St. STANISLAUS MAGAZINE

A.M.D.G. St. STANISLAUS MAGAZINE VOL. [5] NOVEMBER 1947 College Editor: Fr. A. Gill, S.J. CONTENTS COLLEGE SECTION Frontispiece Examination Results Editorial Prize Giving / Prize Winners Junior Sodality Answers to General Quiz Library Answers to Mathematical Teasers Science at the College Solution to Creeks & Rivers De Prefecks Who's Who in Football General Quiz First XI Football Racine's Treatment of Love First XI Results Co-Operation House Football Value of the Study of History First XI Cricket Mathematical Teasers Sports Butterflies Class List Ten Unforgettable Minutes Valete and Salvete Creeks and Rivers Prospectus ASSOCIATION SECTION FRONTISPIECE Herman de Caires, Father H. de Caires, S.J., as he left St. Stanislaus College. as he returned to the mission. Top EDITORIAL This section of the magazine has always attempted to be a chronicle of the life and events of the College. The articles of this .issue do not quite cover all the points of interest which have occurred during the last year, consequently a brief foreword is required. First of all we are bound to express our great debt of gratitude to Very Reverend Father Guilly for his deep interest in our welfare. Father Guilly was once a boy in a Jesuit College and later had the happiness of instructing the young in another. He has therefore, apart from a theoretical understanding of school problems, practical experience gained at each side of the master's desk. This understanding and experience he has put at the disposal of the College. Last year, Fathers fresh from England came to join the staff. The present boys know of their activities. Unfortunately one of these new men had to be spared for other work, and we regret the early departure of Father, Edgecombe. May he do as good work elsewhere as he has done with, us. Then again, Fathe,r Paterson was withdrawn, after having spent ten years as Master at the College. We thank him for all that he did, both in the classroom and on the playing fields. The gap left by Father Paterson's departure was filled ~y Father Lynch, whose arrival coincided with the absence of the Games Master, and so he assumed all the difficult tasks that that person's office carries with it. He bea-rs the burden so well that we can with confidence look forward. to a period of constructive work. We must not forget to express our thanks to Father McKenna who gave the boys their retreat. `New things have appeared during the past twelve months: Report Cards, Prefects, and, I hestitate to say it, the 'Third Back.' As there must be universal satisfaction both for boys and parents in all that concerns Report Cards, no more need said. Everyone is familiar with the idea of Prefects: it is only matter of time for the boys to become well acquainted with, them. But the 'Third Back'! That is a problem of quite a different order ..... To understand this stranger I have to refer you to a London team, the Arsenal, who 'seem to have produced this monster. Do not misunderstand me; it may be a very monster of efficiency. But I like to see a centre-half be a centre-half. You see he is so important a man, the very brains of a team both for defence and, please mark this well, for attack. Dare I ask 'You how you would like to go through a piece of hard work with a hole in your middle? I feel I must be misrepresenting the whole. matter and apologize. During the course of the year Mr. M. D' Andrade left the staff to continue his studies in Canada. We wish him every success and· thank him for the work he did while with us. Mr. C. Singh, a former Master at the College, took Mr. D' Andrade's place. Mr. S. Fernandes joined us in September. He is no stranger. Welcome to both. You will have noticed our frontispiece. We had intended supplementing it with a short article; but that bad man, the Editor of the Association Section, stole a march on us. Still, we have the pleasure of showing you Herman de Caires as he left St. Stanislaus and Father de Caires as he returned to the Colony. The College is proud to have another of its pupils a priest and a Jesuit. Top THE JUNIOR SODALILITY During the school year 1946-1947, meetings of the Junior Sodality were held weekly, at which there was an average attendance of ten boys, most of them from 3B. It is hoped that this year there will be a 'greater number of members, from the boys of Forms 2 and 3 to whom membership is open. A part of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception is said, and then a short talk is given or a passage read from a book, followed by the reading of a story or something similar. At the end of the meeting a Decade of .the Rosary is generally recited. Twice we had singing-e-once for Our Lady's Month and once for that of the Sacred Heart. The crowning of the statue of Our Lady was very impressive. At the beginning of the long holidays in July we had a little 'picnic' or 'social' at the College, enlivened by singing and 'music' (in the shape of a banjo) and the telling of stories and jokes. It was very enjoyable. Top THE LIBRARY During the past five years the number of boys who have borrowed books or papers from the Library has been on an average about 130 a term; the highest figure was 160 and the lowest (1946-7) was 94. No doubt many boys have hooks at home, or they borrow from friends or from other libraries. But do not the figures given above lend some weight to the charge sometimes made that 'we do not read in British Guiana? If we pursued our statistical enquiries a little further we would find that during those same past five years the average number of books read each term by those who did borrow from the Library works out at something like four per boy. And that is not a very high figure! Perhaps it will be said that Games and Homework take up all one's .time. (Do not forget, however, the Cinema) . Or else the objection may be put forward that there are no interesting books in the Library, or that all have been read already. The first part of that objection is not true-s-have you read, for example, Galapagos Bound? The second part-why, it would take you, at the rate of four books a term, about 175 terms to read all that there are on the shelves ... and It is not everyone who stays at school for some sixty years'. Beginning with the January selection (1947) we now receive each month a, new book from a hook club for young readers (a service of the America Press. "America" is a Catholic weekly produced by the Jesuits of the United States). There are four groups and the group we have joined is that for older' boys. The books are well bound and printed and are always new ones. Those who have read the ones we have received so far will surely agree that they are interesting. There are quite a number of the Hardy Boys Series-c-always very popular. Remember 'that if you have any of this series at home, and do not want them any more, they will be welcomed for the Library. This applies also to any books which you think would be of interest to others. Will the time ever come when every single boy will make use of the Library? Perhaps - and perhaps not. But remember that a taste for reading can be cultivated and that the reading of good books is one of the joys of life. Top SCIENCE AT THE COLLEGE On the top storey, at the furthest corner of the College, the Science Department has its last remaining stronghold. There was a time, a spacious time in the not far distant past, when almost the whole of this top floor was set aside for Science: the Chemist was to brew his concoctions, the Physicist fiddle with freezing mixtures, in the calm of wide-open spaces. So hoped Fr. Marrion. It was through his enterprise that a strong foundation was laid - and by that is meant a great deal more than the heavy concrete floor he put down - on which there was every hope of building a successful science course. And then, alas, Fr. Marrion left the College; then, too, came difficulties of all kinds due to the war; and the rapid increase in the numbers at the College brought about a storming of the high places by newly formed classes so that Science was forced to retreat room by room to the Chemistry Laboratory, leaving behind much bootv – cupboards full of it - in the territories that had been lost. In these difficult times Mr. Yhap kept the Science in being by running a course in Physics for some of the classes, while Nature Study continued in the lower forms. But all thought of taking a science subject for a public exam, Junior or Senior, had to be dropped for the time being. In October last year a new start was made. It began, of necessity, with a fairly thorough stocktaking of the resources at the disposal of the College, with reference chiefly to science furniture and apparatus not including the important and difficult question of the room-space that could be put at the disposal of the Scientists.

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