AFTER FIFTY YEARS.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 198, 21 August 1919, Page 4

AFTER FIFTY YEARS.

Participants in the Grammar School's Jubilee to-day may reflect that while fifty years is a long time in the life of a man, it is little in the life of a nation, and that it is but a brief span in the history of some of the famous public schools of England. Cut in a country where British sovereignty is but eighty years old, the attainment of a Jubilee makes

a school venerable. Moreover, even in the Old Land, fame and shining achievements do not depend on great age. When one thinks of the public schools of England, one remembers first Eton and Harrow, Winchester and Rugby, and others of those institutions that count their history in centuries, but there are many lino schools of this class dating back less —some of them much less—than a hundred years. Clifton, the famous school of soldiers, the nursery of Marshal Haig and Henry Ncwbolt, was founded in ISG2, only seven years before the Auckland Grammar School. Malvern College dates to ISOS, Cheltenham to 1841, Loretto to 1529, and Fettes to 1870. Tradition is a priceless asset in a school; it is part of that mighty but imponderable fourth dimension which counts for so much in life generally. But age is not everything. A school is a living organism, and its worth is the sum total of its present activities and spirit, and fts tradition, and any way, as the history of the Grammar School shows, a valuable tradition can be cultivated in riftv years. The Grammar School holds lirst place in the educational interest aud affection of Auckland people. It has always been the leading secondary school in the city and the province, and for long it has been one of the great schools of New Zealand and Australasia. From humble beginnings it has developed into a very large, admirably equipped institution, splendid ly housed on one of the finest sites in the Dominion; the boy who receives his education under such conditions is to be envied. Generation after generation of boys has passed through the .school, and carried the impress of its education and culture, and the influence of its staff, into the world. Old -boys of the school are to be found all over the world, and the school has a fine record of pupils who have made their mark in public life, in

the sphere of learning, ahd in war. Particularly impressive is the story of old iboys' doings in the Great War. To old boys everywhere to-day will be an occasion for renewing old memories, and wishing the school every success in the . coming years of promise and doubt. There is no sentiment purer than the affection of a man for his old school. It is disinterested and elevating, and the sure measure of the influence, the school has exerted beyond the mere imposition of learning. .So one sees in the gatherings at the school to-day and to-morrow proof that the spirit of the Grammar School is projected beyond the book and beyond the building, and unites all old pupils in a brotherhood of sentiment which faces tho future all the more confidently because it has such valuable links with the past.