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- - F?'"*, : REDEv âZ"E : ï> With the general public asking for better and faster mail service and with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers upset over technological change which should, in the end, bring about the wishes of the public, the postal department must find itself bedevilled between the two groups. Everyone concerned must certainly be aware that changes must be made on a continuing basis to keep pace with the handling of an increasing amount of mail. There is no way that past procedures can keep pace to provide an adequate service. Technical changes must be made and automated equipment is also a must to speed up the movement of our mails. . Such threats as made by the Union a year or two ago not to handle coded mail makes no sense whatsoever and would only put a danger on providing adequate service. Surely the public cannot support such attitudes which is a confrontation to a necessary service across this nation. It would be difficult for any individual to assess the present problem between the Postal Department and the Union over technical changes but if attitudes of the past remain up tti today the union Would have to be considered a block to advancing a better mail service to Canadians. Perhaps it is time for the general public to not only criticize the service but give support to the Department to move ahead in its tecnological changes to improve service. Certainly the department has made it quite clear that no one will lose their job because of change or improvements. RULES OUT COMPETITION The Durham Board of Education ruled out art students preparing work within school hours for outside school competition. The ruling came when the board's art consultant maintained that the competitions could do more harm than good. Art eduction, he said, was geared to communication rather than competition and that competition competition could be subversive to the goals of the art program. The Board, of course; has every right to put a clamp on doing competition work within the classroom but the remarks by the art consultant leaves a major query for most. The consultant also quoted Dr. Barry Jackson, head of the psychological services, who suggests that as many as 30 per cent of the students could suffer emotionally when they ^ are placed in a competitive situation. It would appear that the good doctor and the consultant agree that we must continue in the world * of Alice in Wonderland. Schools have eliminated competition in the classroom over the past deCade academically and appear to see good now in any form of competition. If one Were to carry this view further it would rule out competitive sports in the schools such as basketball, football, soccer, and track and field meets. v , But what of the outside world when the students leave school. Competition, still to some degree, is evident in the real work world. Should the educational system not help to provide some basis to meet this challenge? We would think so. One cannot live forever in a dream world! ' Competition in the world of nature ensures its continuation and surely it is true to man as he evolves from century to century. WHAT'S NEW? It has a familiar ring to it: , • "Each class that comes into colle'ge has read fewer and fewer of what are called, the classics of English literature. An astonishing number of boys and girls read nothing worth reading except the books that are entrance requirements. An increasing proportion of the sons and daughters of the ' properous are positively illiterate at college age. "They cannot spell, they cannot spell, they cannot express themselves grammatically, and they are inclined to think :it, does not matter. "General laxity and the adoption, of various educational fads which play havoc with real education are largely responsible." Familiar ring or not, it was more than half ^century ago that the late American novelist and essayist Katherine _ Fullerton Gerould offered this assessment of the youth of the day. mg oken ... weed- mere once ; <v children played and shouted. They moan in their enforced emptiness. My case is special - not that I was a special child - only that I am the last survivor. Now one hundred years ago it was so different -1 was new - not beautiful but oh so structurally sound and useful. I remember my birth. The logs that form my structure were once living pine. I grew and drank from the very soil I now stand on. The lumber that so plainly clothed me frame came from other trees that grew here too. You see, I am a living thing. Because of this, I have living memories. My doors were like open arms. I took in every young child that came to me and when they left me they often looked back at me and murmured a quiet thanks for providing them with good basic education. I am tempted to be vain and brag just a little about some of those more famous feet that trod on my flooring. But vanity is not becoming to the aged. Rather I would remember remember all those who sat in my oaken seats. The poor, the rich, the famous and not so famous. Their education was received and inpurted with a great deal of integrity. The children carried in the firewood that stoked my fires and too, kept my joints frost free. Their parents cut the wood and delivered it to my spacious yard. I was a work of love. The skilled hands that built me were the hands of volunteers. I cost but little and now they tell me there is a price on my aged head, and what is the more ridiculous someone has whispered that that price is ($30,000) thirty- thousand dollars. My goodness, goodness, that must be wrong. For the first half of my life the teachers who tenderly worked worked in me made less than ($500) five, hundred dollars per annum. Surely I cannot now be worth more than sixty years of their scholarly efforts? efforts? What price education? 1 know I am too old to house the modern gadgetry of the sophisticated educators of this generation. Someone told me, I might become a museum. My heart throbbed wildly. Another hundred years of life to house the memories and memorabalia of my former inhabitants. What a fitting retirement! What a beautiful tribute to niy sisters, who suffered their horrible fates with the advent of modernism. Perhaps I could remain to speak for all of them. The excitement this 1 n the legis- ,ie Minister of ment, George was going to be ent policy to exempt generating stations the Environmental Im- -i Assessment Act or only le Darlington Generating Station. The Minister responded responded that it was not the intention to do so but that the Darlington plant decision had not been made yet as to whether it would be subject to the act. I also pointed out to the Minister that the Town of Newcastle and the Region of Durham both has asked for public hearings. I was amazed to discover that at almost the same time the Minister of Energy was issuing copies of the environmental environmental impact study and the community impact study on the Darlington Generating Station to involve the public in public comment with time for response from interested '■ groups and individuals ' running running into March of this year. I ' welcome the decision by the Ontario Hydro to pursue this course since it is one that all of the people involved in the Region of Durham have been asking for some time. I can't understand why it has taken Hydro so long to release there copies. Aparently this material material has been gathered together together for some time and I hope now ' that we will get true public input and there will be several days of public hearings hearings and enquiry under the Environmental Impact. Assessment Assessment Act to ensure that i there will be no details in the planning of this nuclear plant overlooked. 1 I think it is important that this be done as soon as possible so that when Hydro begins its construction that the people concerned with the environment not appear to be holding up the construction of the plant. rumour caused me was almost almost too much for me. People should not build an old one's hopes so high. No, the great price on my head excludes any -* such promise. My date of execution execution is slated for some time after January 31st. At that time a bureaucratic administration administration will put me on the auction block. I will be gutted, renovated, and bedecked in the trappings of a modern society. I could end up as a flea market, a Mr. .Submarine, .Submarine, a summer dwelling, or even a'used car lot. The only kind thing that might come of this is that my new pwner might look at my plaineSs, consider it ugly and with a, humaness seldom found today touch a çiatch and cremate me. If I can't, preserve ' the memories of a'village school, then I prefer cremation. The Old Kirby Public School, S.S. No. 14; Township of Clarke. NOTICE In order that our employees may have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, our business office will be closed during the Christmas Season on the following days:- Closing December 23rd a t 3 p.m. Closed Friday, December 24th Closed Monday, December 27th Closed Friday, December 3lst Community Telephone Company of Ontario, Limited Wsr STOCKING 'A Pick up a Gift Certificate ($10.00) Today for Ear Piercing at Hooper's Jewellers Ltd. Bowman ville 623-5747 OTTAWA and Small Business _ _ Quebec shares our nroblem By KENNETH McDONALD Jacques Parizeau, the new Quebec Minister of Finance, has indicated a policy direction direction which other provinces - and Ottawa -- might well copy. Deploring the absorption of scarce capital by grandiose grandiose schemes, he declared the new government's intention to encourage small and medium-size medium-size businesses which it réfards as a "dynamic force". This illustrates the true 1 meaning of the recent Quebec Quebec election fesult. Quebec may be a province, unlike the others for reasons of language language and tradition. But it's one very much like the others in. terms of an inflated -arid under-productive economy. Too great a proportion of resources in the pon-productive pon-productive government sector, too much power in the hands of politically-oriented labour unions, too much power in the Big Government-Big Business Business conduit Quebec's problems are different only in degree from the rest of Canada's. , There is a danger that politicians politicians and other Cahadians may misinterpret the Quebec situation as heralding a transfer transfer of power from Ottawa' to the provinces. * < • • • On the contrary, the dynamics dynamics of decentralization are to redress the balance of a democratic system which has become weighed down far too much on the side of big cities and big institutions. institutions. Not a redistribution of powers between levels c government, but a lesser, of government power at all levels. In fact, the provincial governments are greater centralists than the federal government. Instead of using the level *of its taxing power to force the provinces into extravagant extravagant programs, t v "nva should provide, throii^ he tax 'system, the incentive for individuals to invest in the new ventures without which no economy can re- . tain vitality. In a brief to Ottawa, the Canadian Federation of Independent Independent Business has recommended recommended increasing the loan ceiling under the Small Business Loans Act from $50,000 to $150,000, and permitting loans to be used for operating funds as well as the purchase of buildings and machinery. . Provincial tax -incentives . to encourage local businesses ,and individuals' to invest in new local enterprises are restricted restricted by fhc size of the provincial tax base. Intelligent Intelligent use of the federal taxing taxing ' power, 1 by stimulating the "dynamic force" owner-managed enterpi is the secret weapon that will ' strengthen the whole country and maintain rational unity.