HIGH SCHOOL OLD BOYS DINNER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2320, 18 August 1898, Page 19

HIGH SCHOOL OLD BOYS DINNER.

The annual dinner under tho auspices of the Otago High School Old Boys' Club was held in the Grand Hotel on Saturday night, and was largely attended, about 100 persons being present. Mr A. Wilson (rector of the school) presided, and there were present, as guests, the Mayor and Dr Brown, members of the Board of Governor?, Mr G. L. Denniston. president of the Chamber of Commerce, and the staff of the school. Apologies were forwarded for the absence of Messrs J. R. Sinclair, G. G. Russell, J. M. Galiaway, J. F. M. Eraser, and G. Fenwick, Dr Fulton, Dr Thomson, Messrs Fynmore, and R Matheson. After an excellent dinner, provided by Mr "W. L. Philp, The "toast of "The Queen and Royal Family," proposed by the Chairman, was honoured. . Mr G. L. Donnislon, in proposing li.c School and Mastei-d," paid ho did not envy the man who passed through life without entertaining any warm regard for tho scnool of his boyhood. Though one might not have been distinguished at school, the counsels he listened to and the friendships ho formed should in his after clays have a stimulating effect on him. He (Mr Denniston) had never been a student of the Olago Boys High School himself, but ho had hod early acquaintance with the school, and during long years he had had a pretty close association with it. He remembered that when he returned to Dunedin in 1C67, at the very first house which he visited, he met at dinner the then rector, Mr Simmons. After him was Mr Stuart Hawthorne, a gentlemen whom he knew very we I and whose evening classes he attended to rub up his rusty classics. Mr Nome he knew still earlier, as that gentleman had been his tutor at school in Scotland. Dr Macdonald was a man whose <yifls, graces, and accomplishments many of them must remember— (applause) ; then there was Dr Belcher, whose reign -was &o recent that he need scarcely refer to it— a genthman and a scholar — (applause) ; and ad to Jj-5 puccedsor, he coukl-only say in Mr Wilson's presence that in company with all the community he had the greatest possible respect for his (Mr Wilson s) great literary ability and for his eminently salisiactory character all round.— (Applause.) It they thought for a moment of the past scholars of the school, he did not think that the Boya' High School had any reason to be ashamed of them. From Auckland to the Bluff there were men in distinguished places— judges, magistrates, clergymen, members ot Parliament, men distinguished in every calling in life— who received their education at the school, and Irore for it a very warm affection There was one other matter he might refer to. and that was a object that bad evoked snmo discussion in the papers recently, and had been championed by Mr MacGregox — the proposed establishment of a higher primary school. He had not followed the Irguments on that subject, and was not prepared to speak about it, but he would merely Say that ho was conservative enougn to luink that if the effect would be to destroy the High School he, for one, would be sorry to sec the establishment of a further school and t ho downfall of the secondary schools, including thei beloved High Bchool - (Applause Joined with the toast of "The School Mas £o ' r The Masters." For more years than he cared to remember he had known their veteran friend, Mr Brent-floud applause.tenenTdurhi* the latter' s late trip Home.and present, and of the community generally. who was received with loud applause, expressed his great Bratincataon at seeing that evening such a famous assemWj of "old boys" as there was present. He found on lu7 left one of the old boys who entered in the first year the school was opened, if lie was not he y first enrolled, and he saw in front of lim two boys who were not old boys when he last saw them about eight months ago as they were then still in the school. It was with great pleasure that he found himself amongst them all again He must express his great obligation to Mr Denniston for the very kind way in which he had proposed the toast, and the very kind way in which he had associated his (Mr Wilson's) name with it, and he also thanked them for the very groat heartiness with which they had received the toast. lie assured them that there was nothing so distasteful to him as to enter into what lie might call school polemics of any kind, and really if he felt that his position there entailed any annual justification of the school or any-ox-planation or exposition of its policy, he would prefer not to be in tho chair— (hear, hear) ; — but on the present occasion he must ask th?m to bear with him while he made a few remarks, which might seem to them possibly dull as ditch water, but which he thought he was on that occasion called upon to make. Mr Denniston had referred to a proposal which the Hon. John MacGregor had brought forward here while he (the speaker) was a-\\ ay. When he came back he found the air full of the rumblings of a storm which had taken place just before he had reached these shore?. The papers had been full of the Seventh Standard, and Mr MacGregor had brought up a scheme for a higher primary school. The whole of the Seventh Standard question arose from the decrease in tho numbers attending the Boys' and Girls' High Schools in late years. As regarded the Boys' School, there had boon a considerable decrease this year. He mif-ht F-ay that he had long foreseen that this dporea r o in numbers was inevitable. • Tli« provision by the Board of Education, for pupils who had passed the Sixth Standard, of a course of free secondary education had had an effect on tho High Schools, and would have wherever the Seventh Stand-

f artl, or X Standard, as it was called, should become an established fact of the State school. Pupils eagerly and increasingly seized the opportunity of obtaining a kind of secondary knowledge for nothing, and their numbers had increased by leaps, and pari passu the attendance at the High Schoolg had dropped. To, his mind the connection between cause and effect in the.se two things was so necessary and obvious that it was absurd to assert, an some did, that pupils in the X Standard would not have come to the High Schools if there had been no X Standard. He was quite sure that they would not all have come, but ho was equally sure that many Mould have come, and ho felt certain that llii^, policy of Iho Board of Education in underbidding — of underselling the commodities, the vvarej, of the High Schools— had had a serious effect, and if continued must inevitably have the effect of still further depleting them. As a matter of fact lie had had in his own experience what he considered a perfect proof of this. About eight years ago. when ho was rector of the Girls' High School, tho Normal School received Seventh Standard pupils from various other .schools, but at that time the fiat went out from the Education Board that that was no longer to be allowed, and that winter, after the winter holidays, he enrolled four or five times the usual number of pupils at the Girls' High School.— that was, not finding admittance at the Normal School, they came to the Girls' High School. He considered that that proved the whole matter. He was not f-ure that they expected him, and ho was sure they did not wish him, to enter into an extended consideration of the scheme evolved by Mr MaoGregor, which, it was said, was going (o i.aye the High Schools from this unfair competition by sweeping into a higher primary fchcols all the X Standard pupils. Tho ecoles superieures piimaires of fiance were excellent institutions, but he took leave to doubt whether, with the population and means of our community, the time was lipe for the duplication of educational machinery which the establishment of such a school would involve. The object of a primary higher fchool, they were told, was not to tiench on the ground of secondary schools, and ho had no doubt that Mr MacGregor made the proposal in perfect good faith ; but he could not remember that Mr MacGregor had ever explained what he meant by a secondary school. As he gathered, a secondary school, in Mr MacGregor's mind, was a school of preparation for the university, and it appeared to him that Mr MaoGiegor believed that in such a school aii3 r student who stopped short of the consummation of going to the university had wasted his time, If that was not Mr MacGregor's view, the speaker owed him an apology, for he considered it a very absurd view, for he might as well contend that if a student had not reached the Sixth Standard he might as well have not reached the Fourth Standard. — {Hear, hear ) The Fourth Standard was not a great height of attainment, but at any rate it was four stages belter than nothing. — (Laughter and applause.) If Mr MacGregor considered that a secondary school was a mere school of preparation for the university he could not agree with him. It seemed to him that a secondary school in this colony was a school where a pupil might enlarge the education he received at the primary uehool- that it was for this that the High Schools had their existence, — and if a higher primary school was created at all it would be for this purpose. — (Applause.) Mr MacGregor's proposed school, though he might call it a primary school, was virtually a secondary school, and would teach nearly the same subjects as the High School. If the community wished to have two secondary schools, fide by side, under different con ditions— a high school preparing pupils foi the university and charging fees, and a higher primary school providing a modification of the same course of instruction for another class of pupils and charging no tees — he said, ii the community chose to have this and pay for it, he had no more to say, but the community should not be unreasonable enough to say, " Why are your numbers falling at the High Schools ?" and " Why are boys not giving you 10 guineas a year for a commodity which at the next school they can get for nothing ?" In all this he had not said a word in praise or dispraise of higher primary schools or the Seventh Standard or High Schools, and he was not speaking of the intrinsic merits of the proposal or of the existing state of things ; — he was merely pointing out that if they took away three from six they could not expect to have half-a-dozen.— (Laughter and applause.) There was never a question of that kind raised in the community but there arose a cloud of hornets to put their stings into the school. It never could be argued on its merits, and consequently they found charges of all kinds brought lip. These charges it was useless to refute ; — they might refute thorn to-day and some ignoramus would come up to-morrow and mako them over again. One of these was the stock charge that they classified boy? in the High School by their attainments in Latin and not by their attainments in primary subjects. That was absolutely false, and it was from malice or ignorance, or both com bined, that such a thing was said. One gentleman found that the school was not sufficiently commercial. He thought that must be the gentleman who came to him a short time ago with the modest proposal that he should make German compulsory throughout the school — (laughter) — assuring him that he (Mr Wilson) need only make his wishes known to the Board of Governors to have them in stanlly carried into effect. — (Laughter.) He need not tell them that he was very much im pressed by this disinterestedness for the German language, and flattered by the tribute to his personal influence — (laughter), — and he must see what he can do. to meet the views of that reasonable, well-informed, and disin terested gentleman. — (Loud laughter.) Really these things did not touch him. He regarded such critics as sent by a benign Providence to teach them, by then collective wisdom, what the ideal was that they should set before them. — (Laughter.) Of high schools a great deal was expected, and nothing could be effected unless they sot out with a high ideal. A high school must have general aims, strivirg after a general culture that would meet the necessities of the whole. It must also have particular aims, and allow pupils to reflect a general culture from some particular detail that concerned their bread and butter. The first concern must be an appreciative knowledge of literature, but they must see that the mathematical and scientific side preponderated. In a commercial community the chief consideration must be commerce, and they must not neglect to keep up such things as arithmetic and spelling and writing, and give these things a* much time as if there was nothing else in the time-table. — (laughter),—but they must take care not to touch anything that was taught in the primary schools, for that would be overlapping— (Laughter.) They must not fail to send up pupils for the exacting competitions and examinations, but there must be no pressure — every pupil must go his own pace. — (Laughter.) They ought to make two or three languages compulsory* allowing any pupil tq

tako any or all or none, as might be dictated by his needs — (laughter) — or by thpt indisposition to hard work that was natural to growing youth. — (Laughter.) They would receive from time to time accessions of new pupils, and after six months, if they were worthy of the school, these would turn out saints. — (Laughter.) Some of them would have bad manners, but by tho more infection of the consummate graces of the staff they must improvo into Chesterfields. — (Laughter.) In short, if a boy brought a sow's ear he would have good reason to complain unless in a reasonable time they returned him a silk purse. — (Laughter.) That was his_ ideal of a secondary school. How far the High School came short of that no one know more than he did; but he was still striving, and he asked thorn to just give him tune. Though the High School came so far short of that ideal, however, ho could not think so meanly of a school for which the old pupils displayed such a genuine and hearty sympathy as was displayed for the Otago High School. — (Applause.) He did not say that because of that lemarkable assembly that night or because of the display of enthusiasm they gave every year when they met to testify their loyalty to the school and to renew and strengthen old associations. He never went beyond the frontier of Olago but he received most convincing proofs of the attachment of old boys to the school. — (Applause.) He never got such a cordial greeting from anybody as from old boys, wherever he went. — (Applause.) It was cordial to painfulness sometimes, when they squeezed a body's hand to a jelly and almost dislocated one's shoulder.— (Laughter.) It was only the other day that he met an old boy in Sivanston street, Melbourne, and he assured them positively that after leaving him his fingers tingled till he was at the foot of Jlourke street. — (Laughter.) Did they say that that was cordiality shown to him? Not a bit of it. It was shown to the school, and if that old boy had met an old blackboard from the school walking clown Swanston street the speaker was sure lie would have embraced it. — (Laughter.) He had been told that he was to speak for only 10 minutes, and he thought ho had exceeded that, but he reminded them that he had saved eight minutes on the toast of "The Queen." — (Laughter and loud applause.)

Mr T. D. Pearce also acknowledged the toast, and in doing so said that harmony always characterised the relations of the staff of the High School. There were few schools in the colony or outside of it which had a more conscientious and painstaking set of master 1 ;. — (Applause.)

Mr A. J. Park, in proposing " Tne Board of Governors," expressed his pleasure that two of his old schoolfellows were members of that board. All recognised the difficulties the Board of Governors had to contend with — financial difficulties and a falling attendance at the school— and he noticed that the standard of admittance had risen materially since 1880, the difference being quite sufficient in his mind to account for a iargo loss of numbers at ihe school. He believed that Standard X in the primary schools would not be so well attended if it did not meet a felt want in the community, in the first place, of those who were not fit to go out to work or had no work to do if they were fit, and in the second place because it was a cheap method of being coached for the matriculation examination at the university. On the other hand, it would bo interesting to know how many pupils from that standard went to the university. He thought it would be found that that standard was in the right place, but taught the wrong subjects. He suggested that, as was recommended in 1880 by a special commission that reported as to the best means of increasing the attendances at the High Schools, the course in the State schools should stop at the Third Standard, after which special subjects, commercial and technical, should be taught. In this community he thought they would never prop up the High School until it was made free. The only way to keep people honest and right was to have education and compel theise to be educated, and he thought the one course to follow was to agitate until the High School was made free. Dr Brown, in responding to the toast, said the business of the Board of Governors was of a character that consisted largely of considering an application by Angus Macdonakl for a reduction of the rent of such and such section in such and such a block, Mokoreta— (laughter),— or an application by Patrick O'Dougherty, lessee of section so-and-so m the village of Arden, Middlemarch, for a revision of the terms of his lease.- (Laughter.) Notwithstanding the evil times upon which the board had fallen— evil times for which, without casting any reflection on them, their predecessors were to some extent responsible, because in building that magnificent High School, they incurred an expenditure that had hung upon the necks of the governors like a millstone to this clay— the Board of Governors wore not without a certain amount of confidence in the continuity of the institution.— (Applause.) At an illustration he mentioned that the board, like other public bodies, had had to consider the serious question of converting its loansdaughter)—and a loan was sanctioned by Parliament, and before it received consideration from tho Board of Governors it was over - subscribed, and the fact that it was very largely subsubscribed by members of the Board of Governors themselves showed that they had confidence in the permanency of the institution.— (Applause.) He declined to follow Mi Park on to the thin ice he wanted him to tread on, of free education at the High School.— (Laughter.) He was not "taking any."— (Laughter.) He would like to refer for one moment to the subject which had been dealt with so ably by Mr Wilson— the question of the High School as against the proposed primary higher school of Mr MacGregor. When that proposal was made at tho Educational Institute tho speaker ventured to criticise it and to point out whet"! it was likely to do damage to the fliph Hchool and he also ventured to utter a lew feeble remarks in defence of the High Sclu >\. One point ho emphasised was that the only tost they had by which to judge the quality of the work done at the High School was the succe?? of the High School pupils in the university scholarship examinations, and ho very emphatically asserted that judged by that test the Olago Boys' High School stood out preeminently among the high schools in the colony— (applause),— and need not be in the degree ashamed of its position. One great objection to Mr MacGrogor's scheme, which seemed to him the strongest objection _ they could get, was that, no matter how singleminded Mr MacGregor might be— and the speaker believed he was single-minded in his desire to advance the higher education of the colony,— if ho carried his proposal for the establishment of a primary higher school to day he could not bind the Education Board next year to continue in his lines. When next year came there might be new members who might say, " Why not teach French, German, and Latin ?" and in three years' time the whole personnel of the Board of Education might be changed and the school, established originally with no intention of clashing ■with tho High SohooL mi«ht in threa years'

time be« run as a rival high school without fees against the school of which they wore now all so proud. — (Applause.)

Tho Chairman, apropos of what Dr Brown had said, observed that not merely had the High School been so successful in the university scholarship examinations, but its success at the university examinations had been glaringly obvious. He was afraid to say what proportion of High School pupils wore among the most successful students when tho lists came out. — (Applause).

The Mayor (Mr E. B. Cargill) was also called upon to respond to tho toast. He said that ho had only lately come on to the Board of Governors by virtue of his official position, but he had had something to do with tho formation of the High School, and he was also one of the Board of Governors at its first initiation — long before any of the present board had had anything to do with it. — (Applause,) In tho&e old days, when they were laying" tho foundations of the High School and University, the great idea that prevailed was that, if they lived long enough, they should see the day when they would havo amongst them a large number of men who had come out into the world with all the advantages that these institutions gave them. Ho was happy to havo lived long enough to sco that in great part fulfilled. It was groat satisfaction to see such a gathering as that was of young men and middle-aged men, many of whom were taking a large share in all the responsibilities of out colonial life, and who were such oxcelient representatives of the Otago Boys' High School, and to know that there were many others scattered through the colonies — nay, gone abroad throughout the world — who carried with them a large degreo of crec'it from the place of their education. — (Applause.) The speaker alluded to tho valuo of such a gathering from its social character, and then said he looked forward to tho clay when all our educational institutions would be taken in hand by men who had got a local education, and who would see to it that all these institutions were made everything they ought to be. In his concluding remarks he eloquently and earnestly impressed upon the old pupils present that they should set before them a high ideal aa to what should constitute a good old boy of the High School. Mr T. K. Sidey proposed " Absent Old Boys." He gave some amusing reminiscences of his own days at the High School, and rcfered in graceful terms to the recent deaths of two distinguished old boys in Dr JefFcoafc and Mr C. M. Mouat. Ho pointed out that all who had passed through tho school were comprised in the toast, compared with whom the present meeting was a mere handful. Dr Burt briony acknowledged the sentiment.

The toast of "Athletics" was proposed in happy terms by Mr C. W. llattray, and responded to by Mr C. H. Broad. During the evening vocal solos were sung by Messrs J. Mollison, R. Donniston. J. N. Brown, A. H. Fisher, E. R. Bowler, P. Braithwaite, and G. M. Campbell, Mr Gv Robertson acting as accompanist, and Mr L. Morris contributing a recitation.