“ ALWAYS ROOM AT THE TOP FOR THOSE ABOVE THE AVERAGE.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18643, 21 December 1928, Page 16

“ ALWAYS ROOM AT THE TOP FOR THOSE ABOVE THE AVERAGE.”

THE MAYOR SPEAKS AT DIGBY’S BREAK-UP. “ We are turning out thousands of equally educated men and women, and the market for the average is getting a little overstocked,’ said the Mayor, the Rev J. K. Archer, at the prizegiving of Digby’s Commercial School last night. He said he wished to stress the necessity of always doing the little extra; for there always seemed to be room at the top for those who did just something more than was required of the average.

lie instanced a case that had come under his notice of an official position at a high salary' which it had been necessary to advertise twice in an attempt to find the suitable person to fill it. The first time there were thirtyfive applicants and the second time forty, yet although they had all passed the necessary examination to qualify, not one of the applicants was suitable for the position. Had it been a position at £3 per week he supposed that they would have had three hundred applicants, and they would all have been able to fill the position. “ 1 am a parson, but I am not a wowser,” said the Mayor. “ T like to see sport, but I would just like to 'point out that tennis or any other sport is the recreation of life and not the vocation.”

The Mayor also had a word to say on the importance of learning proper punctuation. Speaking from knowledge gained in his official capacity he could say that there were a great many clerks in this city who did not know the difference between a comma and a fullstop. lie could not understand how so many students passed through schools without learning how to punctuate.