OTAGO BOYS' HIGH SCHOOL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23103, 30 July 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

OTAGO BOYS' HIGH SCHOOL

By KOTARE

A Notable Record

I SUPPOSE it is hardly possible for a man to be impartial in his attitude to his own school. Like Henry Newbolt, we are prone to raise to an axiom the proposition that it is the "best school of all." As often as not that judgment is based on nothing more substantial than the inspiring fact that we attended it in our salad days. The outsider might very easily find in our ground of praise the very reason for his condemnation. The old school tie business can become very offensive. A month or so ago Mr. S. P. B. Mais reminded English readers that the worst thing which could be said about a school was that its ex-pupils assumed an attitude of superiority, as if mere attendance had conferred some special distinction. In his view there was far too much of this in the old school spirit as it had developed in England. There must he something seriously wrong with the atmosphere of a school that ministered to this priggish selfrighteousness. If association with a particular school gave a man a high sense of responsibility, and the conviction that the school honour was in his hands and he must not let it down, then whether it was a famous school or a mere suburban academy unknown outside its narrow district, it was a good school, and its pupils were rightly proud of it.

Things that Matter That always needs to be said. Kipling was a foundation pupil of a new public school established near Plymouth for the children of expatriated parents who could not afford the fees of the more famous schools. Looking back he saw what his very new, traditionless, fameless school had done for him.

There we learned from famons men Teaching in our borders, Who declared it was bestSafest, easiest and best— Expeditious, wise and best— To obey your orders. Bless and praise we famous men Men of little showing: For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Broad and deep continueth, Great beyond their knowing. On August 3 the Otago Boys' High School celebrates the seventy-fifth anniversary of its founding. Seventy-five vears is not a long life by old-world standards. But it covers a very large part of the Dominion's effective life. It is no 6mall contribution to our national life to have poured forth for all those years an unceasing stream of vigorous youth, formed and made aware in * their most impressionable years for their own self-expression and for the service of this new land. The old boys must now number ia vast host. It is not the mere prejudice of an old pupil o£ the school that makes me claim for iv that no other school has rendered a greater service to the life of the Dominion.

The Average Product We have had our great men, leaders in the State and Church, distinguished figures in all the professions, makers of our commercial history. But the value of a school cannot be determined by the outstanding men it has produced. It is always a mistake on anniversary occasions to lay stress on the famous men who once sat at the old school's desks. Much more important are the rank and file, the men that make' the warp and woof of our society. If the average man does his daily work better for his years of contact with the school, makes a more successful job of his individual ta&k of living, then the school has won its highest glory. No dazzling roll of, honour can compare in importance with the unceasing contribution over many . years of ordinary men with something of the school's mark upon their characters, and something of the school's standards and scale of values worked into the fabric of their being. That, I believe, has been the chief function of my old school, and of other noted secondary schools in our Dominion's history. We can be proud in the main of the manhood moulded in the simplicities and austerities of our schools and colleges. The Otago Boys' High was actually a dream of thu early settlers seven years before ths school was opened in 1863. One of the first acts of the Provincial Government in 1856 was to affirm the necessity of a boys' secondary school; a headmaster was appointed and arrived before there was any sign of a building or pupils. In the 'fifties Otago was in the doldrums. The initial colonising impulse had died; life was hard and money, food even, was scarce. The headmaster was diverted to primary work, and secondary education for the small adolescent population was left to enterprising private schools. But the discovery of gold and the immense increase of population and wealth resulting from it gave Otago an impetus that carried it forward for many years. An Early Tragedy In 1862 a staff was appointed in England and a school was built. Tragedy struck the new venture before it was properly under way. The first rector, the Rev. T. H. Campbell, who had been headmaster of the Wolverhampton Grammar School, reached Port Chalmers on July 3, 1863. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell proceeded to Dunedin to arrange accommodation. They returned to Port Chalmers, and with their five children and two servants, embarked in a small steamer, The Pride of the Yarra. The Pride of the Yarra was cut down that night by another steamer, (and fourteen were drowned in the crowded cabin. The rector and all his family and servants made nine of the fated fourteen. - < A month later the school: was opened with an acting-head. With many ups and downs the school negotiated the difficult early years. The magnificent school on its commanding site, was built in the late 'seventies. To me it is the stateliest, most impressive, school building in the Dominion. Famous names in education multiplied down tha years. I can mention only the men 1 knew: Brent, a Httlo man of prodigious energy and a noted mathematician; Wilson, once English master, later rector, a man of impeccable taste in literature, and a very gracious influence on young Colonial barbarians (he was afterwards editor of the New Zealand Times); G. M. Thomson, later M.P. and M.L.C., a great scientist and as kindly and generous a man as New Zealand has known; T. 1). Pearce, than whom 1 have never known a\finer te#£tter or English; Mungo Watson, classical scholar and most humaiMnd beloved of teachers; F. H. Campbell, who over many vears poured a virile cominonsense into generation after generation of bovs, and has left perhaps a deeper impression on the Otago type than a other man in the school s A notable company; mowcontinueth great beyond in «-" ~?> I