Fitting Memorial To Sir Truby King

Southland Times, Issue 23817, 15 May 1939, Page 6

Fitting Memorial To Sir Truby King

FEW New Zealanders have deserved the grateful recognition of their country to a greater extent than Sir Truby King, whose name has become synonymous with enlightened motherhood, the lowest infant mortality in the world, and a beneficent gift of health to the youngest generation. In making an appeal today for contributions to a memorial fund, the Prime Minister should be sure of attentive listeners and a wholehearted response. A sum of £5OOO is required to carry out the intentions of the Plunket Society in setting up a fitting memorial to its founder. As stated elsewhere in The Southland Times this morning, £2OOO will be set aside as an endowment fund, the income from which will be used to help with the upkeep and maintenance of Truby King House. The home of a notable man is frequently allowed to become a kind of show place, visited by admirers and the curious. But Truby King House has become something much more important than the background of a work that is now at an end. Bequeathed by its former owner to the society which bears his name, it is the centre of mothercraft work which has for its unchanging purpose the education in motherhood and the preservation of high standards of health for infants. A larger sum, £2500 or

more, is to be invested for the purpose of financing a postgraduate course for Plunket and Karitane nurses. Three hundred pounds is to be spent on a bronze plaque “or other monument” to be erected above Sir Truby King’s burial ground, and £lOO is to be set aside for a portrait. It will be seen that the greater part of the required amount is to be devoted to methods of carrying on the work of the founder of the Plunket Society. There could be no better memorial than this: the recognition of the permanent value of a life’s work and at the same time a practical effort to provide for its continuance in the spirit of humanitarian service.