A GREAT TRUST.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20104, 6 December 1930, Page 16

A GREAT TRUST.

TEACHING OF THK YOUNG. LORD BLEDISLOE ADDRESSES STUDENTS. (mess iSSOCiATioK telegram.) WELLINGTON, December o. A very enthusiastic gathering marked the closing until next year of the Teachers' Training College at Kclburn. The Governor-General and Lady Bledisloe attended and were given a rousing reception. His Excellency said it was a particularly congenial task to address them, for in tho days of his childhood his great ambition was to be a teacher. He agreed with Mr Lomas, the principal, that teachers required to bo trained. Their principal had also said, "Do not be tied overmuch by tradition." With that also he agreed, except in such matters as loyalty and patriotism. An Imperial Trust. "I never addressed a potentially more influential audience than this. There is no nobler profession than vours, none more designed to have a more certain or powerful influence on your country and tho Empire to which you belong. Tt is not merely an occupation to which any man or woman might nut his or her hand with a fair measure of success. Teaching has become an art in every sense of the word, and requires a considerable amount of preparation and examination in order to excel in the art. It is not only a profession, but it is a great imperial trust. There is no greater trust. You are in what lawyers call a fiduciary position rather .than that of a beneficiary. If anyone is entering the profession of teaching today moved by motives of self-interest only, 1 suggest, 'Seek some other occupation or vocation.' Teaching is a trust requiring patience, determination, clarity of mind, self-confidence without conceit, loftiness of aim, and altruism. Basis of Ideals. "Upon -n'hat were their high ideals based? If you do not teach religion, find most of you will not," said his Excellency, "at least show that you are inspire 4by religious faith or religious conviction, and by so dojng you will carry much greater conviction a3 regards tho ideals of life with those plastic and impressionable young rninds which it is your privilege to mould for thoir own and their country's good." . The child of to-day, he said, had to he trained according to its bent and according to the potentialities of the employment which might be forthcoming.