“THE PARTING OF THE WAY”

Taranaki Daily News, 16 December 1926, Page 9

“THE PARTING OF THE WAY”

FAREWELL TO ALMA MATER. THE DAY WHEN GIRLS LEAVE Inspiring encouragement to the girls of the New Plymouth High School, who yesterday answered their last roll call and to-day leave the rooms and playing fields of their alma mater for the wider fields of life, was given them by their headmistress (Miss D.' N. Allan) subsequent to the reading of her annual report at the school breaking-up ceremony last night. “This night marks the parting of the way for a good many of you,” said Miss Allan. “Some of you have been coming to school day after day for a long period of years, and now the bell will still be rung in the morning at ten minutes to nine, but not for you. When you go, wherever you go, take the spirit of your school with you; the things that can be seen and touched and handled, the material things, are nothing; they will pass, but the spirit which animated them will remain. Education is not what you have learnt off by heart, it is what is left when you have forgotten all that you learnt out of the text books. ‘lForget, if you will, your book knowledge, but there are some things that you are to remember. Remember of what stock you come. I would have you fearlessly proud that you are colonials, that your fathers or grandfathers or great-grandfathers were not of those who submit tamely to destiny. They set out, driven by lust of adventure, by a desire for a fuller, wider life, by a determination that you, their children, should never know, as they knew, the passionate craving for freedom from the restricted opportunity and the dingy squalor of an old land, but should know instead freedom under the wide sky in open spaces, where you might ‘drink of the wine outpoured.’ in the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord.’ You have a great heritage. Let the spirit that fired your pioneer forbears dominate you. It will not be yours to endure hardship or perilous seas or unknown lands, not yours to labour and suffer as did the early colonists, but the same spirit that urged them forth is needed to-day to mould this plastic young country into a vigorous nation, healthy in mind and body, beautiful in soul. “Cato, fighting for the Rome he loves, exclaims: ‘There are two Romes Metellus; one built of brick by hodsmen. But the Rqme I serve glimmers in the uplifted heart. It is a comet for the calm gods, that Rome. Let me not shame that city. Advance the eagles. In the service of that dream city gleaming in your uplifted heart, advance your eagles, shirking no experience and no labour that life may bring to you. Put away the things that are little and mean. Carry proudly the burden that life may lay upon you, knowing that among the great virtues, courage ranks high. To bring your courage to completion, add to it the generous chivalry that allows no want, no need in those weaker than yourself to pass unnoticed and unsuccoured.”