Reflections for King’s-Edgehill School Cadet Church Parade, 2014
Reflections for the Cadet Church Service at Christ Church
May 16th, 2014
Readers: Nandini Mishra, Tristan Kimball, Miranda Walsh, Primrose Chareka, Brayden Graves, Michael Dennis
I. “Arise my love, my fair one and come away, for lo, the winter is past”
The winter is past and spring, at least in its mythic Maritime guise, is upon us. We have survived the tempests of the winter and pause to look back upon the year and, even more, upon the miracle of 225 years.
“How came we ashore?” Miranda asks her father, Prospero, in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. He answers, “By Providence divine”. It is, perhaps, by Providence divine that we gather in the 225th year of the School.
It is May. The year is 1789. We come to the near end of the first year of King’s Collegiate School, now King’s-Edgehill. What kind of a year has it been? A gathering of a few students, merely seventeen in this first year, now swollen to hundreds, huddled against the winter winds and snows, have embarked upon the beginnings of a journey and a venture in education that continues to this day. What kind of education?
Gentleness, learning and manhood, humanitas, as it were. These are the qualities that are literally written on the walls. You can find them in the Chapel. They are there to be written in our hearts. These are principles and ideals that shape character and inform our common life. We neglect them at our peril. They are as important now as they were 225 years ago. They contribute to an education that is about public service and commitment to others, an education that is about being part of an intellectual and spiritual community. It is captured in the mottoes of the School. Fideliter – faithfulness – is the motto of Edgehill. Deo Legi Regi Gregi – for God, the Law, the King and the People – is the motto of King’s.
To come to the end of the first year is to be returned to the principles that define a culture of learning and service. It is about learning to think and live beyond ourselves.
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