SCHOOLBOY SETTLERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20644, 16 February 1929, Page 8

SCHOOLBOY SETTLERS.

TRAINING AT WAITAKI. FAREWELL IN LONDON. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, January 4. The baker’s dozen of public school boys who are going to Waitaki School—there are 13, though there are officially only 12—were quite overshadowed this .morning at Waterloo by the 45 touring schoolboys. These latter assembled at 8 o’clock, and were addressed by Dr M. J. Rendall and Sir James Parr, The Waitaki boys, however, had the honour yesterday afternoon of being entertained by members of the Waitaki Old Boys’ Association of Great Britain, at the Public Schools’ Club, Curzon street. Lord Strathspey (president of the association) presided, and there were present as guests of the association the High Commissioner (Sir James Parr) and Mr W. A. Bulkeley Evans (secretary of the Headmasters’ Conference and of the Public Schools’ Employment Bureau, which has selected the boys for the experiment). The boys present, many of whom were accompanied by relatives, were:—G. H. B. Irwin (St. Edmund’s School, Canterbury), J. Pavey (Felsted), G. J. Hosier. (Elizabeth College, Guernsey), V. R. Waldron and G. B. Waldron (Clifton College), E. H. T. Williams (Llandovery College), H. H. Edginton, C. R. Spooner, and J. L. Ley (Ipswich). Members of the association present were Mr Robert Milligan, Dr R. R. MTntosh, Dr D. R. Jennings, Dr H. T. Jennings, Mr R, F. de Vries, Mr A. J. Learmonth, and Dr A. J. Harrop. Lord Strathspey read the following cablegram from Mr Milner (headmaster of Waitaki) : “ Very grateful to you old boys for giving a farewell English contingent. Please assure them of warm welcome at port of arrival and fraternal -reception by school.” Lord Strathspey assured the boys that they were not going into an enemy country but into a country of friends. They must treat Mr Milner not as a headmaster hut as almost a father and certainly as a friend. “ You must play the game in New Zealand,” he added, “ and if you do you have nothing whatever to fear. You will have plenty of opportunity for sport, but you must remember that your primary duty is to work—and, above all, to learn. You will find New Zealanders a fine, friendly, and free people, and I believe and trust that you will grow up with them happy and prosperous.” Lord Strathspey announced that Sir James Parr- had consented to become an associate member of the association. ;

A NEW EXPERIMENT. Sir James Parr said: “I must thank the association for the ■ invitation to be present not only officially, but because I know the school intimately. During my term as Minister of Education I had frequent opportunities of seeing its work for myself. I may mention also that I sent my own son the 800 miles or so from Auckland to Waitaki. The parents of the boys who are going out may rest assured that they are ‘not making any mistake. In my opinion the success of a school depends at least 90 per cent, on the personality of the headmaster, and in Mr Milner, Waitaki has not only a scholar but a man with a remarkable and distinctive aptitude for dealing with boys. ' .. “ You boys should feel highly honoured, for you are beginning a new experiment—and I think a very promising one. You will reside at Waitaki and take a course mainly destined to equip you for farm work. Mr Milner guarantees to place you with a reliable farmer—and he is in a unique position to place boys to the best advantage. I. should like to see the movement spread to other schools. How will the experiment turn out? It depends on the boys who go out. If you work hard in New Zealand and don’t think of buying land till you have been there at least live years—three years on a farm—you can hardly fail to succeed. You are starting off on the great adventure in your lives, and I am sure you will never regret it.”— (Applause.) >. Mr Bulkeley Evans thanked the association for arranging the gathering. The boys going out, he said, had a very special chance of getting on, and it was up to them to do even better than the other public school boys who had gone out direct to farms. He hoped that the boys would do their best in the future to welcome other boys to New Zealand.

The gathering, wdiich was quite informal, enabled the parents and boys to gain from the old boys a closer knowledge of the school, and the opportunity of doing so was greatly appreciated.