THE AVERAGE BOY

Evening Star, Issue 18809, 6 December 1924, Page 2

THE AVERAGE BOY

HIS CLAIM TO FAME. A HEAD MASTER’S TRIBUTE. We never fail to hear of the brilliant hoy at school, who scores victory after victory in the scholastic arena, and who annually goes home to an admiring household, his arms laden with tangible acknowledgments of his prowess in examination tests. His' less fortunate brother, the average boy of modest attainments, pales into obscurity on prize day, and is unnoticed amidst the popular acclaim which greets those who head the honors list. Yet the average hoy; with all hfg mediocrity, possess indubitable claim* to distinction (says the ‘ Dominion '}. as was proved in the course of a brief hut arresting speech by Mr T. R. Cresswcll, the head master of Wellington College, before the great audience which filled the Wellington Town Hall on the occasion of a concert held in connection with th» school’s Jubilee celebrations. He did not think that any school or institution should be judged by its outstanding individuals, as it was the average type that should count. In every school the powers that be might be entrusted to advertise the school’s successes; the candid critics and the anonymous correspondents were faithful in their duty of pointing out the failures of the school, but, meanwhile, the average hoy passed unnoticed. Nevertheless, it had been said truly that the country without any history was a happy one, for after all history was in the main an abstract and proved chronicle of tho vaulting ambitions, tho frailties and sorrows of mankind. “ Happy, then, is the hoy,” remarked Mr Cresswcll, “ who has no place on the school records—the Average boy. Ha sips at ihe fount of knowledge, but does not drink so deeply as to become drunk with learning. lie is neither 100 proud nor too dull to profit by the instruction h© receives. Ho has a nodding acquaintance, but not too intimate an acquaintance, with the head master’s study, and the salutary lessons received therein. (Laughter.) He mixes, amicably, sometimes perhaps pugnaciously, with his peers. He gains a moderate success in examinations or on the playing fields, but he gains it not without wholesome effort, not without tears. When such a boy leaves school I presume his first impulse Ts to throw Ids cap skywards, cast his books to th© four winds of heaven, cut a caper, and sing a Te Dcum of thankfulness for deliverance from weary desks, irksome discipline, detention, trial, and strife, BEGINS TO THINK. “ Later on he begins to think perhaps that he has learned something and has profited somehow at school, and his first instinct naturally is to thank his school for any material advancement which lie has made in life; to thank his school for enabling him to pass various necessary, but hateful, examinations; to thank his school for planking his feet on tho lowest rung of the ladder of success; to thank his school now that he has got on in the world. If that is the only thanks that ho can give his old school then his school has failed, and fajled miserably. It is an old saying, and a very true one, that ‘ money talks! ’ It does talk in this materialistic ago most brazenly and blatantly, 'but deep down in our hearts “we are forced to admit that there are things thafi count for very much more in teal life than bank balances or motor cars or cabaret dances, and as timet goes on and tho responsibilities of life crowd round this young Old Boy, then he begins to think lovingly, perhaps longingly, of his old school. ‘ Absence makes tho neart grow fonder.’ He thinks of the brave days of old— Th© days when all the world was young, lad, And all the trees were green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen. M Then he begins to think perhaps that tho old school has really played a vital part in his life. Then when h© is forced to recognise that the influences he has come under in school have done something to make him a good citizen, a good sen, a good husband, a good father, a good grandfather, I hope he is filled with something of the spirit which animated th* poet Browning in some of his verse®. Browning is sailing past the coast Spain, and in the distance he sees plac® which are rich with historical association. In tho north-west he catches sight of Cape Saint Vincent sinking beneath th® horizon. The sunset is running blood-red into tho Bay of Cadiz. Right in front, bluish amid the burning water, lies Trafalgar, and in the distance ho sees the grim, grey Rock of Gibraltar. Seeing these tilings, ho says: Hero and here, hath England helped 1 mo. And then with the generous instinct of the poet’s heart, ho responds: How can I Kelp England, say? “ And if the average Old Boy in tho course of his life,” concluded the head master, “ is compelled to admit like th® poet: Hero and hero hath college helped me, Then I hope with an equal generosity of heart, he will respond: How can I help tho college, say ? If ho does, if such is his feeling, then he has not snout an unfruitful time at college.” (Loud applause.)