POLICY OF PRINCIPAL

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1935, Page 9

POLICY OF PRINCIPAL

PLAN OF SCHOOL’S DEVELOPMENT. CAREER OF MISS. D. N. ALLAN. i Dynamic energy and boundless enthusiasm made Miss D. N. Allan, M.A., the present principal, the ideal leader for the school of 1925. It had reached a stage of development when hesitation would have put it on the road to mediocrity; there was no hesitation, or indecision in Miss Allan’s, policy. A practical visionary in the best sense, she .saw what the school might be and, gratefully accepting the help of- the . Old Girls’ Association, set herself to bring, realisation. Born at Dunedin in 1888 Miss Allan ramp of a’ line of teachers. Her grandmother, Mrs.'M. G.-Burn, iri 1871 opened the Otago Girls’ High School/'the first secondary, school' for girls established in the southern hemisphere, After running the school until she was 60 yeaijs of age she retired but after one or two years took up teaching again, , opening the Waitaki school'and remaining there for five years. .■ ■/. Miss Allan was . educated at Otago High School, where 7 she. : gained. a board .-scholarship. She was prominent on the hockey field, and when she left to take honours in English and French at the university she won a Blue and captained the university team. She represented Otago for debating and worked on various committees. On completing her degree she. entered training college and afterwards did pupil teaching for tyro years. She gained an excellent ground work in her profession when she joined the Rangiora High School staff under the charge of Mr. T. R. Cresswell, later appointed inspector. Her-next move was to Wellington Girls’ College, a large and excellent school with a roll (number of 800 and-a staff of 32. She gamed experience in organisation and vocational work when she became staff-mistress at Christchurch Technical College, which was attended by 1000 day and 2000 night pupils. At the same time Miss Allan studied under Professor Shelley of Canterbury College for a Diploma of ' Education. She finally left Christchurch to take up a position as staff mistress and head of the boarding house at Hamilton High School. In 1925 she was appointed principal at New Plymouth. Miss Allan demands of her pupils and her staff the maximum of efficiency and the firm discipline has had an invaluable effect in stiffening the school morale .and hardening the purpose of the old girls. With an extraordinary capacity for . hard work herself, she possesses, too, the gift of organising the work of others. No detail is too small, no scheme tgo big for her attention; she never neglects the immediate for the ultimate need and is quickly responsive to changing demands. To her the school owes splendid years that laid for it the foundation of an increasingly important destiny. . '