MEMORIAL TABLET UNVEILED

Otago Witness, Issue 4057, 15 December 1931, Page 28

MEMORIAL TABLET UNVEILED

LATE MR ALEXANDER WILSON

TRIBUTE FROM OLD PUPILS. At the closing function of the Boys' High School on Friday afternoon a memorial tablet to the late Mr Alexander Wilson, the gift of old boys of the school, was unveiled by Professor T. D. Adams. Professor Adams said that Mr Morrell was that-day completing his twenty-fifth year as rector of the school—a record m which he merited hearty congratulation. By the same token it was just exactly a quarter of a century ago since Mr Alexander Wilson had stood oir the dais for the last time as rector of the school. Many had regretted what seemed the premature retirement of one who had been an impressive figure to many school generations. Mr Wilson’s own feelings on that day were revealed in a letter in which he said: “ The day in the year which as rector I detested was that day of pomp and ceremony, partly because I thought that any system of prize-giving, however carefully carried out, was essentially unjust, leaving much praiseworthy effort unpraised and unrewarded, and, if there is any human vice that I resent when practised against myself or others, and hate most when practised by myself, it is injustice, so that prize-giving always made me more or less bad-tempered and wretched —but partly also, no doubt, because the limelight and the fuss told on my nerves. Anyhow, when the burden of office fell off my shoulders, like Christian’s burden of sin, the only exhilarating thought was, ‘ Thank God ! No more prize functions!’"’ To the surprise of everyone he immediately undertook the editorship of the Wellington morning paper, the New Zealand Times, to which, during his year of office, he gave a notable quality. “If I had begun journalism earlier,” he says in another letter, “ I can imagine that no work turned out by human hands would have given me more pleasure than a well-turned-out newspaper. But a man of 57 years must have found a newspaper editor’s life an intolerably violent reversal of habits after what he himself called the Arcadian felicity of a High School rector’s existence.” Within three weeks of undertaking the work he had written : “ I can see that solid book-reading is not for a busy editor; he must do like the camel in the desert —live on his own hump.” , . Early in 1908 he had returned to his native district in Scotland, where he had spent the first 20 years of his life, and where there were still a few people who recognised the long-expatriated wanderer. He had reported a dialogue with a woman who was gathering sticks by a stream: — Me: Will you tell me the name of this stream, if you please? She:_Och. sir, they'll be calling this the Black Strype. Me: Surely that’s not its name; is it not called the Craig-an-Dhu? She (looking at me a little surprised) : Och, will you be speaking the Gaelic? Maybe you will be coming back to vecsit the place. (Then, after taking a good look.) Are you a Wilson?

“ Of course I had to own to the soft impeachment, when the poor woman, whom I did not in the least remember, wa3

moved almost to weeping, possibly at the prosaic person I had grown into. ... I find a few of my old school-fellows still extant, and I often go and have a yarn with the widow' of the schoolmaster who first taught me Latin. A Tartar he was, and I think both she and I feel more at our ease for his absence. Requiescat.” It was on his native heath at Inverness that Mr Wilson had died, within a week, of his eightieth birthday. Those who knew his love of flowers would appreciate the feeling that prompted his housekeeper and his nurse to pick every bloom there was in his garden, so that the room in. which his mortal remains lay was filled with the flowers whose beauty had throughout his life brought him such deep satisfaction. Botanising had always been, a passion w’ith him and he was rather at a loss to understand how anyone could prefer such a pastime as golf. “ A friend of mine did try,” be once wrote, “to initiate and teach me on one occasion, some years ago—and that on the best links north of St. Andrew’s. We set out with a kit containing a variety of apparatus the several names of which I have long forgotten, if I ever knew them, but which impressed me etymologically as being most of them diminutives. Mine was the first drive, and, though I say it who perhaps in modesty shouldn’t, it was quite a respectable drive, straight and vigorous, though unfortunately it landed my ball in a bunker. While my expert friend was driving from the tee, which took some time, because of his finicking preparations for a sensational stroke, I had followed my ball, as I thought w’as the right thing to do. When the expert came up he found me oblivious of my ball and busy botanising round the rim of the bunker. Whereupon he collected all his mashies and things of that kind, thinking that after such a spectacle it was tune to go home, which we did. So that is the total of mv personal experience of golf—one drived but, as I still maintain, a good ° n Such incidents revealed something of the man. something that could hardly be even suggested in a short epitaph. Xne tablet that was to be unveiled spoke or Mr Wilson as teacher, scholar, and man of letters. There was many a pupil of his who acknowledged with gratitude that it was Mr Wilson’s teaching that had sown the seeds of an appreciation of literature which had become a possession for ever. There was no time to speak ot bis learning, which impressed equally by its catholicity and its exactness, nor of the distinctive charm of his own literary output. The truth of the old Latin poet s claim that a faithful study of the liberal arts refines the character was manifest in that courtesy, propriety, and Polish of word and action which Mr M ilson s friends would always associate with him. He had never to enforce discipline; discipline came naturally from his fine native dmnitv and the high quality of his moral and intellectual character. As one old pupil had written, he was as fine a gentleman as ever stood before a class of boys; and now that he was gone his former pupils were proud to honour his memory. Professor Adams then unveiled the

tablet and handed it over to the rector from the Old Boys’ Society, with Hie reoucst that it be erected in the school hall to mark the affectionate remembrance m which Mr Wilson was held by old boys, and especially his old pupils. There was also a considerable sum that was to be used to found in perpetuity an annual Wilson Memorial Prize. The tablet reads: —

In Memory of

Alexander Wilson. Born 1849; Died 1929. English Master, 1875—1883. Rector of the School, 1896—1906. Teacher —Scholar —Man of Letters. A Tribute of Respect and Affection from Old Boys. In accepting the memorial, the rector said that he need hardly say with what gratitude the school accepted the tablet. It was not for him to enlarge on Mr V\ 11son’s fine character. The abiding attachment of his old pupils was sufficient testimony to his sterling qualities as a man and a teacher.