BOYS’ HIGH SCHOOL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19783, 26 April 1934, Page 10

BOYS’ HIGH SCHOOL

ADDRESS BY REV. A. J. H. DOW The annual service at the Timaru Boys’ High School was presided over by Mr A. J. Allport, president of the Old Boys’ Association. There were present members of the Board of Governors, the Rector (Mr W. Thomas), the Rev. A. J. H. Dow, the Rev. Clyde Carr, M.P., Mr W. G. Tweedy, representing the R.S.A., members of the staff, pupils of the Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools and Craighead Diocesan School, and a large gathering of old boys and parents. Mr Allport said that on Anzac Day the School reverently remembered its 53 old boys who made the supreme sacrifice. As a lasting tribute to their memory there stood in the school grounds the dignified Memorial Library, whose walls were graced with the Roll of Honour. That hallowed sanctuary was now the trust of those boys who followed after. While honouring the dead, the school also remembered with pride and gratitude the part played by all the old boys who served in the Great War, those who returned maimed and suffering from strain and stress, and, last but not least, the bereaved. The boys and girls who w r ere attending school now did not remember the war, they knew of it as history only. It was to be hoped that they would never know war in its cruel reality.

The address was given by Mr Dow who, after paying tribute to the gallantry of those who fell in the war, said that Anzac Day must be more than a day of remembrance. They must prevent it from becoming a mockery or a piece of formal and ritual pageantry. A few thousand years ago a great general and ruler gathered the people of his nation together and. after recounting their history, issued to them the challenge: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” That challenge was hurled to us on Anzac Day, the choice of service to the God of Mars or the Prince of Peace. There was no middle ground. “We have no peace. A ll we have is an armistice—a standing at arms—nations ready to spring,” said Mr Dow. And the annual expenditure of the world on armaments 20 years after the war began was £900,000,000. Was that all we could offer the great army of the dead, those who were maimed on the cruel wheel of war, and to the women who served, suffered and mourned? “No one knows or can guess what will happen in Europe, Asia and America during the next five or 10 years; whether, in far off New Zealand, there will be chaos or a brighter, purer and happier land. To-day there are young people, such as yourselves, playing their games and doing their study preparatory to a life of service, hoping to live out their day in a fine usefulness. Some silly fool drops a bomb in some remote corner of the globe and you are ranged on opposite sides, dealing out death and slaughter. And in the end, what happens? More days like this and a better world? No, not at all, for war settles nothing.” To-day we had our pacts, conventions, conferences and leagues, and because the League of Nations had not been able to cope with all the problems presented, were we going to jettison the idea which was born out of the last holocaust? “All these are good, but we do well to realise that world peace will never come through these, save as they register the insistent and persistent decisions of peoples, and no enduring peace will ever come until

those principles of a new world order, established by a brotherhood motivated by goodwill and governed by the law of right, shall reign,” said Mr Dow. During the service a Scripture reading was given by Mr C. E. Kerr, the passage being taken from Micah 4, and the assembly was lead in prayer by Mr H. W. Washbourn. “Recessional.” “O Valiant Hearts” and “For All the Saints” were sung, a special “Anzac Hymn” being contributed by the School choir. “Last Post” and “Reveille” were then sounded, and the gathering marched from the gymnasium to the Memorial Library, a guard of honour being formed by pupils of the Boys’ School. At the Library, wreaths were placed at the foot of the Roll of Honour on behalf of the Old Boys’ Association, Old Girls’ Association, pupils of the Boys’ and Girls’ and Craighead Schools, and private individuals.