THE PETERITE Vol. XXXIX
OCTOBER, 1947
No. 316
EDITORIAL In our comments here we have made it a rule to abjure all reference to the vagaries of the weather, believing it true that such talk is the Englishman's last line of defence, whence if he is driven, "the rest is silence." But in our last number we capitulated. The impact of the winter's rages in the Easter Term was too powerful to be ignored. We complained; and it would be ungracious not to balance the account by a tribute to the summer which has just passed—an `.amende honorable' if ever there was one. From the early days of July throughout the long summer holiday the sun gave its unsullied best. None but those 'with memories long enough to embrace the Coronation year of 1911 can recall a comparable sequence of days of hot sun and unclouded skies. Never before, perhaps, had we realised the importance of rain in the natural order of things. In the end we welcomed the time when at last :"The thirsty earth soaked up the rain And drank, and gaped, and drank again." It was a return to normality, at any rate in one aspect of our lives. The sunshine was all that was needed to ensure the success df the Commemoration festivities which closed the term. It would have guaranteed, too, our enjoyment of the Public Schools' cricket festival which we had planned for the week following and which so many of us were anticipating with pleasure. The cancellation at the last moment, for reasons quite beyond our control, was indeed unfortunate. Of Commemoration it is unnecessary to speak here since there is a full report elsewhere in this issue. We would refer only to a point which transpired in the Headmaster's review, at the Speech Day ceremony, of our plans for the future development of the School. It has been decided, we learned, that the enlarged and reconstructed Big Hall is to be our 'War 'Memorial instead of the new 'Dining Hall projected in the general plan for the rebuilding of the School. The change, approved by the Governing Body and the Old Peterite Club, is obviously desirable and is, indeed, dictated by circumstances, as a note on a later page explains. But, 'practical considerations apart, we would all of us agree that no more fitting Memorial could be contemplated than what will be tantamount to a new assembly hall. Big Hall is the focal point of our school life, and we would not blink the fact that the present room, sufficient and not undistinguished perhaps by nineteenth century standards, is now inadequate to our needs and unworthy of our reputation. The plans, which are daily available to all of us, envisage a Hall which will meet every requirement
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