"GREAT AND GOOD"

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18730, 29 June 1926, Page 11

"GREAT AND GOOD"

LATE MR BEVAN-BROWN.

COLLEGE BOARD'S PRAISE,

The chairman and members of the Canterbury College Board of Governors prefaced the business of yesterday's Board meeting •with sympathetic and eulogistic references to the late Mr C. E. Bevan-Brown.

The chairman, Mr H. D. Acland, said that sinco the last meeting they had lost one of the best loved, and best known members of their former staff, Mr C. E. Bevan-Brown. For 37 years ho had held sway at the Boys' High School.

Coming to New Zealand in 1844, he found a young and struggling school, and ho had raised that school to the high position it npw occupied in the community. He belonged to tho type of man not uncommon in the British Empire—the man who gave his services to the community. There was always about him and his work, an atmosphere of unselfishness and integrity. He judged himself severely, but had always shown a charitable and kindly attitude towards tho boys under him. He looked 011 every boy who passed through his hands as one of "his boys."

Something might be dope to establish a memorial for that great and good man. But a memorial already existed in tho men who had been turned out under his jurisdiction from the Boys' High School. y ' He moved the following resolution: — "That the Board, in extending its sincere sympathy to the widow and family of the lato Charles Edmund Bevan-Brown, M.A., places on record its high appreciation of his work as

Headmaster of the Christehurch Boys' High School, for a period of 37 years, and recognises that by his high ideals, loyalty, and righteousness, lie has earned the abiding affection, and been the inspiration of thousands of old boys in all parts of the Dominion and overseas.''

Influence for Good,

In seconding the motion, Mr J. It. Cuningham .said that lie deemed it a privilege, as an old pupil of the late Mr Bevan-Brown, to associate himself with the motion. The old headmaster of the • Boys' High School, through the long years that he guided the destiny of the School, served the Board and the public faithfully and well, and now that he has passed, it was fitting that the motion brought forward should go down in the records of the,. Board. Apart from the question of service faithfully rendered and duty nobly done, it must be left to that band of Old Boys, scattered the world over, who came directly under his personal influence and teaching, to attempt .to estimate his life's work at its true, value, if such were possible. It had been said he built a wall, and undoubtedly he did—a wall fashioned out of raw human material, and with the close of his career, he left that wall complete, buttressed with the manhood and the affection of thousands of lads whoso lives he had influenced, and whose characters ho had moulded.

His exemplary life, his high ideals, the transparent sincerity of his religious convictions, his deep senso of justice and fair dealing with tho animal boy, inspired in the most commonplace nature, hope and confidence, and in return he won, and retained, a love and respect that words cannot express.

"He was not an educationist whose goal was obscured, in the. mists of theory," said -Mr Cuningham. . "He studied the boy, went straight to his. heart, and said, 'What can I make ofyou?' He did not believe that education lay chiefly in the preparation of boys for the examination room, he believed that hand in hand with the imparting of knowledge, should go the development of' character, and tho fitting of,lioys to become honourable and God-fearing citizens. It is, perhaps a wise provision of Providence that there is no standard —no measure, by which .we can estimate individual worth in the wide field of. human activity. In. assessing human virtues, and in ►appraising human values, each individual must fix the standard for himself. Who could darp estimate the value of the life and service of the old Head to this Province—to this Dominion. "The influence he exerted over his pupils, long after they left the classroom, steadied many a faltering youth, and the letters he wrote, and the words of comfort he spoke when the Great War was taking heavy toll, helped to call forth that splendid tribute to his memory, a few days ago, when he was laid to. rest. The old Head has gono, but hia teaching, his influence, and the inspiration he has given, live on, woven into the stuff of many lives. "Whilst he was a'great headmaster, he was also a worthy husband and father, and our sympathy goes out to his widow, and also to his three, manly eons, worthy of tho name they bear." Dr. John Guthrie said that he would always cherish the memory of. the late Mr Bcvan-Brown,'and he expressed the hope that the good he had done, would' long live after him. * The motion was carried, - all those present standing.