THE PETERITE Vol. LXVII
OCTOBER, 1976
No. 393
Edited by D. G. Cumm in, J.P., M.A.
EDITORIAL Anniversaries can be solemn or joyful occasions, and sometimes a mixture of both. As a nation we have a passion for them, with a peculiar reverence for centenaries and half centenaries. So this year 4th July had a special significance not only for the United States but for us too. We feel we had a share in the making of that nation, partly in having a government stupid enough to think it could hold its turbulent colonies against their will, but more deeply in the fact that the makers -,of the United States had taken with them across the Atlantic the self-evident truths on which they based their Declaration of Independence. And perhaps as a reminder of this greatest of our exports, we this year lent the United States a copy of Magna Carta which had expressed these truths rather earlier, if rather more crudely. To another centenary we are giving less heed. In 1877 Queen Victoria became Empress of India, and the Imperial Raj started its majestic but uneasy sway. The man who best caught the spirit of those heady years, Rudyard Kipling, had seen deeper than most when he wrote at the supreme moment of imperial glory, the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, an uncharacteristic warning: To, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre. Judge of the nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget Exactly fifty years later all could see that the high priest of the Raj had also been its prophet; but at least in the making of the new India and Pakistan our concern was not to try to hold on to what we once thought was our possession, but to ensure that the parting should be dignified and friendly. The history of nations and of peoples is always fascinating, although the term history is itself difficult to define. If we look for development, then we have to examine the rise and fall of nations, failures and successes. If we look for progress, we had best look into those much smaller communities which have kept their identity though "kingdoms rise and wane". Such a community is a school; and may we not, with pardonable pride, pause in 1977 to celebrate thirteen hundred and fifty years of our school's life? Of course there are long gaps in our knowledge of the school, as there must be of any institution that stretches back before the days of easy printing and the conscious leaving of records. But there was a school of St. Peter in 627, set up as part of the York mission centred on the Minster; and there is no indication that such a school discontinued its connection with the Minster from that year onwards. 1