FIFTY YEARS ON

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 112, 4 February 1933, Page 12

FIFTY YEARS ON

Girls’ College Jubilee HISTORIC ASSEMBLY Addresses to Ex-Pupils “Come back, come back, Across the Hying foam, We hear faint far-off voices, Call us home!” With, these lines Miss Greig, M.A., principal of the Wellington Girls’ College, began her speech of welcome to the large number of “old girls” who assembled in Wellington yesterday morning to attend the jubilee festivities in connection with Wellington’s first, largest and most important secondary school for girls. The Assembly Hall at the college at Pipitea Street Was all too small to accommodate the crowd, which swelled out through the wide open doors into the spacious corridors. AU present were in the merriest of moods. An atmosphere of genial comradeship was associated from the outset with this very pleasant reunion of ex-students of the old Girls’ High School, now the Wellington Girls’ College.

Memories were dashingly interchanged, old class photographs were produced, and some even brought their old school reports to prove their scholastic powers in the old school days, now fading into the mists of memory. “Home 1” continued Miss Greig. “How dear and sweet a name. In an all-em-bracing love you are this day reunited, one big family of splendid daughters! In gratitude you come from north and south, from east and west. You come from near and far to do honour to your school in her golden jubilee. She is glad to see you, overjoyed to welcome you—you of Abel Smith Street and young Pipitea. Here you renew sweet friendships, many formed so long ago, and ’midst the old familiar scenes, recapture something of the courage, enthusiasm and splendid optimism of youth, in living over again the care-free days you spent at school. “May the jubilee bring to each one," continued Miss Greig, “a breath of freshness for the present, intermingled with the sweet fragrance of the past. May you spend a very happy and profitable time together “I feel that it is indeed good for you to be here at college. Memories crowd around you. We remember with deepest thankfulness those who have passed to other services, and those who, by their lofty ideals, loyalty, courage, devotion, and selflessness, helped to make the school a lasting memorial that can never be overthrown.”

Miss Greig added a fitting tribute to the late Miss Pat Shannon, who died as late as January 1. She extolled Miss Shannon’s devotion to the school to the last. Miss McLean’s Address.

After the applause following Miss Greig’s welcome had died down, Hie principal called upon Miss Mary McLean, ex-principal, to address the gathering. Miss McLean, who was given a great, fpil-hearted reception, said that she would have liked to speak to them eye to eye, but was rather afraid that on such an occasion her eyes might become misty, so she had decided to jot down some notes. “I welcome you in the heartiest manner possible,” said Miss McLean. “Lam thrilled to see so many here to-day. Many of you have come long distances. For what? Why have you come? What has prompted you? I should like to think, and I do think, that it is because you have a real love for your old school —your Alma Mater. I hope no one will object to our filching thnt term from the university. A school deserves' to be called a benign mother, a bountiful mother, quite as much as that more elderly personage—the university. “I hope,” Miss McLean continued, “we shall all be infected with the jubilee spirit—a spirit of joy and gratefulness for our many advantages, a spirit of supreme delight in the joys of literature, of investigation, of achievement. It is not necessary to go abroad, to go outside the home, to feel the deepest ecstasies of life. The ability to help, to call down blessings on friends and foes, to prepare the way of the Lord, to make crooked paths straight. ' “New Zealand has yet to see what you women can do by way of moral uplift and social betterment. We have been trying for over fifty years to have the Bible in the schools, and have not got it yet. I have been reading the letters of Mazzini lately. He courted hardships, called on others to be great palriots. and to work unceasingly for their country. He did not expeer that men apart from God could effect good and lasting, results; but he knew a glorious truth. ‘That duly borrows from tlie Divine a spark of His omnipotence.’ I noted that saying in a broadcast lately, but I repeat, and because

1 believe each one should know it in her own experience.

“It is too often the case. ‘Ye receive not because you’ask not; ye ask and re, ceive not, because you ask amiss.’ It is not in human nature to be faultless, but it is due to human nature to mount by prayer to the glorious table lands where God dwells in loving omnipotence. "We of this Alma Mater wish the highest and best for her loving, adventurous children. Rejoice now and rejoice always. however life may try you, and seem to turn the cold shoulder on you. , . Gaudeamus igiture!” Assembled in Decades. At the assembly hall the ex-students of the college were accommodated in sections according to the decade to which they belonged, each section having a banner (black and gold) on which was inscribed the decade. At the conclusion of the speech-making, there was a roll-call, the “old girls” of the various periods rising to their feet when called upon to do so. The count resulted as follows:— 1883-1893, 63: 1893-1903. 56; 1903-1913. 97; 1913-1923, 143; 1923-1932. too numerous to count. There was then a request for all exstudents who had come from places outside Wellington to attend the jubilee festivities Thirty-six ladies responded. First Day Pupils. On behalf of the half-dozen ex-students present who were enrolled the first day the coljege opened. Lady Hosking (nee Miss Kathleen Reader) called for cheers for the first lady principal. Miss Hamilton, and begged leave to mention such exteachers of distinction as Miss Margaret Richmond (the late Mrs. Dr. Fell). Miss Mary Richmond. Dr. Innes. Miss Gillon, and Miss Searle, referring to the great value of their teaching and influence. Miss Hamilton had no .degrees: she had come out from a famous school in Scotland, but she was the first teacher the speaker had ever known.

After the school song, “Best School of All.” was sung, the ex-students assembled in the college grounds to be photographed. and later, left by special trams for the Town Hall to attend the civic reception.