Page 5 - The Moretonian 2025

with forecasting for the Bush administration
what the next ten years might hold. He
composed his thoughts in a memo shared
in April of that year. It begins: “If you had
been a security policy-maker in the world’s
greatest power in 1900, you would have been
a Brit, looking warily at your age-old enemy,
France.” Wells then takes us on a tour,
decade by decade, through events both
memorable and often forgotten: a British-
American-Japanese arms race precedes the
First and Second World Wars, which come
and go much like the British Empire and the
Soviet Union; Vietnam is almost overnight bring about so many positive changes.
transformed from practically unheard of to They are self-aware, and self-actualising
a byword for misguided interventionism. The through that awareness. In the great Socratic
world seemingly changes with every rotation. tradition, they are wise because they know
Wells concludes: “All of which is to say that that they don’t know; they understand that
I’m not sure what 2010 will look like, but I’m the future isn’t yet written—and that they
sure that it will be very little like we expect, so can be the ones to enjoy writing it.
we should plan accordingly.”
The pen with which they draft the next
Our leavers are more than up to the chapter is in safe hands.
challenge; indeed, they are among the
finest of a generation that sees the world Michael Brewer
differently. Their education here at Moreton Principal
has taught them that if they can envisage
something, they can achieve it. Rather than
search for certainty, they will thrive in their
understanding that they themselves can

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