“COURAGE ”

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11246, 26 June 1922, Page 6

“COURAGE ”

I MR J. P. FIRTH AND MINISTER. REMARKS OBJECTED TO. Taking as the main subject of bis response to tho toast “Our Guest 11 at the College Old Boys’ reception on .Saturday, the word “Courage.” Air J. P. Firth, the late headmaster of the school, criticised the remarks recently made on the same theme by a local Presbyterian minister. Sonic of the old boys present that evening, he said, were returned soldiers who had escaped miraculously from the trenches in France. They might have noticed a report of a lecture delivered recently in Wellington in which the lecturer was said to have quoted from Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” the following words: “The courage of the soldier is found to bo the cheapest and lowest common quality of human nature.” That, declared Mr Firth, came

well from a man who staved at home during the war and saved liis skin! “Name?” inquired Professor Kirk from tho back of the room, “No, sir!” replied Mr Firth with emphasis, but when further pressed by the professor ho stated that the quotation had been used by the Rev. Dr Gibb in the course of a lecture at Victoria College. He was sure the majority of those who stayed at home and saved their skins would not subscribe to such a sentiment. A-s against that sentiment, said Mr Firth, lie had received some days ago from an. old boy in London a report of an address delivered by Dr James Barrie on the occasion of his intallation as rector of St. Andrew’s University. The theme of the doctor’s remarks was courage, which he declared was the only thing worth thinking of to-day either by graduates or white-haired; men ana women. And he had held up as an example of courage Lieutenant- 1 Colonel Bernard Cyril Freyberg; ; The mention of the name of thg; famous V.C., an old boy of Wellington College, brought the gathering to itai feet, and vociferous cheers were given and repeated.