1917 Yearbook
Source URL
Title
1917 Yearbook
Description
St Patrick Literary Society
EDWARD SMITH
President
HARRY BROWN
Vice-President
REV. U. A. HAUBER
Censor
EARL MARRON
Secretary
HE AVERAGE commercial student has little love for elocution.
He is saturated with the business instinct of the notoriously
practical American. He is a crank on "Efficiency." He realizes, too well perhaps, that in this modern world of competition specialization counts; one must be perfect in his own
line; all else matters but little. Why then should a future
bookkeeper waste valuable energy evolving his oratorical potentialities?
Why should a budding stenographer while away precious hours elaborating
controversial argumentation? Why should an embryonic banker risk
nervous disruption in the practice of declamatory gesticulation? In the
armies of the world artillery men do not stop to learn the tactics of cavalry
scouts; and after all the school halls are but training camps for the great
battle of life.
We have said that such is the Weltanschauung of the average commercial student. But members of the St. Patrick Literary Society are not
average students. God forbid. Their attitude towards the higher things
of life, and in particular towards the fine arts of elocution and debate, is
guided by motives entirely different from those hinted above.
We use the present tense, is guided, advisedly, because it was not always thus. In the beginning of the scholastic year less than half a dozen
knew even the rudiments of elocution, public speaking, or parliamentary
law; more than that, their apathy towards these subjects was appalling;
and worse still, some were positively too nervous to risk appearance before
an audience. But now! Kind reader, we leave it to your fertile imagination
to picture the results we have achieved; modesty dictates that we be silent.
EDWARD SMITH
President
HARRY BROWN
Vice-President
REV. U. A. HAUBER
Censor
EARL MARRON
Secretary
HE AVERAGE commercial student has little love for elocution.
He is saturated with the business instinct of the notoriously
practical American. He is a crank on "Efficiency." He realizes, too well perhaps, that in this modern world of competition specialization counts; one must be perfect in his own
line; all else matters but little. Why then should a future
bookkeeper waste valuable energy evolving his oratorical potentialities?
Why should a budding stenographer while away precious hours elaborating
controversial argumentation? Why should an embryonic banker risk
nervous disruption in the practice of declamatory gesticulation? In the
armies of the world artillery men do not stop to learn the tactics of cavalry
scouts; and after all the school halls are but training camps for the great
battle of life.
We have said that such is the Weltanschauung of the average commercial student. But members of the St. Patrick Literary Society are not
average students. God forbid. Their attitude towards the higher things
of life, and in particular towards the fine arts of elocution and debate, is
guided by motives entirely different from those hinted above.
We use the present tense, is guided, advisedly, because it was not always thus. In the beginning of the scholastic year less than half a dozen
knew even the rudiments of elocution, public speaking, or parliamentary
law; more than that, their apathy towards these subjects was appalling;
and worse still, some were positively too nervous to risk appearance before
an audience. But now! Kind reader, we leave it to your fertile imagination
to picture the results we have achieved; modesty dictates that we be silent.
Date
1917
Identifier
http://cdm16810.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16810coll2/id/2148