The Daily News THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 1932. A SPLENDID RECORD.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 March 1932, Page 4

The Daily News THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 1932. A SPLENDID RECORD.

The celebration during the next few days of the golden jubilee of the New Plymouth Boys’ High School is an event whose importance and significance will be reap ised far beyond the boundaries of Taranaki. A great school, and the Boys’ High School is one of the great schools of this country, is far more than a local institution. Not only does its greatness attract pupils from distant places, but because the young men whom it turns out are well grounded in something even better than book learning; because their school has been teaching them to develop the qualities that make the good citizen, a wide field is open to them and in such a country as New Zealand they spread in every direction. That the men who are beginning to gather in New Plymouth for the purpose of acknowledging with pride their association with the school are coming from all parts of the Dominion is in itself a sufficient testimony to the fact that the jubilee is worthy of celebration. And their pres* ence is an indication that there has been for fifty years a vital force in the school; that the spirit of the school has influenced and still influences the lives of the thousands of men whom it has helped' to establish themselves as useful members of the community. It is in the continuity of its influence that a scholastic institution answers the supreme test of its worth, and a jubilee affords the opportunity to apply the test and weigh the result. To do so it is necessary to survey briefly the period of fifty years encompassed by the school’s activities. The foundations of the New Plymouth Boys’ High School were laid in the day of small things, and its progress for many years was slow. This was natural. Half a century ago New Plymouth and the country of which it is the centre were only beginning to recovei* from the effects of serious troubles. Development had been arrested for a considerable period when townsfolk and settlers had had to fight the battles of the young colony against the natives, and the process of restoration was slow. In Central and South Taranaki settlement was only in its infancy, and for the most part the province was peopled by families who had to rely upon their own hard work for the fortunes they were ambitious enough to seek. Other provinces had greater resources at their command than Taranaki, but certainly no keener desire for the development of educational amenities. Having obtained its secondary school, for both girls and boys, the district began the laborious task of building it up. Thanks to the untiring and well directed labours of the first headmaster, Mr. Pridham, the school made headway, and when he retired after 30 years’ service the roll number had reached what was in those days the satisfactory total of 70. The population of the borough of New Plymouth was then barely 6000, and in the whole of Taranaki about 50,000 persons were counted. Conditions were such that the school was rather an urban than a provincial one. But the hour of development was at hand, and with the hour came the man. With the appointment of Mr. W. H. Moyes to the headmastership the school achieved the dignity of separation, a place of their own being found for the girl pupils, and the New Plymouth Boys’ High School began to realise the promise which had always been envisaged by these most closely associated with it. The history of the past twenty years will be fairly familiar to most of those who take part in the jubilee festivities. The statistical records

bear splendid, testimony to the naure of the school’s achievements. In scholarship its best pupils have taken the highest rank. The school is famed not merely for the excellence of its teaching methods but also for the breadth of its curriculum; its aim has ever been to satisfy every legitimate requirement of the large community it serves. On the playing fields the boys of the New Plymouth High School have proved their ability to compete with any of their contemporaries in New Zealand, and that because their skill has been equalled by their sportsmanship. There could be no better tribute to the school than the fact that it has taught its pupils to “play the game,” and it could have done no greater service to Taranaki. Though success has spread its influence far and wide, its first duty is to Taranaki, and it has performed that duty faithfully and efficiently. There is no part of the province that has not bene* filed by the spirit of the High School. The towns are the better for the influence of the ex-pupils who have carried the traditions of the school into their business lives and its inspiration into their public service. The farms are the better because ex-pupils have tried to elevate the standard of farm life to that with which their school has made them familiar. The whole community is the better because the school has given it young men who understand team work and have been taught the value of unselfish service. Herein is the real measure of the school’s success. Taranaki may well take the opportunity afforded by the jubilee to congratulate the school on its fine record of achievement and to express the deepest thankfulness for its beneficent influence in the public and private life of the province.