing machine is not just so much identical raw material. You see, there is one mischievous factor which turns everything topsyfturvy and which proves the fallacy of this system. Call it what you will+character, personality, or individuality-you can't escape it. And because of this we can not persuade ourselves that hall men are born free and equal. This disturbing factor, which has, perhaps, a greater influence on our lives than anything else, is already possessed by each one of us at birth. And so, because men are influenced by it more than by any earthly environment, we' realize that all men are not born free, To many people it seems unfair that mans destiny is largly decided before even his first efforts. But imagine how dull and uninteresting our world would be if each new acquaintance were a prototpye of the last: if everyone were just an average manfl You see, we would have no Shakes' peare, no Napoleon, no Beethoven, no Rafael, no Emerson! The solution? We must recognize this vital and facinating thing called indivif duality and let it expand. We must tear down the machines that try so des' pcrately to crush initiative and succeed only in causing turmoil and despair in the heart of our youth. We must let the psychologists lead us into a new world+fa world where each man's spark of genius is nurtured and encouragedf- a world where we think less of the dollar under our nose, and let each man travel the road which, of all men he can travel best-and at the end find his pot of gold! Dorothy Smith V.