AFTER FIFTY YEARS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23883, 10 August 1939, Page 10

AFTER FIFTY YEARS

As the ages of most movements or institutions in New Zealand are measured, half-a-century represents a long period indeed. For ours, in an historical sense, is a very young country, only now on the verge of completing the first hundred years of its orderly development. It demands vision and some imagination on the part of the youth of to-day to see the work of the pioneers in proper perspective and to appreciate to the full the measure of their achievements in the interests of posterity. "Let us now praise famous men," it has been enjoined upon us, " for their work continueth ... greater than their knowing." The words have rung, and will continue to ring, in the ears of schoolboys, to evoke memories of the past and still to inspire, it may be hoped, those " long, long thoughts " which are supposed to be a product of the mind of youth. The present generation of scholars at the King Edward Technical College, as has> just been shown, are well familiar with them, for this week they are praising the famous men who fathered the institution that now houses and teaches them and who nurtured it through its early years of difficulty and discouragement. The celebrations in connection with the jubilee occasion of the Technical College are of much more than ordinary interest to the people of Dunedin. For the movement to establish technical classes in New Zealand, like another though dissimilar movement that was destined to impress its virtues throughout a much wider field, had its origins in this centre. From the obscure beginnings of fifty years ago the college has grown and has spread its beneficent influence until to-day it stands as a monument to the vision, tremendous energy and integrity of thought and purpose of those who were its founders. We have ourselves recently reviewed at some length the chequered history of this now-flourishing educational centre. We have endeavoured to show how its originators saw a need that had to be met, for a type of instruction more liberal—if the term be adequate—than that then available under the ffigis of the State. And we have sought to place most emphasis where it was due—on the self-sacrificing and far-seeing efforts of men like Mr G. M. Thomson, who not only saw the need for change in the educational approach, but also had the will and the capacities to bring their ideas to fruition. Throughout this week the tale of past endeavours will be retold in many of its most fascinating aspects, and It will be no fault of those who are playing the major parts in these pleasant celebrations if the people of Dunedin as a whole a-c not made more deeply conscious of the notable record and peculiar merits of the institution that has grown, in their midst, through a somewhat parlous adolescence into the sturdy adult proportions that it now presents. " Our jubilee differs from most," the chairman of the Board of Managers of the college has said, " in that we are not now simply recording a school's opening and continuing to exist for fifty yeycs." Such a conception of the occasion's significance would be a melancholy one indeed. When obeisance is made to the past it is because the past only has been written. But it is more important to think of the quality of traditions that have been born, and more intriguing to conjure with a future in which those traditions will have become a deeper, more stimulating and even more integral part of the institution to which they are attached. Those responsible for the future progress of King Edward Technical College may do that in a mood of the highest expectancy, because of the inherent stability of the edifice which they have inherited, and which it will be their duty to enlarge. The many, thousands of those who have passed through the college, in the brave days of struggle or in the more tranquil period of after-arrival, will look upon this week's celebrations as in the nature of a tribute earned and due, and no less respectful and appreciative should be the attitude of the general body of the citizens of Dunedin.