WILLIAM BOOTH MEMORIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20799, 19 August 1929, Page 14

WILLIAM BOOTH MEMORIAL

SALVATION ARMY COLLEGE. OPENED BY PRINCE GEORGE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) _ . LONDON, July 12. Prmee George opened the William Bootli Memorial Training College set up by the Salvation Army at Denmark Hill. The college consists of a number of buildings, the principal one, a huge edifice, comprising the administrative offices and board room, an assembly hall to bold 1000 class rooms, a library, and leading moms. In the centre is a tower 190 feet high. Accommodation for the students, who will number COO, 400 women and 200 men, is provided in 12 great. “ houses.” In other buildings arc darkish and hot-air baths, and two hospitals, one for men and one. for women. Three houses have still to be erected. TTr'X? tllin a few lloUrs Hie death of ! dliam Booth, in 1012, Sir Rattan Tata, the Indian merchant prince, cabled suggesting the scheme and offering to contribute a lakh of rupees—approximately £OOOO. The suggestion caught on, and in a little while over £°o(l,000 was collected. The site was secured in 1914, but, the war intervening, the scheme was temporarily abandoned. Of the total cost, including furnishing, of £.‘171,000, £322,87has already been collected, and a further £20.000 lias been promised, leaving a net deficit of about, £28,000. At the opening ceremony General Hlggins said that the new college was one of 40 similar institutions thromdiout the world. n “ We owe. the. erection of this huildin-.-very largely lo the efforts of our hitleader, General Hrannvell Bootli” he added. “The last public art he did "as to lay one of the memorial stones of this building, and 1 wish to pay a tribute lo bis memory and his skill and foresight in carrying through such :i project.’ UNIVERSITY OF HUMANITY. Prmee George referred to the college as the cnlmination of the dearest dreams of a great man’s Ijfc. “He has established in London a university of humanity,” he said, “ a school where men and women can he trained in every phase of useful eh. deuvour _ for the good of mankind. Mav the spirit of the founder, in this. Id's centenary year, so animate the students that they will go out and repent the exploits of that young man of NottiimI ham.” ■’ Prince George later unveiled statics of the founder and his wife.