" OOR WULLIE."

Otago Witness, Issue 2210, 9 July 1896, Page 40

" OOR WULLIE."

By Chemicus.

A peremojQy of some interest was enacted at the chemistry lecture theatre, Otago University, on Wednesday evening, when Mr Wm. Goodfet, on the occasion of his marriage, was presented by the students with a sum of money. " Wollie,"aßhe is familiarly known throughout the colony, who was received with stroDg demonstrations of approval, in returning thanks gave his audience the story of his life, as he expressed it, in two acts. First, some 20 odd years ago, he had commenced* life as a milk boy at Anderson's Bay ; second, soon afterwards he h»d roet Professor Black, and had been taken into, his service, where he had remained ever sinpe.

Even to a stranger present that evening it J would not be difficult to arrive at some reasons | for Wullie's great popularity amongst the students. A certain good-natured, outspoken frankness and absence of all "Bide"— a trait' vrhioh some with equal claims to " long , descent" would do well to emulate— strike you j favourably at the outset. When you know him-! better jou find him simple and unostentatious. > Though easy to draw ont on the subject of his experiences, it is with no braggart air that he tells them, bub merely to amuse and instcuctyon. Heiea fluent, forcible, and sensible speaker when lecturing on his favourite "Ohemiabry, With Experiments." He exercises, with perfect good humour! cono pitta control over an audience of several hundred boisterous students, and although bis diotlon might not possibly be so much appreciated in the House of Lords as at the Otsgo University, he conveys his meaning with tuoh clearness ag many a more cultured man might desire to attain. "Wullie" has been brought np in a good school. His chief, the professor, is one of the hardett - working, kindtsb - hearted, most sagacious men in the world — united qualities which have made him known and respected all ovsr the colony, when, as a rule, a professor outside the walls of his 'varsity is a mere privileged nonentity. It is the fit st two of these qualities which the learned doctor has inculcated in " Wullie " to any extent, although he is not without a share of worldly shrewdness, derived no doubt from the same source, always ready to lend a helping hand to a perplexed student or deliver a lecture on bis woll-known subject in aid of nny institution under the sun. Long may he be spared to Otago University. To loss him would be indeed to lose one of its most cherished features. Generations of students— medicals, miners, sohcol teachers — j have come and gone forth to the bittle of life, each new session bringing a new batch of strango faces to vthe old professor and the "Oor ■Wullie," who, Rooking np through the long I vista which\ separates the professor's thoughts from bis own, as actions narrow in the dim distance into motives too obscure to bear interpretation, abandons his vain musings to attend j the master he hts known so long and served so | faithfully. Verily True hearts are more than coronets, . And simple faith than Norman blood.