The Three Gardens Once upon a time, and not so very far from here and now, there

were three gardens. The first belonged to a Colonel Mustard, a retired army officer, who had been very much at home in his regiment and had been more than disappointed to find his career was at an end. Having never been so happy as when drilling his troops on the parade ground, it was in the same spirit that he approached his garden. His flowers stood to attention in straight rows, all of the same height and all in uniform colours. They were very much in demand amongst spinsters of the parish as cu t flowers for stiff and frigid floral decorations in cold public places. Oddly enough, the Colonel didn't mind his flowers being cut. 'After all,' he said, being partial to a good proverb, 'you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.' All in all, a good many eggs got broken in the Colonel's garden: he used to make daily inspections, striding up and down the paths with a swagger stick under his arm, drawing it from time to time like a sword to prod or swipe at plants which failed to satisfy his stringent standards of height or straightness or colour: there was always a sad little pile of rejects on his compost heap at the back fence. 'Shape 'em up or ship 'em out,' he used to say, this motto being his only memento of a NATO liaison exercise with our North American allies. Colonel Mustard was satisfied with. his garden; with a kind of military satisfaction in the achievement of an objective.' He had, however, to admit to a feeling that each year it took greater effort to reach an end result that was slightly disappointing. He blamed the environment for this, and of course plants were not quite what they used to be; he didn't see that his results were entirely the product of his own willpower, and even the will weakens with age. The nextdoor garden belonged to Professor Plum, a progressive academic and a lecturer (in sociology) at the local polytechnic. He had been progressive all his life, although he didn't seem to have actually got anywhere. He disapproved loudly of Colonel Mustard's methods and his garden, but he was very

happy to have him as a neighbour. It was, after all, very convenient to have such an excellent example of the forces of reaction so close at hand. He himself was an incurable romantic and a profound believer in Mother Nature; he was certain that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. His philosophy of gardening was a policy of non-interference with the natural development of his flowers, or plants as they should more accurately be described, many of them refusing to produce actual flowers. Professor Plum let them grow as they liked and where they liked. This produced some very strange plants indeed, and his garden was a very popular place with a number of local hippies. It was a question of the survival of the fittest, of course, and in the little jungle that resulted, many plants failed, but the slugs, snails and varied parasites abounded and flourished. Professor Plum was very proud of the idea of his garden, which he liked to talk about and which featured frequently in his lectures. He never actually spent much time in it, however, in truth, finding it rather a frightening place. This feeling was shared by a number of his plants, which were always trying to flyaway as seeds or tunnel under the fences as roots. The ones unlucky enough to land or surface in Colonel Mustard's garden didn't last long - oh no. But some of them ended up in the Reverend Green's garden on the other side, and at this point I should tell you that not only did the Revd Green often rescue rejects from Colonel Mustard's compost heap, but that he had also been known, on dark nights, to creep into Professor Plum's plot and carry off some of his more delicate and suffering specimens. Professor Plum never noticed. What kind of man then was the Revd Green, and what was his garden like? Obviously he was a man of God, and one who believed actively in God's caring for every man and plant. He believed in the essential goodness of the universe, just as he .believed in the potential of everyone of his plants to grow into something unique and beautiful. Unlike Professor Plum, however, he did not think that this would happen by itself and without his help. (Perhaps he was the original parson in the story so loved by sermon-writers in which, when congratulated

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by a passing parishioner on the job that he and God had made of his garden, a horticultural vicar replies, 'You should have seen it when God had it to himself! ') No, like Candide, the Revd Green cultivated his garden. He kept away the pests and he protected his plants from extremes, but not too much as he felt that they should grow 'Up able to resist the conditions around them. In every plant, however, he looked for individual features and points of strength. In one he found beautiful shape, in another unusual leaf patterns. In a third striking colour, and so on. I'm afraid that locally he was considered more than a little eccentric as he had often been overheard talking to his plants. He may even have given them names. The extraordinary thing was that, although his soil was the same as his neighbours', and his plants were often those they had rejected, or that had escaped from them, all his flowers seemed to do much better than theirs. He never tried to make his flowers fit some preconceived pattern like Colonel Mustard, nor did he leave them to their own devices, but he took care to give each the environment it needed to thrive. He didn't expect plants to be anything but themselves, but he did expect them to be as good as they could be, and, of course, he was sometimes disappointed. It even happened that he had to admit defeat and pull up a plant that was clearly harming those around it. Over the years the Revd Green had seen thousands and thousands of plants grow and grow again, but to him each remained an individual, to be respected for itself, and he never lost the gift of surprise and delight in each plant's achievements. The Revd Green loved his garden. Now, speaking as the flowers of life, tell me which garden you would choose to grow up in? May 1984 Richard Lunn

SECTION V. IN GOD OUR STRENGTH

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The Eagle

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The Death of God 'God is dead.' So western man - has often heard it proclaimed through the lips of his moder~ prophets - Friedrich Nietzche and others. You can accept this statement (that God is dead) as being true; you can also reject it as false or unproved. But whatever we think personally of this dramatic proclamation, we can easily recognise that for many people God is not very much alive today. His commandments are not taken very much to heart. Not only do we live in a world of hatred and violence; lies and distortions; theft and cheating; envy and jealousy: but all these things which God has expressly forbidden are increasingly, accepted as being part of normal human behaviour and are even proclaimed as rights. When we consider this state of affairs, we can see that God is not much respected; that he is not very much alive in our civilisation - alive in present-day life. It may therefore be true to say that God is dead. Yet here at Aiglon the opposite belief is proclaimed - that God is alive. The Schooi maintains through its motto, which you carry on your blazers, that God is our strength. What do you _feel about this controversy? Which of these two beliefs do you accept - that God is dead; or that God, very much alive today, can be our strength? Perhaps you are perplexed - you don't know what to think. Is creation an accident - something that evolved without design; without a designer; without God? If there is a God, why is there so much evil in the world? Surely if this supreme being, God, existed and was benevolent, as we are told by his defenders, he would intervene in human affairs and put an end to all the injustice and suffering which vitiates the life we know. These and other such questions may occur to you and perhaps they leave you with your head spinning. I want to suggest to you this morning that this problem of God (does he or doesn't he exist?) may resolve"itself in an unexpected way. As we are still racked by doubt (not knowing what to make of this question), we may suddenly encounter

God. Let me take an example of such an encounter. Some years ago it became clear to the citizens of Basle (Switzerland's second largest city) that something was wrong with their hospitals. Nursing, it was said, ain't what it used to be. Nurses attended to the sick or to any other job efficiently perhaps, but lacking in genuine care for their patients. There were, of course, exceptions; and one hospital, in particular, seemed to rise above the general level of inadequacy. Here the nurses were still dedicated to their calling; still cared for their patients. What was the explanation for this strange imbalance, you may ask. Were the working conditions in the Claraspital better than those in the other hospitals? Was the pay better? Not a bit of it. This particular hospital is certainly not the most modem, the best equipped. As for working conditions these are in fact harder than elsewhere - with longer hours and less pay. In fact, there's no pay at all. For the nurses here are volunteers. They are nuns, and nursing their suffering brothers and sisters is their way of serving God. God is a daily, hourly .reality to them; a never-ending source of inspiration. God is their strength. Those people fortunate enough to be nursed in this hospital are in the hands of helpers of God, nurses who mediate God's loving care. Amongst those hospital patients are people who don't believe in God. They wouldn't go near a church. In ordinary everyday life (when they are well) they would steer clear of priests and their helpers. They have put themselves into the hands of these nurses only because of their superior nursing. Yet in choosing as they do they are drawn to God, even though they do not know it or even deny it. For what is this superior care they are after, but God's strength working through human agency? God, of course, it could be argued, need be no more than an idea in the heads of these nuns. Ideas (beliefs) determine action and ideals can inspire. God on this count may therefore be found to be an illusion - no more. I believe, however, that God is a reality and can be a source

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of strength daily. I first came to believe this as a result of encounters with Christians who have proved to me through their lives the existence of God, the daily strength of God. I am thinking .of people who practised their faith in the worst of conditions - in concentration: camps. From all accounts of life in concentration camps such as Dachau and Belsen, there were many people who stood firm in the presence of bestiality and daily executions. But human dignity (refusing to stoop to the level of your oppressors) was not all that was remarkable. Forgiveness towards their tormentors, sacrifice of their own life for that of another were amongst the virtues practised even in these earthly hells. And those who were able to set this amazing example did so because they were inspired by their faith, because God was their strength. June 1977 Theodore Senn

My Small World Imagine: a row of housewives, strung across a main road; the traffic stopped by policemen, crowds around, watching, craning to get a better view. What is it - a demonstration? Sudden movements and then a shot rings out. The line of housewives suddenly takes off down the street, clothes flying, hair blowing out in the rush. They run awkwardly, for each is carrying a frying-pan, and regarding its contents with care. Elbows out, sweat streaming, they round a bend and then with a final sprint; cross the finishing line to the loud applause of the crowd. There then follows a test - to toss the contents of the frying-pan, and catch it again without splattering it over anyone, or spoiling its shape. What on earth is going on? The day is Shrove Tuesday. The women's frying-pans contain pancakes, which contain eggs, flour and milk; and they are taking part in the traditional pancake race. Why Shrove Tuesday, and why pancakes? Shrove Tuesday marks the beginning of a period of the year called 'Lent' in the church calendar; it is forty days long, and reminds us of Christ's temptation in the wilderness. It is a period during which people sometimes discipline themselves by not allowing themselves something that they usually enjoy - perhaps chocolate, or sugar in tea or coffee. In history, the eggs and milk were used up on Shrove Tuesday in pancakes, and were not used during Lent. What do we do? Shall we give up something for Lent? So - let's all give up going to the Bazaar during Lent. No, seriously - I'm going to make another suggestion. I don't know about you, but nothing helps me start the day off badly more than a meditation all about the world's problems. You know - Afghanistan, Russia, starving refugees; misery, blackness, bloodshed, no hope, hatred, despair - crazy world. No joy or light. The thing that really depresses me about it, is not that I already know about these things without being told, but that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that I can do about them. I'm not a world leader, my letters or even

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my vote won't change a thing, and I can't even boycott the Olympics, as no-one has asked me to go anyway. There's simply nothing I can do about any of it. But maybe there is something ... I'm no great historian, and Mr Stunt will probably shoot me down in flames for this, but it seems to me that every single problem in the world now is caused by man's selfishness .. every single one. Thinkabout it. 'Man' - that's collective; it means everyone. But you and me, we're part of 'man'. I suggest that changing the world situation starts in me, and in you, at a level at which we can do something. think for a minute - how often do I dictate to people unnecessaril y? how often do I throw up barriers around myself? how often do I trample on other people's feelings? how often' do I inflate my value, and make myself indispensable to others? how much damage do I cause with my tongue, spreading rum ours, getting the knife in? That's on the negative side. On the other hand: do I use opportunities to help others to be of use to them? am I agreeable or aggressive? do I think of myself or others first? can I be more open and genuinely friendly to others? The more I think along these lines, the more ashamed I become of my own personal selfishness. It's me, me, me all the time, even if others think it isn't - we're so very good at covering up. Changing the world begins with ourselves, in uncovering our own self-centredness and giving more, thinking more of others, being sensitive. Let us have the reminder of 'pancake races' and Shrove Tuesday to stimulate us into positive action in the next few days of Lent - by constantly asking: how can I make my small world a better place for everyone? February 1980 James Jameson
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Health I suppose that most of the time life goes by as normal - we might get coughs and colds, or break a leg, but that's all fairly routine. Occasionally, something more serious may happen - a friend, a member of our family, someone we know - falls ill with a disease or an ailment which causes them a great deal of pain. In the worst cases the infirmity may become permanent, or even lead to their death. It's a very salutary exercise to think through some of the facts associated with illness. For example, our true character depends very much upon a state of good health. I remember a nextdoor neighbour we had when I was about thirteen - he was a fat, jovial man, full of fun and good humour, but for a period of some six months he became noticeably different. He was out in his garden less, he spoke less, he was more subdued. The reason was that he was unwell (in fact his heart was very enlarged, and not doing its job properly), and as he drove out one day in his car to go and get a haircut, he collapsed and died. His personality, as I said, was affected by his illness, but what struck me at the time was how easy it would be to misjudge someone - to misinterpret their behaviour or their manner, and to think badly of them. I'm sure that if you and I knew more about the circumstances which affect others, we'd be more charitable towards them, and less likely to draw hasty or false conclusions. Another fact about illness is that it is a great leveller. It's true, of course, that money may help to obtain treatment which would otherwise be impossible, but wealth cannot provide immunity from illness any more than a man's position in life can guarantee a cure. The tallest, strongest man can easily become weak, and it's at times of ill-health that we realise just how frail human life is. Indeed, some think seriously about God for the first time when facing a serious illness, and it's regrettable when we treat God in that way. If his love for you and me is what I personally believe it to be, then God is worthy of a place in our lives at all times, not just when we think we

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need him. Of course, being ill and afterwards making recovery can make us more appreciative of the things we so easily take for granted: Very simple things, like sitting down in comfort instead of pain, like being able to walk, or just being able to see the world around us. Things which may seem trivial in normal circumstances, but things which we would give a great deal to get back when we are deprived of them. In the village where I lived as a boy, my mother used to visit a woman who was an invalid - at the age of fourteen she had contracted some illness which confined her to her bed for most of the time, and since she was then about forty, you can work out for yourself that some twenty-six years of her life had been spent in this way. I also remember reading of a man in similar circumstances, who had a mirror fitted so that he could watch from his bed what was going on in the street below. Seeing people coming and going about their daily tasks gave him a great deal of pleasure, as well as interest. Doesn't it make you, like me, feel like saying, God forgive me when I complain.in word or even in thought about my daily tasks, for there are many who would give anything to change places with me? But the last thing which occurs to me about illness is that it can bring our the best in people. I don't mean the people who are ill, necessarily, but the rest of us. Because when someone is seriously ill, petty differences are forgotten, and there is a common concern for the individual involved. I think some of the finer human qualities are shown when people rally round to support someone who is ill. We may, in fact, feel rather helpless, but the important thing is that we care. Perhaps all of us need to be reminded periodically of the goodhealth which we enjoy for so much of the time. Let us be thankful for that, and more considerate towards others whose circumstances we may know little about. Above all, may we not turn to God only when we need help. He wants to share all our life, and that includes the good times as well as the bad. When did you last share something good with G~d - something that went well, something that made you feel happy, something you enjoyed? '

The words on the school crest are worth a lot of thought 'God is my strength'. However little we may think about it, that's as true when we're fit and healthy as ever it is when we're in a bad way. 'God is my strength' - I hope they're words which will mean a lot to you. 'God is my strength' - they're the words I'd like you to think about in the silence which follows. Summer 1980 Arthur Potter

Facing Death Note: This meditation was given on the morning after Mr Peter Boardman had lectured to the school on the British ascent of the SW face of Everest in 1975. He was one of the four climbers to reach the top. After last night's lecture on Everest, what is there to say? What else is there to think about but that tremendous climb tho~e amazing photographs? Fortunately, what I had alread~ decided to talk about some days ago does in some way fit in. What I will be trying to do is to separate out one thread from all that tapestry, and offer you that for your meditation. That thread, my theme, is DEATH. A writer has described man as being 'through fear of 'death, all his lifetime subject to bondage' - slaves, prisoners to death. But some of you will say, 'I'm not afraid of death.' In fact, I'm often surprised how many of you say that. I wonder if it

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really is so? Perhaps you are not afraid of your picture of death, the fleeting glimpses you may have had. But in a real extremity - clinging to a rock-face, drowning, trapped in a 'towering inferno' - no? Would you not ding to life with every fibre of your being? You would be very unusual if you didn't, to say the least. Of course men and women face death fearlessly every day as we saw last night - or bring it upon themselves, as we heard in "the story of Oates at the South Pole on Tuesday. But that was done as part of some great enterprise, or as a self-sacrifice for others. 1t is quite different from not fearing death. You ask the climbers. No - we fear it, basically and rightly. We fight for life. But we must try to get it into proportion. While we fear it, we must not be in bondage to it. And so we must sometimes think about it, clearly and soberly. The great English novelist E. M. Forster wrote: Death destroys a man : the idea of death saves him. A strange saying? Think about it. Death destroys a man. Of course it does, that's why we fear it. Whatever beliefs we men have about life after death (I believe in it, but for now we are going to take a this-worldly view of it), it is the end of this physical life. The end of relationships here, of our work, of our hopes. To help you think about your death, 1 am going to imagine mine. If 1 died tomorrow, there would be a stir in the school, a day's shock, the usual excitement too, a service in church. Some few would miss me deeply. But most of you, 1 must face it, would soon get over it .. A new Maths master: occasionally one of you would say somethmg about 'that chap - what was his name? - who used to teach Maths here' - but the gap would soon close, the wound heal. My death, I am sure, would not be the end of the world. But it would be the end of my world. Absolute, final. Death destroys. But - the idea of death saves. 1 want to point now to two good consequences of the idea of death, of thinking about death. 1 It makes us fully aware of the absolute unimportance, in the long run, of things - of possessions, our bodies, all the

things we surround ourselves with and attach such needless importance to. 'When I die 1 can take only a very small suitcase with me.' That was said to me by a priest in Cape Town who was a~ the time dying a slow, lingering death of multiple sclerosis. All that usually happens very quickly, with him took a long time. He went on celebrating the Holy Communion. With a light, aluminium cup when he couldn't lift the usual one. Then he couldn't lift that. He went on preaching, first in his natural voice, then with someone in the pulpit with him to catch the whispers when his voice went. Then he had to give that up. Everything was stripped away, position, influence, his world narrowed down to a single armchair. But as he was stripped of all these outward things, so the inward things, the man's spirit, became almost visible. The weaker he became outwardly, so the stronger inwardly. So first, the idea of death makes us realise the unimportance of outward things. 2 A vivid consciousness of death, and the desire to overcome death, is the greatest urge to make, to create, to climb. Past:rnak, the author of Dr Zhivago, describes 'man's systematte work devoted to the solution of the enigma of death, so that deat~ itself may. eventually be overcome. That is why people wnte symphomes, and why they discover mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves.' This is not only, or not all so :hat something may survive them after they die. Most grea~ a:t~sts are not. very interested in their works after they are fmIsh~d; Bu~ m the act of creation - you know it, you have all e::cpenenced It - you touch something beyond death. That picture you ~ave painted, that poem, that mathematical proof, that mountam you have climbed - it takes you beyond yoursel~. And. so you have touched or been touched by, somethmg that IS death-less, eternal. The greatest yearning in the heart of all human beings who have really faced death is . . ' , to overcome It. But If you haven't faced it then of course there is no urge to conquer it. Think about it n'ow. Death destroys a man: the idea of death saves him. April 1977 Denis McWilliam

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Thanks for Creation Outside the wind was gusting 80 kph. The temperature was minus 12C and the walls of. the building had a thick crust of ice. Inside it was still, and warm, and along the silent corridors came the sound of singing - a beautiful harmony of men's voices singing the psalms. The place - as some of you will have already guessed - was the Grand St Bernard Hospice where some of us stayed on long-ex. A thoroughly enjoyable ex, but my lasting impression will not be of the skiing or the weather, but the worship that took place each day down in the vaulted crypt. Before breakfast I crept down to join the canons. I felt that here was a group of men who knew a lot more about meditation than we do. Any dictionary will remind you that meditation is primarily a religious activity, a contemplation of the things of God. Up there in the frozen wastes were people devoting their lives to worshipping God and serving their fellow men. Up there, surrounded by the fierce majesty of creation were men who knew their Creator. Sadly 20th Century man has lost touch with his Maker. He has been blotted out of the picture. Listen to Steve Turner on the subject:' In My World In my world of golden suns ,if it weren't for the obscuring clouds. I would write of the wind-bent grass but all the fields are tarmacked and multi storey . Instead I'll be an urban Wordsworth writing of reinforced concrete landscapes and clearbrown skies

where to wander lonely as a cloud is just not advisable after dark. Up To Date, by Steve Turner Not only have we lost touch with our Maker: we even deny he exists: Untitled We say there is no God (quite easily) when amongst the curving steel and glass of our own proud creations. They will not argue. Once we were told of a heaven but the last time we strained to look up we could see only skyscrapers shaking their heads and smiling no. The pavement is reality. We say there is no God (quite easily) when walking back through Man's concreted achievements but on reaching the park our attention is distracted by anthems of birds coming from the greenery. We find ourselves shouting a little louder now because of the rushing streams. Our voices are rained upon by the falling of leaves. We should not take our arguments for walks like this. The park has absolu tely no manners. Up To Date, by Steve Turner Here's someone whose faith has gone further: What Made That, Made Me Lord, I'm part of your creation What made everything else also made me. We think of the stars and the planets as strange and mysterious things.

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We think of the emissions of radio waves from outer space as weird and alien. But what made them, made me. Francis .of Assisi spent. time thinking of animals as his brothers. I need to spend more time thinking about this fact that I share a common Father with all creation. I stand in awe of creation. I am staggered by the distances and dimensions which astronomers mention when they talk about space. My mind reels and my imagination boggles at the ideas we now have of the immensity of the universe. But I am a part of the same creation as all these things. This thought makes me feel humble - but not insignificant. _ It makes me feel very, very small - but not without dignity. It isn't dignity which has anything to do with my own powers. But I feel that if I am made by the one who created this vast universe, then I can be satisfied with this thought. I am proud of my creator, because he has created so much. And because of that I have a sense of my own value and dignity as a human being. Save me from being big-headed, Lord. Save me, too, from losing this sense of my fundamental value. Because if you made me, I'm valuable. Like a little pencil sketch by an old master, nothing in comparison with his great masterpieces. But precious to the one who knows, and understands. I am just a fragment of God's creation - but valuable because of my creator. 'Prayer: Thanks for Creation

for the everlasting hills and the never-resting winds, for trees and the common grass underfoot. We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of birds, and see the splendour of the summer fields, and taste of the autumn fruits, and rejoice in the feel of the snow, and smell the breath of the spring. Grant us a heart open to all this beauty; and save our souls from being so blind that we pass unseeing when even the common thornbush is aflame with your glory, 0 God our creator, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. April 1988 Tim Barlow

It's Shakespeare's Fault It's Shakespeare's fault really - I blame him entirely. My expectations of men have been far too high because of him, and the result? I've been a disappointed woman. I've waited patiently for the man who would walk into the room one day, take one look at me and feel compelled to say: '0 she doth teach the torches to bum brigh tIt seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.' And just where were all the men when I lived in Exeter who could have said, on seeing me appear on the perfect balcony: 'But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Emily is the sun'? But what I secretly hoped for most of all was that there was some man, somewhere, who on seeing me put my hand to my cheek, would say: 'See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. Oh that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek.' Isn't that beautiful?

o God, we thank you for this earth, our home; for the wide sky and the blessed sun, for thesalt sea and the running water,

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To date, the most romantic thing that has ever been said to me is, 'Emily, you remind me of my mother'. What's happened to men these days? Where are the single roses? Where are the love sonnets that took hours to compose? Where's the feeling for romance? When I was a student in Dublin I was asked out to dinner, and the young gentleman concerned took me to MacfIonalds, and as we sat gazing into each other's eyes over our Big Macs, I asked myself -what's happened to men these days? . But you know, in some ways I'm glad my romantic dreams have been shattered, and I suppose I owe that to Shakespeare too. Now, Othello was fairly good with words, and when he meets his wife in Cyprus, he says to her: 'It gives me wonder great as my content To see you here before me. 0 my soul's joy, If after every tempest came such calms May the winds blow till they have wakened death.' Which simply means 'it's great to see you'. But the same Othello murdered his wife two days later because he believed what his nasty friend said - that she had been unfaithful to him, which wasn't true. Now it occurred to me that there is a meditation in there somewhere. It could be that we women should be very wary of men who say beautiful things, but it's more likel~ that it's got so~et~ing to do with the meaning of love - that m the end soft hghtmg, flowers, poetry and all the romance in the w?rld will ~ever take the place of a love that is 'patient an~ kind, n?t Jealous or boastful, not arrogant or rude, does not m~l~t on Its own way, is not irritable or resentful, does not rejOICe at wrong, but rejoices in the right, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things' (1 Cor. 13). I think I'll settle for that. Spring 1984 Emily Torrans

Unique If you use the word 'unique' you have to be careful! The Oxford Dictionary defines it like this: UNIQUE - 'being the only one of its kind, having no like or equal or parallel'. And yet I do not hesitate to call this book 'unique'. This book is the first book ever to be translated. This book has been translated into more languages than any other book, the whole of it into over 250 languages, parts of it into over 1300 languages - and still every year new translations are being produced. . This book has been read by more people than any other book - there simply is no other book that even begins to compare with the circulation of this book. This book has been banned and burned more than any other book. It has been smuggled across borders and printed on illegal printing presses like no other book. More people have died for this book than any other. Men have been burned with this book hanging round their necks. Women have been sent to prison for reading this book to their children. This book has been to the moon. Of course this book is the Bible, and I believe it's unique. I also believe it is reliable, though I am not going to argue for its historical reliability now. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject to show that it stands up to the closest scrutiny. One professor at a British university summed it up this way: 'If you discard the Bible as being unreliable, then you must discard almost all ancient literature.' And one of Britain's top archaeologists at the British Museum said: 'There is no archaeological fact which contradicts a Biblical fact.' But I'm not really concerned to defend the Bible - as someone once said, 'as soon defend a lion'. But I do want to encourage you to read it. J. B. Phillips, a brilliant scholar who produced one of the many modern translations, spoke of his translation work: '... it was like rewiring a house when the electricity hasn't been turned off!' And certainly you cannot deny the impact the Bible has had

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on millions of individual lives. Take just one example. People are getting very excited about the Olympics. Most of you, I expect" have also seen the film 'Chariots of Fire', and will remember that in the 1924 Games Eric Liddell hit the headlines not only for his running, but also for his stand as a Biblebelieving Christian. I find it interesting that in the Seoul Olympics this year, there is not just one athlete but there are' many athletes who are prepared to stand up and be counted as Christians. Andthey are reading their Bibles in Seoul. I wonder why interest in this book didn't die out years ago. It goes on increasing. May I challenge you to find out for yourself - first hand - just why the Bible is unique. And the only way is by reading it. To make it easier for anyone at Aiglon to have a Bible in their room and to read it, we've had produced a special Aiglon edition of the Good News Bible. It's written in modem, simple English so that everyone can understand. It is automatically given to anyone who has Religious Studies classes, and I will gladly give one to anyone else who would like one. Knowing Aiglon students, you may not use the word 'unique' but you may discover that this book is 'cool'. September 1987 Tim Barlow

'To Everything there is a Season 'To everything there is a season,' says the Bible, 'and a time to eyery purpose under ... heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew, a time t6 keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.' I'm conscious of time, this morning, because it's not only the end of term, nor is it just the end of the school year, but for me - and for some of you - it's the end of that part of our lives spent at Aiglon. And if that's true for some of us today, I'd like you to realise that it will be true for all of you tomorrow ... because there's not one of you who will not leave Aiglon at some stage. I wonder how you think of the time you've spent here? For me, as a Christian, it's no accident that my life has met and mingled with yours, or that your lives have met and mingled with each other's, because I believe that God has a plan for each of us. Have you ever looked at the back of a piece of tapestry? It's a jumble of threads, different colours, woven in and out, going here and there with no obvious pattern ... arid, perhaps that's how our lives sometimes seem to us. But turn the tapestry over, and things begin to make sense - a picture emerges from the confusion, order appears out of chaos, and a beautiful design unfolds. Perhaps life seems a tangle of chance events to some of you - but I believe there's a meaning and purpose behind it all, like the tapestry - that God is at work in

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our lives, that He sees clearly what is hidden from us, and that He knows the part we each individually play. And that encourages me - not just that there is a role for me, but to consider what it is - to seek God's will, to find out what He wants me to do, and to think about my aim in life ... 'Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throwaway,' wrote Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor and philosopher. 'Be good for something while you live.' And John Wesley, a great Christian, said, 'Lord, let us not live to be useless.' .,. How easy it is to become self-centred, to waste the life God's given us, and at the end of it to have nothing of any real value. Well, if I haven't already challenged you, perhaps I can do so with the brief stories of two very different men. The first, LOUISXIV of France, was known as the Sun-King. The SunKing, because, as he supposed, all the court and the country revolved around him - he the centre, and they the planets 'I am the State,' he said of himself. He was a man of power, who extended the French borders in wars against the Dutch and a man of immense wealth, who built the Versailles Palace, a structure so magnificent that other kings copied it. But he was, in the end, a man who died from gangrene - and a man so unpopular that his death was a cause for celebration. Contrast that with another man, born in an obscure village. He was the child of a peasant woman, and worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty. For three years after that he was a travelling preacher, but he never wrote a book, never went to college and never held a public office. He never owned a house and he never had a family. He never set foot inside a big city, nor travelled as much as two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things which usually accompany greatness - he had no credentials but himself. While still young, the tide of public opinion turned against him. His freinds ran away, one of them denied him, and he was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial and was nailed to a cross ,between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had, which was his coat, and when he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed tomb through the pity of a friend.

Over nineteen hundred years have passed, and it is far within the mark to say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built, all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as much as that one, solitary life. In the closing minutes I'd like you to ask the question how, and why, Jesus had the effect he did. Louis XIV remains in the history books. He's given his name to a style of furniture chairs, desks, and so on - but little else reminds us of him today, and he has no followers. As a Christian, I believe that Jesus is not merely an example for our lives, but that he is life. And I ask again, what's your objective, what's your aim, what's your ambition? It's not just the term which finishes, or the school year, or even our time at Aiglon - but life itself will one day finish for all of us. '0 that they were wise,' says the Bible, 'that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.' 'I am the way, the truth, and the life,' said Jesus. 'No man comes to the Father but by me.' Summer 1983 Arthur Potter

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SECTION VI.

THE AIGLON SCENE

Marsilio's Army Most of you will probably. remember the day last term when the school was taken over by the army. They arrived very early in the morning and the first thing they did was to ask permission to use the school as their base. You might expect that they would have asked the Headmaster, Deputy Headmaster, the Bursar or perhaps a Housemaster. However, it seems to me particularly appropriate that the person they actually did ask was Marsilio. Appropriate because Marsilio is one of the people who really keeps the school going. Without him I am sure that the school would rapidly disintegrate and soon we would be in chaos. One of the few things that Mr Cross, my predecessor, told me about my job was that Marsilio was 'totally reliable'. There are very few people who could earn this compliment. Teachers are dispensable and can be relatively easily replaced, but I'm sure this would not be true in Marsilio's case. There is a man in the school of whom everyone seems a little bit afraid. A man who rules his kingdom with a rod of iron and to enter that kingdom one must tread cautiously. I am thinking, of course, of Monsieur Carron - the school chef. My first encounter with Monsieur Carron was somewhat traumatic. Owing to a communication breakdown in the expedition department, no one had ordered the picnics for the first ski expedition of the term. Mr Hunter went down to the kitchen on Saturday morning and had the temerity to ask for a hundred and forty picnics please, for tomorrow. I think he was lucky to escape from the kitchen uninjured. Mr Hunter and I discussed the problem, and it was decided that I should go back down into the kitchen and try again. I tentatively walked in. Monsieur Carron was smashing a huge hammer down on some steaks. 'Bonjour, Monsieur Carron.' Thwack. 'Bonjour,' Monsieur Carron replied without looking up. Thwack. 'Er, if Mr Hunter went and bought the bread, would that help?' I said. Thwack; 'Is Mr Hunter going to make the picnics?' Monsieur Carron replied. Thwack. 'Urn, er, urn. I didn't know what to say.

Students at Work, by Kate Lunn

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Thwack. Then Monsieur Carron strode towards his office and made a brief telephone call to the bakery. 'It will be done,' he said. I scuttled out of the kitchen, glad to be away from the thwacking hammer. . However, every man has his weak point, and for Monsieur Carron it is the challenge of the impossible. Mrs Senn taught me this. We once went down to the kitchen together. Mrs Senn said, 'Monsieur Carron, I know this will be absolutely impossible, but I'thought I would tell you the problem anyway.' Monsieur Carron listened, and eventually said, 'Well, we will see what we can do,' and Mrs Senn and I knew the job would be done. The thing is that Monsieur Carron can sometimes achieve the impossible, and the Christmas dinner is one such example. Those of you who graduate have a great pleasure waiting for you - the graduation dinner. The spread of food that Monsieur Carron puts on is fantastic. I am sure that those of you who have been to other boarding schools will agree with me that the food that Monsieur Carron gives you every day is very much better than that of any other school. . During the snowy days of January, I would sometimes struggle up through the deep snow from my chalet to the road. Then I would laboriously clear the snow off my car and slither and slide up the road to the school. From the bumpy road it is a great contrast to turn into the immaculate car park that Ivan has been clearing since the early hours of the morning. Throughout the winter, there are those who wage a constant battle on your behalf to try and make sure that you can get up and down the steps, as well as making sure that you don't have to wade through thigh-deep snow. Have you ever helped stack the chairs that you are sitting on now? If you have, you know that it is hard work. Can you imagine what it is like to do the job on your own? Jose does it on his own, and this is just one example of the many tasks that he does that one would only notice if he were no.,there to do them. These are some of the people who keep the school going, If they and their colleagues were to stop work or did not do their

jobs well, try and imagine what life would be like. There would be no food - you would be hungry, the heating would break down and would not be repaired - you would be cold, the pipes would freeze - you would be thirsty, your rooms would get dirtier and dirtier, and the toilets would stink - you would become ill. It is because these people do their job well that we are healthy, well fed, warm and comfortable. They work behind the scenes but that doesn't mean that they should be forgotten. Hugh Clarke

The Feast of Democracy and the Reluctant

Guest

"Freedom can only be maintained if exercised." The coming Saturday and Sunday are important days for the local inhabitants: they are polling days - set aside for the business of voting. Being Swiss myself, I too am invited to cast my vote. But I am ashamed to say that I do not relish the invitation: I find little joy in this opportunity of recording my say in the government of my country; and what as a good democrat I should prize as a privilege, I regard rather as a daunting duty from which I would be glad to escape. My aversion to this business of voting is, I am afraid, shared by other Swiss democrats - many others. For this reason it holds, I believe, a lesson for all of us - one that I would, therefore, like to share with you this morning. The Vote (the right to vote) is generally viewed as one of the great achievements of civilisation; and the degree of civilisation attained by a particular country is frequently measured by this question of the vote, a question which always concerns

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the realities of political power: where in the state does this power lie? Is it concentrated in the hands of one man, an absolute ruler - say, a king or president? Alternatively, is it shared by a small number of powerful men, as in the case of the colonels who controlled Greece a few years back? Or do the people have some say in the government of their country through representatives who are answerable to them and who may therefore be dismissed if they betray the trust which the electors have placed in them? If such a system of popular control has been established, another question arises: how many people do, in fact, have the vote? Do you, to exercise your vote, have to be a property owner? an adult over 18, 20, 21? a member of the male sex? Ana - further question -- can you vote for any political party . or are some parties excluded from political power? Please do not misunderstand me: forms of government vary from country to country and what works in one society does not necessarily work in another. Democracy may not be suitable everywhere; and there may well be countries where power needs to be vested in the hands of a strong ruler. Nevertheless, people tend to distrust such autocratic government because they fear (often from experience) all power that goes unchecked. They want, in fact, to have a say in the way their lives are run; onIy in this way do they feel secure. The popular clamour for participation in government has been particularly marked in recent years. And here I am not referring only to government in the narrow political sense. What is true of the state is also true of other institutions factories, universities, even schools. In factories the workers want to sit on management boards; in universities the students want to control their courses, force the cops off the campus and burn compromising admission files; whilst in schools, as Aiglon shows on Mark-Reading mornings, pupils want to make sure that teachers have not abused their grading powers: marking, they fear, may be in need of a few adjustments: they must ensure that justice is done. In all this laudable endeavour there is an unmistakable trend: people everywhere want to voice their views, assert their

political will; they want to participate in the business of government. And much of the tension in our present-day world springs from popular frustration over the restrictions placed on such popular participation. Now you may be interested to know that Switzerland has long offered its citizens an exceptional measure of political participation: if in other countries participation means voting once every four or five years, here in Switzerland it means voting four or five times a year. And instead of voting for a president, a political representative or a party, here the people also vote on particular issues - bills, which Parliament presents to them for their approval (and which, in fact, are often rejected); petitions which the people have got up; and so on. Thus on Saturday and Sunday we are invited to settle no less than five vital questions: should we, like an increasing number of European countries, introduce summer time? A new tariff that would increase the price of bread but would help us to balance our budget? Should we make another attempt to face up to the problem of abortion by legalising it? Should we finance our universities and our research with the help of federal funds? Finally, in addition to these four federal laws, we are asked to consider a proposal for the suppression of private automobile and air traffic on twelve Sundays in the year. This last proposal comes to us in the form of popular petition. Whilst not favoured by our federal parliament or government, this initiative is supported by all our environmental organisations, including the World Wildlife Fund. If we count the other issues submitted to the ballot since last September, we arrive at a total of fourteen; and I am not counting the elections of our deputies; nor, for that matter, has the year run its course. Marvellous, isn't it? Marvellous to have such a large say in the business of government. Here we have a situation that fulfils Abraham Lincoln's generous dream of popular democracy - 'government of the people, by the people, for the people'. As a Swiss citizen, I should feel privileged. Unfortunately, Swiss democracy is not quite so marvellous. With polls sometimes as low as thirty per cent of their supposed

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total, it is clear that many Swiss adults fail to appreciate their privileged participation in government - their responsibility as enfranchised citizens. What is the reason for this widespread indifference? To vote you have to be well informed. Doing your homework here means reading the newspapers carefully, following special TV programmes concerned with election issues; perhaps also attending meetings organised by the different political parties. Above all it means studying the texts of the bills laid before the electorate. For the coming weekend this legislation comes to forty pages of fine print and, needless to say, it is not light reading. In fact, it is a great bore. Another reason why people are apt to spurn these privileges of a free society is that they prefer to sit on the fence. Like the dying Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (but without his excuse) their attitudes to political parties and the policies they peddle is one of 'a plague on both YOUT houses'. But in abstaining in this way, they .are, of course, merely helping the enemies of democracy - those extremists of left and right who use democratic institutions such as the vote in order to destroy them. This brings us back to the beginning-of our meditation. In the preamble to the Swiss Constitution which we are now in the process of revising, we find as a warning the sentence with which I began: 'Freedom can only be maintained if exercised.' 1980-81 Theodore Senn

Weeds I think perhaps I'd better apologise in advance, because I suspect I'm about to bore you. They say nobody is more boring than a new convert - and I am a new convert to gardening. So if you come past my house on a Sunday and see me on my knees, I'm not praying at Allah. I'm weeding the flowerbeds. It's almost a year now since I moved out of Clairmont into a small flat in Chesieres. I knew the flat already, and it was exactly the one I wanted. The best thing about it is that it has a large garden, and I love the feeling of space that I get from wandering outside whenever I feel like it, and from being able to sit and read in the sun. What I hadn't realised, of course, is that the garden is also the worst thing about my flat, because it requires a monumental amount of work. Last year, when I moved in at the beginning of July, the lawn had not been cut for at least three months, and the grass and the dandelions were waist high. As for the flowerbeds, the weeds had already won the battle for that year, and I knew I wasn't going to make much progress there. But I did try putting weed-killer down along the path - that wasn't too successful either - the dandelions seemed to love it. They continued to flourish, bigger and thicker and brighter green than before, so halfway along the path, I decided it was a waste of time, and I gave up. This year, I've started earlier, and I'm determined that I am going to win this time. I've weeded the flowerbeds, cut back the bushes and creepers which were taking over, and planted some flowers. Then I decided to have another go at the path, and I was surprised to discover that where I had put down weedkiller last year, nothing had come up - the weedkiller had taken its time, but it had actually worked after all. But, of course, after the point where I had given up, the weeds were as fit and healthy as ever. Obviously, when I noticed this, I could have kicked myself - I wished that I had put weedkiller down all the way along the path - it certainly would have saved me a lot of time now - it's really hard work digging the weeds out

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with a spade, but as I was doing it one day, it struck me that maybe there was a lesson to be learnt here - don't we all too often give up our efforts, even though we know they are worthwhile, simply-because we don't see results right away, and we become discouraged. Too many of you do what I did - you try, honestly, for a while - perhaps you decide to turn over a new leaf, be more punctual, look a little neater, try harder not to break the rules - but if you're not promoted at the next Council Meeting, you think your efforts have been ignored; or perhaps you decide to study harder, and you really do, but then you're disappointed when your Mark Reading goes up only slightly, or you still fail an exam - and you give up trying. I'm sure it's true, as Mr Mansfield said on Friday, that one of the 'signs of maturity is knowing when last-minute panic action will help you, and when it won't. Another of the signs is being able to work now, and to keep on working, even though the rewards are not immediate. We know that this is difficult, and that you need encouragement along the way, but if you hope some day to be in control of your own life, this is what you must do - keep trying to beat down the laziness, the carelessness, the lack of organisation that creep up on you like weeds, not just once but over and over again. Sooner or later - and it may well be later - your achievements will blossom, but only if you can resist the temptation to give up, as I did, halfway along the path. Summer 1982 Joan Mackie

Success Have you had a successful term? Were your exam results an encouragement - or something you would rather not talk about? Did you make it into the racing team - or at least get your bronze? Did you make or break a friendship? The end-of-term reports will give you a few clues, but in the last analysis what will probably count most is your own opinion. What kind of report would you write yourself? Broadly speaking, I think there are two kinds of success. There is success with things and there is success with people. It is easier to be a success with things than with people. Things can be manipulated and pushed around more easily than people. People have to be loved to be won. I am .reminded of a story about an elderly school teacher who resigned at the age of 65 from the village school where she had started out as a pupil herself at the age of 3. She went on to teach there as a young woman and left after 41 years' service. That may not strike you as a very successful career. She was never married - every morning, week after week, year after year, she walked to school, checked the pupils' attendance and got on with the lessons. Many of the children she taught went au t to do much more spectacular things when they grew up; but on her last day of teaching, over two hundred of them came back to thank her personally, and the village put up a plaque with her name on a chestnut tree which she had grown from a seed brought by a child to the classroom thirty years before. That is one kind. of success, the success - symbolised by that tree - which comes from planting something good in other people's lives. There is the other kind of success (with things) which we hear much more about than the kind of success illustrated by my little story about the school teacher. The newspapers, magazines and TV are full of it. The pop star who is discovered on the street corner and makes a fortune overnight; the business tycoon who makes a sudden killing on the stock exchange or property market. There is nothing wrong with material success in itself. We

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all enjoy the benefits of that kind of human progress, so it is hypocritical to condemn it, but it is important to realise that material success - money in particular - is not everything. It can't Buy happiness, although in the words of anold German lady I used to know 'es macht das Weinen leichter' - it makes crying easier. How often do we meet men and women who've got the things, but they've lost the people. They have lost their friends, their children have no time for them,and those they work with can't stand them. There is also a popular misconception that success comes instantly and effortlessly. All we have to do is to press the right button - find the right trick - fiddle the computer - and instant success is assured - with lots of money, of course, so' that we can retire to a life of luxurious ease and live happily ever after. Well, it might happen in fairy tales and late night TV shows, but it's not for real. There is no such thing as effortless success in life. There is a world of fantasy - usually created by people who are trying to sell us something - but in real life there is at least one failure and a lot of very hard work before every success. So - have you had a successful term? If, on reflection, it doesn't look too good, and if the clues in the reports you will soon see are not too complimentary, just remember that success is never instant - and try again. If, on the other hand, you are riding on the crest of a wave, ask yourself about the quality of your success. Was it acquired at the expense of other people or by serving them - and will it last? 1983-84 Philip Parsons

Carter in Corsica 'He's a funk at rugby, you know.' The housemaster was talking about Carter, and expressing his disapproval at my taking him on a mountaineering expedition to Corsica. 'Also he's not only lazy in the house, but he'll be off drinking and smoking whenever he can. Candidly, I wouldn't take him on an afternoon's trip to the next village.' I've always suspected housemasters' assessments of their students - they live too close to them to observe their more worldly qualities. Their assessments are usually based on value judgements - qualities that cannot be measured. And so I took Carter along. True, he did seem to disappear from time to time during the journey out, but there was no obvious evidence of drinking or smoking and so I didn't delve too deeply. On arrival in Corsica we headed for the Calacuccia valley, where we climbed what was probably the first winter ascent of Paglia Orba's south face. Carter was the only one during this and other climbs, not to moan and protest against the little hardships. We later went round to the Stranciacone valley to climb Monte Cinto. It was a four-hour walk from the minibus, hauling all our food and equipment for a week on our backs. Again Carter kept a low profile. The real surprise came when a blizzard hit us on the second day and we were pinned down in our tents. 'Sir,' we heard. 'What is it, Carter?' I sneered. 'Would you care for some hot soup, sir?' 'We most certainly would, Carter,' I replied, with a change of voice. He thereupon opened the tent flap and pushed two billies of soup through. 'If you pass me your food, sir, I'll store it with the rest; it'll give you more space in the tent.' We passed the food through and he informed us that he'd get working on the dinner. When dinner-time came we found that he'd discovered a lean-to shack, with an open front, in the woods below. He'd stored all the food and surplus equipment in it, and had arranged cooking facilities. Further, whilst the rest of us were taking refuge from the blizzard, he'd built an enormous fire which dried out our wet togs immediately. Carter, in fact, had come into his own and was superb.

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In life you may not make your mark on the games field or in the house. Your better qualities will not always emerge in the school environment, nor will they always be observed by the weary administrator.' But, be yourself at all times and rest assured that deep down you will have a character that will shine in the right environment. Leaders emerge; they cannot be made or created by man, but the situation which dictates the need for leadership will find the leader. Who knows, that leader may be you, just as the situation in Corsica had discovered Carter for us - a different Carter from any we had met in school. 1978 , Gordon Dyke

On Being Perfect It isn't easy to be perfect. Don't get me wrong - I don't speak from experience and I am certainly not suggesting that I am perfect. By 'being perfect', I don't mean being a goodygoody, never getting laps, never being in detention, always having good reports; I mean, quite simply, being the best at something. It isn't easy to be the best ski-er in the school, the best tennis player, the best swimmer, the best basketball player - in fact, it's very difficult. It is just as difficult to be best mathematics student in your year, the best historian, chemist or whatever. It is difficult to obtain the best grades in exams: a '7' in LB., and 'A' grade in O-levels; it is very difficult to obtain an 'A' in A-levels, or a score of close to 800 in SAT's or Achievement tests. And even if you are the best in some particular area, that still doesn't make you perfect. Several of you must each be the best at something in Aiglon. We're a school of somewhere around 300 students and staff. Do you think you would still be the best in a school of nearly 2,000 students? Or in a college of several thousand? Can you imagine being the best in Switzerland? the best in Europe? the best in America, or the Soviet Union? the ultimate - the best in the world? Further, can you imagine how much time and effort you would have to put in, not just to become the best in the world at something, but to remain there? Because, as the old saying goes, 'Once you're at the top, the only way is down.' You must constantly meet challenges from others who want your top position; and you have to beat them, all of them, to stay there. Recently, I watched a videotape of the best gymnasts in the world competing in the World Championships; it's an event which takes place each year and this one was in Budapest. It was fascinating. I am no particular fan of gymnastics, much less an expert on it, but it is fascinating to see people who are the best in the world in their chosen area, performing at their best. So good are they that in many cases the judges were forced to give them 10 marks out of 10 for their routines; in other words, the competitors were perfect, or as near perfect as could

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Faith It often happens that when someone or something is taken away from us, we suddenly realise its worth .. Leisure time, for instance, becomes even more precious to us after a gating. Probably some of you are just now realising how much you undervalued your home, family and previous school now that you are away. I can remember my last tutees - on arrival in September they' declared that they were counting the days to graduation in June, and it was only as the time drew nearer that their tears increased, and Aiglon changed from being 'school' to the place they loved and would miss terribly. Last Christmas I went home for the holidays and cannot begin to describe the deep longing I had to see the Mountains again, especially while I was looking out over the rooftops at my home town. Yet the irony is that I did not realise how much this view that we have here meant to me until I was in England without it. I'd like to share with you all a lesson I learnt about not taking things for granted. . Two meditations ago I spoke on the subject of faith, and how important it is to me. After the meditation I was told that a student had asked one of my colleagues if I was really that religious. I couldn't help but smile - it conjured up images of me hidden away in Exeter, on my knees, clutching bible in one hand and rosary beads.in the other. I'm not sure if the student meant this, and I do hope that this is not the image that comes across. If his question meant, is my faith important to me, then the answer has got to he yes. It is very much so. However, I only came to realise just how much when I was about to lose it - or rather, throw it away. . Born into a practising catholic family, I grew ,up to accept that there was a God,.l was taught about the Mass and how to take part in it, and of course how to pray. I also learnt that religion was considered an important thing in life - in fact there wasthe weakness in my religious upbringing - it was all about having a religion. My religion was a compartment of my life, a drawer to be opened and closed as required. At this stage I was quite happy with this, and because of my healthy respect

for God, I could easily understand the need to go to Church to worship Him, and I did so regularly. This suited me fine until I went to College. There at College, I met a friend and we went out together for four years - very happily, but in order for us to get married I had to consider giving up my faith. Suddenly I was being asked to imagine a life without my faith - the faith that had always been part of my life but not necessarily an important part - or was it? Before making my decision I had to get to know more about my faith, and what exactly it meant to me and my life to be a Christian. I searched and I prayed and slowly a relationship between this biblical God and myself developed. I grew to understand, or rather I am still growing to understand, the definition of God as the one who made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next. My decision was made ;- the faith which I had taken for granted for so long had become too meaningful to give up - whatever the cost. I've never regretted that decision. But what if I hadn't had to consider life without my faith - would I have continued to take it for granted without realising its true worth? Perhaps now some of you will understand why I get so upset with you when you are misbehaving in Church - I see you throwing away something that you probably take for granted. If it were denied to you, would you come to appreciate it more? Too many of us fail to realise the importance of certain people or things in our life, because we are never asked to consider life without them and quite often it is then too late. October 1987 Karen Kelly

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be expected. One little slip, one slight loss of balance - perhaps on landing from a vault or on leaving the beam - and you are marked,' down to 9.95, 9.925, 9.9 ... and someone else beats you. It is that close. " How do they achieve thislevel? For many years, day after day, year in, year ou t, they have practised, up to four hours a day. Think of it: four hours of intensive gymnastics, on the parallel bars, on those rings, or on the box, every day. Because the 'sad fact of the matter is that your inborn talent or ability at something will take you only so far; maybe quite a way, but still only so far. It doesn't matter whether we're speaking of gymnastics, ski-ing, mountain- climbing, chess, playing the guitar - or maths, history, chemistry, writing essays; to be really good at anything, you are going to have to spend time on it. To be the best at anything, you are going to have to spend time on it. To be the best at it, even in this quite small school, you are going to have to spend a lot of time on it; and you are going to have to add to your talent and ability, your own motivation. If one wants; really wants, to do well at something, one will find the time, one will spend the time on it - and very likely, one will succeed. There are no 'short cuts'; it is useless blaming one's friends, one's parents, one's teachers, the school, too many distractions, or anything else. If one does not succeed at something, nearly always, it is oneself who has not pu t in the necessary time and effort. Perhaps that isn't a bad thought for this examination term and last term of the school year. I am not perfect at anything, . nor ever likely to be; I'm not even the best around here at anything that I can think of; but I do quite a lot of things and I like to do them as well as I can. Try to do your best, even if it doesn't make you the best. If you,do want to be the best, and score 10 out of 10 in the World class, well ... better start soon. As the ancient Greek, Euripides, put it: 'For with slight efforts, how should we obtain great results? It is foolish even to desire it.' It's just as true today as it was in ancie~t Greece; in more modern, but not such beautiful, words: 'If you don't put much in, how can you expect to get much out? It's silly even to wish for it.' Patrick Roberts

Only You Know the Answer The famous British mountaineer, George Mallory, was once asked, 'Why do you climb mountains?' His reply, 'Because they are there,' may appear to many an over-simplification, if not a bit flippant; but it does set one thinking about the many things we do which do not seem essential to the general task of living. The whole question why apparently normal people pit themselves against the elements and the forces of nature, with all the hardships and objective dangers involved, and still derive a great sense of personal satisfaction from what they have done, must be a continuing mystery to the majority of mankind. The situation is not just confined to mountaineering. Daily, one finds examples parallel to those found in mountaineering. Why is it - in the depths of winter - that a handful of the Swiss population, every Sunday morning, obeys the call of the alarm clock - rupturing its sweet dreams before the first sparrow has even had a chance to stretch its wings - and staggers out into the cold, dark day, in order to drive to a crosscountry ski race? Many would consider such people to be crazy, tap their heads with a finger, and give the whole situation no further thought. On the other hand, some would describe them with the word 'masochist' and leave it at that. Ask the people who get up, why they do it, and the reasons will be plentiful: the love of racing, the sense of gliding along effort: lessly (well, nearly anyway) in a snow-blanketed landscape, and the various aspects of nature as one skis along, may be only a few of the many excuses/reasons given. Another example of the same situation occurred last Sunday, when the 46th Commemorative Run from Morat to Fribourg took place. The distance of 17 km is not very far for the very small number of people who train regularly. at international levels. For the majority, however, why did they haul themselves out of nice comfy beds at various hours last Sunday, in many cases sleeping through the alarm, to swallow a quick, light breakfast, and then strain to get to the start on time by breaking speed limits, dashing for trains, hitching lifts in cars, and so on? All to do what? To strain, gasp, sweat and spit their

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way up hill and down dale for about IV2 hours, while pou~d~ng their legs to a jelly-like feeling, because of the unforgiving nature of running on a hard road surface. For many of those people the idea of winning the race would be .the furthest thought in their minds. The race was most pr?b~bly betwe~n the first ten classified. So with no hope of wmmng, why did 7,500 people run last Sunday? Why do around 11,000 participants come from all over the world to ski the Engadin Marathon and the 85 km Vasaloppet race in Sweden? Why do thousands flock to Boston to run the Boston Marathon? Why do 200 people ski the local race between Villars and Les Diablerets? Why did 20 or so Aiglon students go up the Dents du Midi two weeks ago, and around 20 last weekend leave a sleeping Aiglon on a Sunday morning to go and climb a cold and mist-enshrouded Dent de Morcles? Why some people do something may be obvious. The result of the action is fame or money, to name the visible, but there is perhaps a factor less tangible, which makes people do what many in our society would consider only one step removed from insanity. When you do something like those I have mentioned, only you can do it. It is no use paying someone to do it for you. All the money in the world cannot climb the Dents du Midi for you, run the Morat-Fribourg race and so on. You may never win, in the manifest sense of being the first to cross the line, but your prize is perhaps greater in value than the big silver cup that adorns the home of the winner. What is it, this prize? Quite simply, it is this. You did it, you and no one else. You carried on when your body was screaming 'Stop!', 'No more!', 'Give up!' You pushed yourself to your limits and perhaps fought your way through the pain barrier. Only you can say that you got up, went out and did whatever it was, be it a climb, a race, or whatever, and no one can take away from you the satisfaction you feel for having done what you did. You and you alone can be the only judge of whether it was worth it, and answer the question 'Why do you climb mountains?' be they geographical ones or mountains of physical and/or mental effort. October 1979 Tony Hyde

Ski Expeditions By the end of this week almost 15% of the school will have failed to go on this term's Long Expedition. Half of you who don't go come from the top ski groups who have been skiing all term. You have been skiing hard and fast, crashing through moguls, taking jumps (with instructors of course), and even ski racmg. However, all of a sudden the Long Expedition arrives and a variety of medical reasons turn up to say you can't go, yet for everyday skiing you would still be there. I for one, and many other staff, don't believe you. When you come to Aiglon both you and your parents knew what type of school you were coming to, and what the school expected of you. I quote from the school prospectus: "Character training through adventure is a special feature of life at Aiglon, and weekend expeditions in the mountains, on skis and on foot, take place throughout the year. All boys and girls are required to complete a minimum of two expeditions a term. The expeditions, which take place at weekends in groups of varying size, teach students teamwork and responsibility, and how to look after themselves and their companions. They also help boys and girls to learn how to overcome difficulties cheerfully and to accept discomforts." If you do not actually believe in the educational value of these expeditions, then you are wasting some of your parents' money. I do believe strongly" in the value of these trips, and I have many valuable memories of the many expeditions I have been on, and I know that many of you here this morning have your own memories. I remember my first 4,000 metre peak, the Allalinhorn, the trip last June to the Grand Paradiso, a summer ski ex which was enjoyable even if Gaby Rich did try to talk us all to death. Not all of the memories are actually of easy expeditions: remember the Junior, Middle School trip to the Wildstubel two years ago. You found it hard, but many have since said they were glad they did it, even though they didn't exactly enjoy it at the time. Ask the headmaster's secretary about the Dents du

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Midi: she didn't exactly find it easy or enjoyable at the time, but she is glad she did it. At least Miss Osborne can point to that dominating lump of rock and say, 'I've been up there', and you would be surprised how many old students admit they wish they had taken their opportunities while they were here. I believe that if you approach them with an open mind, then expeditions can provide you with something valuable. I have enjoyed the last two beginners' expeditions that I have taken as much as any other trip I have done with Aiglon. Perhaps some of you more experienced skiers who supposedly cannot go on an expedition, would benefit by helping out on a beginners' ex. After all, you have been skiing all season, so surely a beginners' ex wouldn't physically tax you too much; you'may even enjoy it. By opting out altogether you are the loser, but then I suppose you will try to go through life by opting out of anything you find difficult. . In 1948 an American, Dr Frederick Bailes, made a sweeping observation which would seem to have some value here. He stated: "There are really only two classes of persons in the world the winners and the whiners. They are spelled with just one letter different, but their views of life are poles apart. The winner never whines, and the whiner never wins.' On my beginners' ex last week I had a lot of winners and a couple of whiners; I would like to leave you with a thought provided by probably the youngest member of the group. She was obviously finding the last half hour to the hut hard work. I walked alongside her for a while and chatted. 'Not far now,' I said. 'Look, you can see the hut. How are you feeling?' 'It's hard.' Then she smiled and said, 'But I don't mind because it's character building.' I'm sure she doesn't understand it quite, but I think she is right. Peter Hawkey

Scuba Diving I like a comfortable, predictable life. Reading with a cat on my lap, eating, sunbathing, chatting with friends, sewing; nice, easy, secure occupations. Life passes steadily and smoothly this way. But it would offend me to hear that I was conservative or unadventurous, or taking the easy way out. So, when a certain man who shall remain nameless made a suggestion some time ago, I readily agreed. As we were living in the Caribbean, it was natural enough that he proposed the idea. 'Let's go SCUBA diving off Bordeaux Bay. It's a good beach, there are lots of mackerel out there, and the reef is exciting. I'll catch our dinner.' Now, I knew about Scuba diving. Name a training course and I had taken it. I had certificates with great wax seals to prove that technically I was capable of great things: changing tanks in the middle of a dive removing all equipment and replacing it without surfacing for air sharing my mask and air with a drowning partner. I had spent weeks at the bottom of a swimming pool learning these skills. And the theory, of course. I knew all the different combination of gases to put in the tanks, eight different ways to purge the breathing valves, and how to decompress and for how long. Putting all this knowledge to use in the real ocean seemed a fine idea. So, car loaded, to Bordeaux Bay we went. The car had to be abandoned at the top of the hill as the dirt road ended abruptly at a ravine, and we clambered down a stony, precipitous path to the 'bay', dragging tanks, masks, fins and weights behind. My first surprise. It was not a beach. It was a tiny, rocky inlet tucked between cliffs that fell straight into the sea. The crashing waves hid the spiny rocks under the surface just out from shore. 'Just put your stuff on and follow me out - there's a nice channel through the rocks,' he said, and disappeared. I struggled

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with the equipment, adjusting shoulder straps so that they didn't saw into my neck, shifting weights around on the belt so that they didn't ram into my kidneys, checking to see that the air valves,were open, getting the sand out of my fins, unfogging and unsmearing my mask, and trying to avoid bruises from the tank, And getting the sand out of my fins again. This is real life, I said to myself, and remained calm. To the water and the channel. The 'channel' was a shallow, narrow passage that led into the deep water. If you plunged in as a wave came in, it washed you back against the rocks and gravel of the shore. If you caught it just as the wave went out, . it dragged your stomach along the rocks and sea urchins on the bottom. If you caught it correctly as the water retreated, there was 'enough to carry you over and through, but if you moved to the side in any way - with an accidental flip of a fin - you got thrown against the side walls. I was not so calm. My friend emerged from the .deep to determine the cause of delay. 'Look, it's just like body surfing. Just catch the wave as it goes out and sail over the rocks. Hurry up, there are fish out there.' And he was gone. Body surf, with two kilos of weight around my waist, eight kilos of tank on my back, plus all the apparatus. Sail over the rocks. I had no choice. I could only drown. I threw myself in, anticipating the sensation of tearing flesh, but made it through to a magnificent scene. Among the miniature caves of coral were schools of multicoloured fish, zipping in and out, squabbling over territory, and darting up to have a look at us. There was waving sea grass lit by columns of sunlight filtering through the water .. There were crowds of sleek mackerel, too busy to stop, and tiny crabs scuttling along the bottom, kicking sand and shells out of their homes in a flurry of housecleaning. Bubbles from the tanks scampered and danced to the surface. And everywhere the enveloping silence of the sea. 'My heart had begun to settle from the trauma of the channel, and I was appreciating the beauty of the location, when he came and tapped me on the shoulder. Grinning from ear to ear - behind the mask ~ he gestured enthusiastically.

I turned in time to see a smooth grey form glide by. There are some shapes one recognises instinctively. A shark. I left. I still like a comfortable life, perhaps more so than before. But I would venture to suggest that it is not comfort that makes a rich life. It is the unusual, the uncomfortable, the painful and the difficult situations that help us to realise who we are, and our limitations. And it is certainly these things that make for fine, rich memories. I wish I had stayed longer that day, and I wish I had gone more often. Nancy Maxwell

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The Best of All Having returned to England again this summer, I feel it is time for-me to restate with assurance that there .is one thing that the British do better than any other nation I know on earth. I am referring to their art of queuing. Just to translate so that people who speak little English or some dialect can understand, queuing is the art of standing in a line and waiting patiently, in a civilized fashion, for your turn to come. We are so proud of our capacity to do this, it is so appealing to our sense of fair play, that we have been known to join queues without any idea of what is happening at the other end. It is part of our tradition; we may be selfish, mean and oafish in other ways, but this particular virtue we take for granted. So much so that, when I was living years ago in a foreign country which shall remain nameless, I decided, after a shopping spree in town, to go ten minutes early with my small children and wait for the bus at the point where it started empty. L'felt sure I could then get on in comfort. All went according to plan and I was first there. I tried to arrange the three of us in a neat line just to show that we were queuing. The next person greeted me in a formal but friendly fashion, definitely un-British, and began to be nice to the children. But he irritated me somewhat by not falling into line. 'Perhaps they do not do it until five or six have gathered,' I thought, and tried to relax. Over the next ten minutes, a friendly but, in my opinion, undisciplined mob gathered. My blood pressure began to rise as I sensed that foul play could be expected. I only just resisted stepping off the pavement to preach to the crowd. The bus arrived, the mob streamed past me; the seats were all occupied rapidly; the large square area near the concertina doors began to fill - I wasn't going to get in at all. I feverishly wondered if I had enough money left for a taxi. The conductor looked out and saw us, but it seemed to make no impression on him. He put his hand on the button and the doors tried to slide over the bulging passengers. You can imagine where the whole nation stood in my estimation at that moment.

Then I realized he had rattled the doors as a sign for the standing mob to squeeze together. They did so. Friendly faces peered out through the gap. Stretched arms took my bags, then lifted the children in gently and finally hauled me in after them. The crowd parted as best it could and I was beckoned through. A student in the back seat was poked in the ribs and a nod was given in my direction. I was guided into his seat and the younger child placed on my knee, while the elder one was seated happily on someone's shoulders to avoid his being trampled in the forest of legs below. There I was in my rightful place, having reached it by a slightly different code of behaviour from my own. Amazingly, I felt very touched by it all. There can be two ways of doing things: one may be more efficient, more just, but perhaps the other has more heart, more warmth in it. When one lives in a foreign country, one learns to adapt and I considered it a great compliment to be told by my host that I was adaptable. Yes, when we are strangers in a foreign country we try to adapt as much as possible; to understand and not to give offence. However, we must, after looking at things objectively, reserve the right to retain our basic principles. We must not lean over backwards to be accepted as one of the natives. I could never have bound my feet, worn rings to stretch my neck, have eaten my host's enemy, however tastily he was served up to me, claimed my right to eight husbands, or even have learned to polish my floors until they became highly dangerous skating rinks. We cannot accept everything and, if we feel there is something which we must offer from our own culture, our technology, our medical knowledge or our ideas on agriculture, and, by our way of life, our religion, then we should finally, with love and tact, do so. , Here we are in a country foreign to most of us, not really living in that country, but rather in our small, introvert, Aiglon world. To whom and to what are we going to adapt? Whose habits are we going to accept as our pattern? When are we going to be tolerant and adaptable? The language of our school is English and it is to a large extent through language that

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culture is transmitted. The worst Aiglon product could, if he works hard at it, know how to swear fairly fluently in six or seven languages. He could learn all the combined tricks of several nations, for whom cheating in. exams is a national pastime. Must everybody learn to chew gum and blow bubbles noisily or have their eardrums blasted out of all hope of retaining their sensitivity? 'I swear to God' is the introductory remark used by one group when they are about to tell a lie. We know they do riot mean us to take them seriously, and we love them as they are, but the habit can spread. Yes, the worst Aiglon product could collect the bad habits of forty-three nations. But the best product would be - dare I say it? - friendly and 'trusting like the Americans; with the courtesy of the Japanese; as sober as a Moslem; groomed like an Italian; as good at languages as the Scandinavians; as drilled in arithmetic as the Iranians; and would treat his whole family with the generosity of an Arab; have a little of the deference of the Chinese towards his grandmother; be as quick-minded as an Israeli; but would express himself with the gentle restraint of a Serbo-Croat. I cannot give the whole list, but this best Aiglon product would blend all your virtues - and, of course, crown the achievement by queuing like the British. Elizabeth Senn

Why Become a Teacher? Why did you choose to come to Aiglon? Many of you have been asked that question by other students. It's a question I've asked some of you myself. The answers? 'The skiing - what else, man?' (That's the cool answer.) 'To get a European education before going back to the States.' (That'S the intellectual answer. It too can sound cool.) Now and then you get an answer that's brutally honest. '1 didn't choose Aiglon. My parents did because they thought 1 needed knocking into shape and they thought Aiglon would do the job.' 1 suspect that comes near to the truth in many cases. Your parents looked around the educational marketplace, they talked to friends, to educational consultants, and all the while they were looking for a school which would supply what they wanted for their children. And what is that? A safe place away from the distractions and dangers of the big cities? A school which stands for traditional moral values, where children are taught the difference between right and wrong? A school which encourages hard work and where you can get good qualifications to take you on to the next stage in your life? 1 suspect that these are some of the reasons why your parents chose Aiglon. When you were looking for a school, were these the reasons your parents gave you for choosing Aiglon, or did they playa kind of game? Did they point you to the skiing photographs in the brochure, or the articles about long expeditions to exotic places like Salzburg and Venice, so that when the choice was finally made, and you had begun to be excited about coming here, you had your reasons, your parents had theirs, and the two were not quite the same? Was it like the time when, as a young child, you needed to take some nasty medicine to make you better, and your parents brought out this stuff which looked quite pleasant and even gave off a sweet smell? When you got it in your mouth it wasn't too bad at first, but as it started to slide down ... yuk - it was just the same old nasty medicine after all. It's great fun to ski almost every day after lunch - (that's the sugary bit) - but, boy, those three periods afterwards really take some swallowing, A-levels or no A-levels.

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As for doing prep in the evenings, forget it! I think it's quite rare to find families where teenage children see things the same way as their parents do. More often than not, there seems to be a generation gap, .and 'it can occur over what parents and children want from their schooling. There can also be a generation gap between teachers and their students. Rarely do they agree on the value of what takes place in the classroom, and students often betray their true feelings with the question, 'Sir, what use will this be in real life?' The difference of outlook is even more marked in the question, 'Sir, why did you become a teacher?', or 'Why do you still stay in teaching?' The implication is that it can't be a very satisfying way to spend your working life. I have to admit that we teachers, like you students, sometimes give answers that sound cool or witty, but which rarely reveal our true feelings about the value of what we do. We say 'Wouldn't you like eighteen weeks' holiday a year?' or we pretend to be cynical and say, 'Because I enjoy seeing people suffer.' If we want to sound really cool, we might even say, 'Have you ever met a banker who skis regularly for twelve weeks of the year and still gets eighteen weeks' holiday besides?' Underneath their suave, sophisticated image, however, most teachers are fairly simple idealists, that is, they do what they do because they have ideals which mean a lot to them. They may not be very ambitious people, in that they are not very interested in money or status or power. ,No, they are idealists, perhaps even dreamers. So how do we reply seriously to the question why we became teachers? Here is my answer: others may have their own way of putting it, but it probably amounts to the same thing. If you go back to the Latin root, to 'educate' means to draw out, or to lead out. I like to think that my job involves drawing out the best that is in you. It means, among other things, helping you to discover your talents, those things you do best, helping you to develop into the kind of person you would like to be. Sometimes it involves the difficult task of drawing out the worst in you and holding up a mirror for you to recognise it, so that you can find a way to change for the better. All of this takes a long time. It's a process of growth which can't be forced or unduly accelerated, because teachers are working with

the most delicate raw material of all - the human personality in its formative stages. Having worked in business for a while, I find it far more stimulating and challenging to work 'with the raw material of young people than with the raw material of business - balance sheets, insurance policies, legal documents, forms, facts, figures and finance. All of this involves much more than teaching my subject, and in fact most teachers would agree that imparting factual knowledge and getting students through exams is by no means the whole of what they try to do, important though that is. Even more important is the development of your character, the essential you. You see, when you come to the end of your life, that is all you will have left - the real you. You will have no more use for stocks and shares, for property, for earthly good in general. You may leave plenty of that behind for your children, but there is something else you will leave behind which is far more important as far as they are concerned, and that is memories of yourself, what kind of person you were, and what you meant to them. In the end, all that matters is personality and personal relationships. During your school years your character is forming and I consider it worthwhile to have some part to play in that process. That is why I became a teacher and why I choose to stay in teaching. So here we are, teachers and students living in the same community for some eight months of the year. It's quite natural that we should have our different outlooks on what we want out of education', but whatever your stated reasons for being here, would you not agree that, basically, you want the same things for yourself as we want for you? If so, it seems a pity that there is not more trust in both directions - a greater confidence on our part that you are serious about the value of education if fundamentally it means drawing out the best that is in you - and a greater confidence on your part that we do have your best interests at heart. But to be fair to you, if I recall the Aiglon I knew some fifteen years ago, I must say that I see a greater pulling together between students and staff now than then, and that's an encouraging sign which makes me very optimistic about the future of this school. February 1987 David Rhodes

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A Tube of Toothpaste J have here a tube of toothpaste. Most people have one; though people living in a small community such as a family tend to share one amongst' many. Thus, in our family, for example, we have five toothbrushes but only one tube of toothpaste. In order to get the paste out of the tube and on to the brush, you have to squeeze the tube: and there are of course two ways to squeeze a toothpaste tube - the right way and the wrong way. The wrong way is to squeeze it anywhere, especially the middle or the top - which is messy, wasteful, likely to burst it open at the bottom and inconsiderate of others' needs. The right way is to squeeze from the bottom and roll up used bits of tube. This method is economical, clean, tidy and shows consideration for others using the tube. There is, as they say, a meditation in there. The really important point is that there is nowhere a written rule saying how we should squeeze toothpaste tubes; indeed, a society where it was necessary to write this down would, I think, be a bad one. But it is true for all that, even though it is a 'rule' only accepted tacitly by the demands of living in society. And life is full of thousands of things which we accept as necessary simply to give some kind of civilised order to the world - which you could not begin to codify, even if you were silly enough to try. If you wish for evidence of this, look around and you will come across countless examples every day, both positive and negative. By positive evidence I mean the kind of action which is good, unselfish, considerate and sensitive to others' needs. Occasionally you see people helping others, someone lays a table although not actually on table service, carries books back to the house for someone else or is just simply aware, sensitive, listening to the needs of other and behaving selflessly. None of this could be written down as 'rules' - it is all in a sense too important to be written down. Negative evidence is, alas, far too common, but I will give you only one example which I came across recently. The other day I found this beautiful and expensive book lying on the step outside the bazaar where it had been all night in the rain. It is

of course now Very damaged. If you had to have a school rule book which had to cover every possible contingency, including Rule 1562/A/3(b): 'you must not leave art books out in the rain', it would mean that the school is not succeeding in doing its job. We are succeeding when people generally behave considerately, carefully and sensitively without having detailed guidelines written down. There was once a headmaster of a great school in England who apologised to a parent for having to have a school rule book. 'But it is of no consequence,' he said, 'because the really important things you cannot write down.' May I suggest that symbolically, the really important things start by squeezing a toothpaste tube in the right place. You think about it. Philip Tyack

Prophets in Our Midst? There are two very elusive men about whom I would like to know a great deal more than I am currently able to find. They both lived sometime in the last 150 years. The first was a French-speaking trapeze artist who, I believe, came from Canada. It seems that he wore some sort of tight-fitting garment during his performances. His name ... Jules Leotard (1830-1870). The second man was English: a quiet engineer of a decidedly practical turn of mind. His designs appear to have been the ones from which the engine block in car motors evolved. He also invented the metal shield which covers the greasy chain on bicycles - a simple device designed to prevent the cyclist's trousers or skirts from getting either dirty or entangled in the chain. His name ... John Carter.

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The curious thing is that if you look in a French dictionary there is no such word as Leotard to describe the tights worn by gymnasts, even though Monsieur Leotard was a man of Frenchspeaking origins. On toe other hand there 'is a French word 'carter' which means either' the chain-guard of a bicycle or a variety of parts in a motorcar, so that, for example, the sump is referred to as 'le fond de carter'. Ironically you will find the word 'leotard' in the English dictionary which in turn has no entry for 'earth'. Indeed Mr Carter gets no mention in the Dictionary of National Biography, which to my mind is rather rough when his name is almost a household word on the other side of the channel. As is so often the case, the men are commemorated in countries other than their own where they are 'prophets without honour'. It is rather hard to say why this happens. Either it's because we know (or think we know) so much about our friends and acquaintances that we fail to recognise their greatness, or it's because in fact we know too little about them. Think for a moment of your companions here at Aiglon. How often we think of our fellow students as they were a year or two ago. We remember something they did when they were younger and less experienced, and we fail to recognise the qualities which they now have. Or alternatively, think of those many students whose names you know and who are your neighbours here at Aiglon but about whom you know nothing more. This time last week I was helping to get the half-term exhibition organized. It's not a very encouraging thing to have to do because it involves persuading a lot of people to find a variety of objects - painting, knitting, pottery, photographs; projects, essays, and so on. They resent having to do this and many people ask why we have to put on this sort of display at all. We hear the old complaint that the school is being very hypocritical in doing this for the parents and that it's not worth all the time and energy - all of which irritates me not a little. After all, there's nothing hypocritical about trying to present the life of the school in such a way that parents and visitors can get some idea of it in the course of a few hours. More important, however, is the fact that it is good for us

to, see the work of each other in contexts 'about which we know very little. Even if no parents came, it would be good for me to see the paintings on the walls of Alpina, the gymnastic prowess of students on the trampoline, the pots and baskets made in the crafts room. That student whom I see only occasionally in the corridor - it was quite a surprise to see him leaping over the box in the gym; or that other boy whom I always think of as 'just a 4th former' - I now know that he can sing very well as he did in the production of Joseph. And then there is that girl who never does very well in my history classes - now that I've seen her pottery, I realise there's another side to her about which I was totally ignorant. What I find stimulating about community life is that we are all so different and our gifts are so different. We are changing all the time, revising our opinions, discovering new fields of endeavour, responding to new acquaintances and new ideas. The+more I. look around me, the more I am certain that the myth of the 'Aiglon mould' or stereotype is nothing more than that - a myth. The varieties of gift and temperament among us are extraordinarily varied and wonderfully fertile. BUT ... let us make it our business to know what is going on, what is happening in other parts of the campus, to be aware who is achieving what in fields outside our own specialist interests. It would be so sad if in years to come we had to admit that we once had among us a genius like Carter or Leotard, a person after whom some everyday object is named, and that we were totally unaware of his genius. Let us be sure that the prophets among us are honoured in their own country. May 1980 Timothy Stunt

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