1918 School Magazine

The Magazine of the Brisbane Girls' Grammar School.

Peace.

Then we turn to the living, and there find that , Thrones, Dominions, Peuples, Kiagh', Are changing 'neath our hands." All thoughtful men and women are appalled at the gigantic problems that face us on every side-the Map of the World to be redrawn, Governments to be put down, and others to be put in their places; warring nationalition and classes to be taught to live side by side in peace and friendship; commercial reconstruction. No wonder the bravest and wisest recoil in terror from responsibilities as overwhelming as these. No one country, class or political party can do the work. The co-operation, whole-hearted and open-minded, of the best lrins of all untioHn must be assured if the world is to be a beth'r place in the future than it was before Aug .t 1914. Fortunately for us, such great businc~i is int in our sphere, but we have each of us a part to play, and we each and every individual in the country must try to get rid of our licjudice4w and make an effort-and a continuous effort at that- to see those questions from every point of view. It will be irritating at first, thern bewildering, but as the habit grows and our knowledge I. creases, we stall see where our present ideas are wrong, and we shall at least fully realise that no one nation or party has a monopoly of pobtical wisdom and disinterestedness. If only we all could learn to see, and to see quickly, the other person's point of view, how soon our bitterness and strife would die away and our world he a better place to live in. We should then, ineteed, know what "peace" means, and our boys wmidd not have died in vain.

As suddenly as the war eame, it has ceased, sad we look at one another in stupefication, aid wonder can it be really true. Less than three months ago, we hoped-and yet feared to hope-that it might be over in a year-per- balps-and now, in a few short weeks, hostilities have ceased. What marvellous weeks they have been! How one epoch-making event has erowded on the heels of the last, till we are diusy and surfeited with sensations! Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria-Hungary, and then the sPh enemy, Ger- many, come suing for peaee-peaee at any price! turely a vietory as complete as any the world has ever seen! Annus mirabilis indeed P. Slowly out of the welter of our emotions two ideas emerge above all others-how great a price we have paid--and to what use shall we put the victory we have bought. As our soldiers return to us, we shall realise as never before how many are the gaps in their gallant ranks, and for some, the joy of peace will be quite obscured by grief for those who ** went west." Yet even for them it is not all grief-there is a desperate pride in the sacri- fice that helps them to "carry on"; and there is also the conviction that their dear dead know more fully even than we, the blessedness of peace. They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old, Age shall not weary them, or the years' con- demn; At the going down of the sun, and in the morn- in. We shaiJ remember them.