AN AMUSING SPEAKER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 15, 17 July 1937, Page 19

AN AMUSING SPEAKER

LATE SIR JAMES BARRIE

When the late Sir James Barrie spoke on courage to the students of St. Andrew's University, 'his speech was widely reported, states the "Sydney Morning Herald." Not so well known is the address he once gave to the girls of the Wallasey High School. I near Liverpool, England. His niece. Miss L. K. Barrie, was headmistress of the school, and the dramatist confessed that his stiflest job at this prize-giving was to say "Miss Barrie." - - "I suppose it comes quite easy to you girls to call her that. I daresay you would catch it if you didn't. But I can recall her when she was much younger than any of you, and i remember particularly one day .when she was about a year old. Our heroine was dressed in one of those white : things that were so fashionable that year, and she wore such a pretty bonnet. "The scene was a pleasant Scottish town, and a very great man was passing the end of the road So I whipped up our heroine in my arms and ran with her to the gate in order that she might in after years say that she had once seen Thomas Carlyle. "When Miss Barries . biography comes to be written, perhaps by one of you girls (for whatever else becomes of you, you will all write), don't forget to say that this was the turning point of her life, and that from that day she put away frivolous things, including the bonnet, and plucked triangles instead of daisies. I expect that Carlyle had pointed with his staff to Wallasey." HIS SAD EXPRESSION. Then Sir James gave a clue to the habitual sadness shown in his expression. ' "I understand that everyone in my place is expected to. say something about his o i schooldays. Something with a moral. I attended a mixed school in the South of Scotland, and on an unfortunate day for me the girls took a plebiscite about which boy had the nicest smile. I won, with the result that I lost my smile. I suppose it is still jiggling about somewhere in the void, but it has never come, back -to me. A tragedy in a nutshell. The moral,, the; old one. Trustful little boys, beware of girls." Finishing on a more serious note, Sir James said:— "You can go from here, equipped or nearly so, to live intelligently by your own work, make, a, fair wage in intelligent callings, ,and.>to. be, chosen for your jobsin: preference to men, because you have '• proved ' you • can do them'better.' There :must be. a mighty satisfaction in that. Such'schools as yours are a' bursting of light through the gloom.:of .the.past... .Never again will it be quite impossible for any girl, rich or poor, to adorn ■ herself in the fair garments -* learning. ■". ■ "I should like ,to give you a motto, something to strive, for. I should like to see it blazoned over the. entrance to Wallasey High School. The words— 'Every child born into-the-British Empire should get ran equal .chance.' That will neer1 some doing/ ■ : . / ;