"IT IS UP TO YOU!"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 44, 20 August 1930, Page 10

"IT IS UP TO YOU!"

VICE-REGAL ADVICE

ETON AND CHRISTCHURCH

BATTLE OF THE FUTIZEE

Some highly instructive remarks on the building up of character were made by His Excellency the GGvernor-General, Lord Bledisloc, when addressing the scholars of Christ's College at Christehurch on Saturday morning.

In thanking the boys for their expressions of loyalty, His Excellency reminded them that their school was the first centre of higher education to be established in New Zealand (reports the Christchurch "Press"). "I cannot help feeling a personal interest in the pioneering days of Christehurch, "■ said His Excellency, "for in 1847, on. a, hillside in my district in England, three .men, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Lord Lyttelton, and John Eobert Godley, met and decided to found this city in New Zoaland. Education was to form a part in that foundation."

Christ's College claimed to reflect I the ideals of the English .public schools, His-Excellency continued. They had^i splendid memorial hall erected in honour of the old boys who had fallen in the Great War, and he doubted if a finer academic building had been erected in the British Empire since that war. * ■ J AN EXPEEIENCE AT ETON. i "Forty-eight years ago," said Lord Bledisloe, "I obtained a scholarship at Eton, which my fond parents did not allow me to take, because when lunching during the examination in College Hall I was given potatoes black inside, which, they assured me, was the normal and only diet of ah-; Eton scholar, and unfit for their pampered child. Preferable to this was the hard steak and1 harder men immortalised in the Eton Boating Song. "A month ago, as an unofficial rambler, I strolled into your quadrangle, and into this splendid hall erected by old students to their 144 old boys who fell in the cause of world freedom in the Great War. Looking upon this architectural gem, I was reminded of my first lesson in Latin construction —'Balbus murum aedificavit' ('Balbus has built a wall').

At first I admired Balbus's structural achievement, but having b,een reminded of my old school friend, Balbus, I began, being mentally a ruminant, to ponder upon '' edification," that is, building up of body, mind,^ character, as the chief function of a great English-speaking public school, and I -was led to wonder 'Quales Homines Collegium Christi aedificat?" and to what extent they resembled this fair structure, dignified yet simple, classical yet modern, well-balanced in all its parts, strong in build yet graceful, refined in appearance; truly artistic, yet free from conceits! "Aj a tree is known by its fruits, so the finest monuments to a great school are those which it has sent out into the world to mould its destinies for , better or for worse. "PLAYED'ITS PART." "Eton, in its five, hundred _ years' i existence, has , contributed its full human quota to those who have made our Anglo-Saxon race famous throughout the world and throughout the centuries, the last of its great children who have passed to their rest being my friend the late Lord Balfour. In its 80 years Christ's College has played its due part in the same direction, notable among its sons being isir Westby Perceval, the Hon. W. Pember Beeves, Sir Thomas Wilford, Bishop ■Williams of Waiapu, Admiral Harper, Dr Greenwood, and Millton and Cotterill in the field of sport. " 'The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton,' a tribute to those qualities of courage, leadership, discipline, and team worK which every great British, school is desirous to engender. What battle is going to be won on the premises of this its counterpart or replica in this Dominion, and what is the equipment, needed for victory in the year 1930? It is not going to be a battle of blood and mud, barbed-wire entanglements, dugouts—the League of Nations will save us from that—but a battle of industry, resourcefulness, and character, in which the British Empire anay find itself pitted against the world, and in which the Dominions will be looked to to supply young blood, vigour, and pertinacity. OFFICERS IN THE NEW ARMY. How will the army be officered, and what will be the qualifications of its leaders? Above all, character, that indefinable something that makes men and women courageous, truthful, ,selfdiseiplined, and virtuous. Buskin, in 'Sesame and Lilies,' speaking to young people, said, 'Teach them that courage ana truth are the pillars of their being.' How best to develop character? To cultivate the habit of saying 'No,' when to say 'Yes' "would be wrong. 'Solvitur ambulando.' .. "Practice Smakes easy, whether in cricket or character formation. Every time you say 'No,' especially if you say it -with a cheerful voice and with a confident tone, your character is strengthened, and it is easier to say it next time.

All very well, yon say, but you don't know our difficulties, our temptations, our weaknesses. O, yes, we do; we have all had to face them to greater or lesser extent. If it is difficult for you to make good, how mueb more difficult for those who have not had your opportunities and the enormous benefits that flow from your wholesome, helpful surroundings? The world's greatest men. have in them the makings of the world's greatest villains and outcasts. But for the grace of God, there goes | John Wesley. "JUSTIFY YOUR OPPOR- j TUNITIES." ''Justify your opportunities and' be charitable and helpful, but never patronising those who have not been similarly blessed, and, above all, don't disparage or despise manual work. New j Zealand is richly endowed by Nature.' Of all the Dominions of the Crown her human' and educational foundations were most well and truly laid. The .j superstructure is what you choose to1 make it. Don't wait for others to. point the way. You have pride oil historical! priority. It is up to you and Wanganui not to rest on the laurels of the pasd,.l but to be ever winnig fresh laurels in the future, and so make New Zealand the brightest, jewel in. the British Crown."