HALF A CENTURY

Evening Star, Issue 23322, 19 July 1939, Page 15

HALF A CENTURY

RECORD OF TECHNICAL COLLEGE JUBILES NEXT MONTH “ The Education Department lias now consented to the board’s second proposal that the current term .shall end with tin* jnbibe week—namely.’ on August 12. the second term vacation of three weeks following immediately, so that the fluid term shall begin a week early—namely, on Monday, September 4. This will entail a fourweeks’ break in evening, classes, as it is quite impossible, even if it were desirable, to staff evening .school during the jubilee functions,” said the monthly report of the principal of, the King Edward Technical College (Mr AA T . G. Aldridge), which was presented to the meeting of the Board of Managers yesterday afternoon. “ It lias been understood from ■ the first that members of the evening school, should take part in every function with the same freedom as students of the Technical High School,” continued the report. “ I am. prepared to permit extra evening classes to he held during the week August 14 to 18 if members of the part-time staff so desire, but, in common fairness to the full-time staff, I think that none of them should be expected to teach after such a heavy term.

“ At this, the last board meeting before the jubilee, it is well to explain certain points of which the public of Dunedin are certainly not fully aware, and which may even be unfamiliar to certain members of the board itself. First in importance comes insistence upon 50 years’ successful conduct of evening classes. Before half that period had elapsed, the founder’s prophecy expressed in his original paper in these words had been triumphantly justified : ‘ I do not think that at present (October, 1838) there is any need, of trying to form a fully-fledged technical institute. If wo get the nucleus, its ultimate development in the direction of more strictly technical instruction will follow in due course.’

“ But the jubilee should produce the fulfilment of a prophecy even more striking, given in the words of Alexander Burt at the public meeting hold in 1889 before the first classes _ were opened: ‘ln years to come this institution will not only have clone good work, but will be pointed at as a model institution, and men who, have risen to the height of their ambition (whatever it may be) will look back and bo able to say: “Only for that noble institution, the Otago Technical Association, 1 would have been a machine, working with my hands instead of devoting my hands as brain power directs them.” ’ It would be peculiarly fitting if this note could be struck at the official opening ceremony to bo held in the Town Hall on Tuesday, August 8.

“As a means of paying tribute to those great-minded citizens whose efforts launched the institution and carried it through the difficult years before it received the name of King Edward Technical College, I have beon commissioned to take the risk of ordering a memorial tablet for the vestibule, to be unveiled on AVcdnesday morning. August 9, when the first generation of students is to assemble. In this act of recognition, surely hundreds of expupils would feel it an honour to share, and I hope that they may be given an opportunity to do so at the opening ceremony on the previous evening, so that the commemorative act may bo performed not only in the name of grateful ex-students, but by their full participation in the deed itself. While tho jubilee ball and the banquet may he trusted to achieve their own’ success without direct help from the board, much skill must be employed in organising tho other gatherings if they are to be worthy of the occasion. The Technical Classes’ Association in early days found the ‘ public terribly apathetic,’ in spite of the generosity of the few individuals and the constant assistance of the Press, commercial firms, and public bodies, and it would be foolish to suppose that the full success of jubilee week is by any means yet assured.

“In nearly all school jubilees it is old students who shoulder the burden of getting into touch with their school mates, but in our case this is impossible, if only because of the incompleteness of records over long periods. But through the assistance of half a dozen helpers circulars have been sent to more than 300 who attended before the war, and pupils of the Technical High School have given names and addresses of about 1,100 others. In this way, as well as by placing placards in shop windows, by radio announcements, by notices in evening classes, and by newspaper advertisements, every possible attempt is being made to enlist interest in both the programme of the jubilee and in its secondary aim of providing that library for tho college which its founder tried to establish moro than 40 years ago. “It may bo that tho college is still too young to count upon the support of enough old students to carry through successfully a full week of jubilee functions, but if only one in five of thosjo who have received benefits help in time, the jubilep will be indeed memorable. So far as the programme in detail is concerned, it is clear that tho musical, dramatic, and scenic items, to bo presented arc of exceedingly high standard; and diverse in time and in kind though the college experiences of those who attend tho jubilee may be,. there is much that can unite them all, if they are only willing. Even those old students who have never even been inside King Edward Technical College may take pride in its worth and in its outward dignity, joining with those younger ones to whom its emblem—that magnificent photograph of its lighted doorway by tho late David Sherriff—is pregnant with meaning, and with those of 1939 who are to sing in tho Town Hall a school song in which Ur Griffiths has wedded words to music of singular richness and beauty.”