VITAL FACTORS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 145, 16 March 1931, Page 10

VITAL FACTORS

Education of the Young ST. PATRICK’S COLLEGE Lord Bledisloe’s Praise Convinced of the efficacy of religion in the training of the young, his Excellency the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe mentioned the subject in his address at the opening of the new St. Patrick’s College at Silverstream yesterday afternoon. Later he endorsed the motives which had led to the establishment of the college in a rural environment and prophesied confidently that the large capital expenditure would prove a remunerative investment. He began by referring to Archbishop Redwood’s association with the school. “The foundation-stone of this college was laid and blessed less than eleven months ago,” he said. “Unique indeed in the history of any institution must be the laying of a foundation-stone by one who, 46 years before, had laid that of a structure which, through obsolescence, it is intended to supersede. Remarkable, too, is the fact that his own age was exactly double that of the superannuated structure. No obsolescence as yet characterises your venerated and venerable chairman, Archbishop Redwood, and it is our profound hope, while thanking him for his loyal and cordial welcome, that he may live for many years to adorn the high position in this branch of our Christian brotherhood, to which his long headship has added such lustre and prestige. “I am delighted and gratified.” his Excellency continued, “at being asked to perform this ceremony of formally opening this new St. Patrick's College: first, because I am a profound believer in the value to both indivdual and State of a sound and thorough education such as St. Patrick’s curriculum provides: secondly, because I am convinced of the efficacy of religion as a vital factor in the training of the young, and which unless provided either in the home or in the school leaves the human output of the latter starved throughout life in man’s most essential pabulum; and, thirdly, because 1 have learnt from personal observation in many parts of this fair land of abounding opportunity how efficient and eminently practical is the training which, at great sacrifice and with sympathetic devotion, your powerful religous community provides amid congenial surroundings for young people of both sexes to fit them for useful and happy lives. “Moreover, I have a personal link with St. Patrick’s College. The motto of your Alma Mater, ‘Hectare Fidem.’ and the ancient motto of my family, ‘Tien ta Foy,’ are the same, but yours is expressed in Latin and mine in old Norman French. ‘Cleave to your faith’ —tenaciously, courageously, confidently. A Work of Edification. “We are assembled here to-day not ouly to' inaugurate but to express pride in a work of edification—the erection of a noble range of academic buildings, fair to look upon, well balanced, of good reliable material throughout, with firm foundations, admirably adapted to serve their intended purpose, and in all respects a credit to their architect and builder. Witbin their walls a far more important type of edification will be in progress—the building up of human character and of human efficiency in many different vocations. Let us hope and pray that the human inmates of this princely academic home may after due edification answer to the same description.” His Excellency went on to speak of character-building and of character which was not merely the preaching or profession of high ideals, but the instinctive determination to aet at all times in pursuance of them. “This academic migration into a rural environment,” said his Excellency, “is impelled by three important considerations : first, the greater facilities available for recreation and the consciousness that the ‘corpus sanum’ is an essential condition of the ‘mens sana’; secondly, the desire to provide more practical training for intending farmers; and, thirdly, the prospect of supplying the college direct with milk, vegetables, and other farm produce. “May I be allowed,” he asked, “to endorse enthusiastically all these far-sight-ed motives and to utter .the confident prophecy that your large capital expenditure will prove a remunerative investment? Much "teaching effort is wasted through the physical unfitness of the taught; the useful employment of our limbs is at least as important as that of our minds and stimulates their healthy activity. Your agricultural students are less in number than those who follow your professional and commercial courses. I hope that they may now increase, and that the nobility •and national importance of their intended calling may be always emphasised on these premises. It was Benjamin Disraeli who" said 80 years agb, ‘A nation which ueglects its agriculture is bound to decay.’ If true in an old country with its highly-organ-ised and rationalised urban industries, it is ten times as true in a new country like New Zealand, Intellectual Culture. “ ‘Oh I’ you may say, ‘in a college such as this we have to consider culture even more than agriculture as a factor in the avoidance of national decay.’ Yes, but is not intellectual culture advanced by the study of those sciences a knowledge of which will enable the land of this country to produce at least six times what it is producing to-day, and at half the present cost per acre. Moreover, is not culture in the highest sense compatible with a life spent among Nature’s bounteous gifts and in constant contact and close partnership with Nature’s God? I have little sympathy with those who gather no inspiration from the verdure of growing grass or the golden glory of ripened corn or the inimitable beauty of the rata, the kowhai, the kauri, or the rimu of your incomparable native bush, but are thrilled by the garish attractions of a sordid American cinema film. The more that, as a nation, we can maintain our contact with Nature and develop thereby our love of the simple, beautiful things of life that Nature inculcates, the happier we shall be and the less likely are we to be drawn into extravagances which nowadays we can ill afford.” Lord Bledisloe said he would watch with special personal interest the development of new agricultural activities at the College. “I now have the greatest pleasure,” he said finally, “in declaring open these new buildings of St. Patrick’s College, and cordially hope that the instruction given therein may be the means of advancing the material welfare of this fair country and also God’s Kingdom here upon earth.”