AO Ur OR FAL

N the Year of Grace nineteen hundred and twenty-five there came

together a small group of young men and women who, under the
directorship of Charles Scott, formed the nucleus of what was later to
become a thriving organization—the Vancouver School of Decorative
and Applied Art. Four years later, a certain number of the original
coterie received diplomas, affixed with the Department of Education
seal. The following year, a second class of graduates left the school, and
now, in nineteen hundred and thirty-one, a third will join the ranks of
diploma students; the first occasion the gratifying result of optomistic
experimentation, the second and third convincing proofs of the advised-
ness of so ambitious an undertaking.

The Art School IS—and WILL BE. And to what end?

Each day every person in British Columbia awakens with mountains, sea,
forest, and expanse of sky, in their everchanging forms to experience,
consciously or unconsciously. To the artist is given that joyful task of
interpreting this symphony—to awaken the awareness of Nature's power-
ful harmony in the breasts of his fellows. And what an honor! Perhaps
at the present, we feel that mission we have chosen is unappreciated.
But is it? When our pioneers banded together, were they not encount-
ering the same difficulty? Yes! But have they not alleviated it for us
by their example and encouragement, and the place they have made
for us, they, and the two classes who so far have succeeded them.

So it is for us to carry on with firm step, with shining eyes, toward our
goal; to give to our school the same precious gifts they have given.
Behind us lies a half-decade of striving; ahead, the future—and what we

WILL!
The Editor.

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