No. 37. Easter 1938.

Editor F. C. Carpenter

SPEAKING EDITORIALLY
Our eyes do not deceive us : the new Technical College is almost complete. We wish it well, and look forward to a healthy rivalry with it. The Chairman of the Governors has assured the town that the new  College will in no way eclipse the Monoux School, but rather that the two will work together for the welfare of education in Walthamstow. But the very size of the building is a challenge. The Monoux School will find no light task in upholding and adding to its prestige in face of the efforts of a new and larger school which has nothing to lose and worlds to gain. It is not, however, with apprehension that the Monoux School regards its new rival, but with the knowledge and determination that from that rivalry shall come new and great opportunities to carry still further its own good name. The Monovian cannot escape this challenge. The School magazine should always be the chief link between School and town. It should be the product of many, or how can it hope to reflect the spirit of the School ? The Editor's task should be to collect, correct, and, if need be, to reject he should not have to write the magazine. Satisfying music never came from a one-man band. This term the Literary Section has no separate existence. Seldom has the Monovian known so poor a response to its appeals for contributions. The Editor's lament is worn with age, but the causes which provoke it are still to be removed. No editor, it seems, has a right to expect any change in the attitude of the School towards its magazine, an attitude best called apathy The Monovian must continue to reflect the spirit of the first school in Walthamstow. It needs your help.

F.C.

No. 38 Summer 1938.

Editor: F. C. Carpenter

SPEAKING EDITORIALLY

There are two major wars still being waged. One is two years old; the other bids fair even to outlast it. We have grown so used to terrible news, that another air-raid is a matter of no more concern than a snowstorm over the North Pole. The air is thick with protests and counter-assertions, so thick, indeed, that the events which gave rise to them are obscured or at least reduced in horror, and the dreadful business goes on with the negligible resistance of committees, observers, and the like. Sometimes the world seems an impossible place full of madmen and freaks, where no goodness obtains, where kindness counts for nothing, where gentleness and humility are a crime. A word, a shout, we are told, will bring the skies down upon us. Slowly but most surely our lips also are being sealed. It seems only a matter of time for our several natures to conform to one fiendish pattern. And so, if we would seek some comfort, we look farther afield than simple pleasures. The insane complexity of modern horror is answered by the mad quest of pleasure. The whole world is chasing shadows. Single-mindedness has ceased to be fashionable. Millions of lives without purpose form a pitiful scene. It is a sad state when the purpose of life is to kill. Is there no loveliness left in the world? Is horror the whole story? When the spring sun struggles through the bursting branches, when the first cuckoo is calling a new summer, when Autumn first takes up brushes and palette; when Winter's white grace fills the calm earth-those are the moments which tell the full story of the world. A little while ago, a Chinese bombing plane flew over Japan dropping-leaflets. The Chinese Government had no hostile intentions towards the people of Japan, ran the message. How much of the despair and gloom is dissolved by a small event like this! No, horror is not the whole story.

F.C.

No. 39 Christmas 1938.

Editor P. S. G. Flint

SPEAKING EDITORIALLY
But a little while ago we thought that there would be no issue of the Monovian this term. We expected to be evacuated hurriedly to districts safe from the dangers of the war that threatened to destroy civilisation. For a short moment, however, reason prevailed, and our fears gave way to thankful relief. There was to be no war. In these civilised times war endangers not only the fighting forces, but also the entire civilian populations of the nations concerned. In one air raid on Barcelona in January of this year three hundred people were killed, including eighty-three orphan children. Every citizen, whatever his beliefs, must be awake to the dangers that surround him. Let us briefly survey the state of civilisation today. British troops have been sent to Palestine to quell rioting. China is the scene of merciless bombardment and slaughter. Madrid, the greatest city of Spain, lies in despair. She has no flour for bread, no coffee to drink, no more furniture to provide fuel. During this winter many thousands of her population will face privation or death. Abyssinia, now in the hands of civilisation, is in a state of unrest. France is facing a grave economic crisis; her forty-hour week is being modified, taxes are being raised, prices will soar. In Germany the Jews are suffering terrible persecution. They are paying for a crime which they have never committed-the crime of being born Jews. Many German prisoners have only to renounce their beliefs, to prove their allegiance to Nazism, and they are free. But the Jew is a Jew for ever, and must continue to suffer. In spite of all this the peoples of the world do desire peace. Friends who have foreign correspondents assure us that the letters they received at the time of the crisis all expressed a fervent desire for peace. Why then, you ask, if everyone is so anxious for peace, are wars so frequent ? The answer is simple. The peoples, having blind. childlike faith in their leaders, do not realise until it is too late that they are on the verge of war. It is for you to decide the future. Your responsibility is great. Boys must realise that they will soon be called upon to vote for the nation's leaders. They must gain knowledge. This knowledge the League of Nations Union and the World Affairs Society can supply. A few years ago these societies flourished; to-day they are only half alive. They must be revivified. The torch once set ablaze must not be allowed to flicker and die out.

P.S.G.F.