Tonight, I have the honor of presenting the Valedictory Address for the graduating class of 1954.
We meet together, tonight, under the most delightful circumstances, tinged perhaps with a bit of sadness. It is a time for happiness, delight and fulfilment. We have just received a document that will for the rest of our lives testify to our proficiency and application during our High School Days - a diploma which represents, besides a successfully completed term of study, the many warm experiences, happy associations and lasting friendships of the best and happiest days of our lives. We are a group of friends, meeting on the most friendly terms with those who have been our instructors for the past six years. Yet, it is sad that this is the last opportunity that we shall have to meet as students, for it may well be the last occasion at which all of us may be present.
We have enjoyed the days gone by, we ought to enjoy the days to come, but no memories will give us more pleasure that the memories of this night.
When we first entered this institution some six years ago, this evening was a date in the dim distant future Graduation was rather far off, for right at hand were new friends, new surroundings and new and rather awe-inspiring studies. The large programme of extra-curricular activities, including music, gym, track and field, the large number of school associations and clubs were all to be lasting fabrics of our High School experience. Items which we later learned, were aimed at the development of a mind seated in a body cultured by physical training, social instruction, manners, and those intangible benefits that make for good of one's emotion and character.
Now, as we preview the vast world of experience of our High School career, the many lasting impressions that are part of the personality of every student, we try to find some meaning in our years of education and attempt to summarize just what it has meant to us.
Our benefits have been many and various. We have secured that education for which we sought admission - a training that will stand us in good stead throughout life. Those of us who have participated in sports have acquired assets such as muscular co-ordination, endurance and speed of physical reactions. In the musical line some of us have acquired mastery of an instrument, under the capable conductorship of Mr. A. N. McMurdo, who has proven the worth of his organization in Dominion-wide competition, and who will in the future prove its worth in world-wide competition at Kerkrade, Holland.
In addition to these practical benefits, there have been many benefits, not so obvious, but that have nevertheless, been of tremendous importance in our careers. I refer to such qualities as sportsmanship, co-operation and obedience, the advantages of initiative, persistence and concentration and the many desirable characteristics that we should have been proud to have acquired.
Yet, all this would have been impossible were it not for the patience of a valiant and persevering group of people, our teachers. A group we owe a debt we cannot possibly repay in any way, for the tremendous faith they must have had in us, that we might develop into the people we are here, tonight. They are those amazing people we would always find actively interested in ourselves and our problems. They may never realize their full and beneficial influence on us; but we shall never forget their kindly and thoughtful advice.
And now, what of the future. It is said the future is best predicted in light of the past and the present. If this be so, then our present training is our future. Hence, how much we achieve in our future lives really depends mostly on the important factors of our present success, namely ability, opportunity and application. Our natural ability was determined long before we had any say in the matter. Our opportunity is likewise fixed, since the time to mold this was in the past, and since the past is gone, no person has any more power over it. The only varying factor is application which is really ability put forth for the improvement of actual opportunity. Application then, is the law of self-improvement, the law of self-perfection and inevitably the law of our ultimate destiny.
May I just close with this thought. We leave tonight and our ambitions will undoubtedly take us far afield. As the years go by, time may weaken our memories of each other, names may be forgotten and distance separate us one from the other. Neither time nor distance, however, will dim our fond memories of a faculty whose inspiration we shall never forget, nor of a school toward which our loyalty will never lessen.
