Nga Tawa Headmistress Stresses Importance Of Doing A Job Perfectly

Wanganui Chronicle, 14 December 1949, Page 9

Nga Tawa Headmistress Stresses Importance Of Doing A Job Perfectly

“What we have to try to teach is that It is not sufficient to learn how to do a job. but we must also learn to do it perfectly. If that habit of mind can be formed, then there will be no place for slovenly thinking, or the acceptance ot the second-best.’’ So declared Miss P. Evans, headmistress of the Wellington Diocesan School for Girls (Nga Tawa) when speaking of the importance of ‘finish’’ at the annual break-up held in Marton yesterday. People who have learnt to think in this way would -be less likely to be taken in by spurious promises of temporary comfort or convenience, whether for themselves or their country, said Miss Evans. Above all, they would be seeking for perfection and the search for perfection was the search for God. "To this search, as a church school, we are all committed,’’ added the headmistress. One of the battles we have to fight continually was against slovenly thinking which resulted from slovenly habits of mind and body, said Miss Evans. This was not a battle to be fought only in school but. in tne world at large. In the traditional type of English Grammar School education, the weapons used were, and still are, the study of language and mathematics. The necessity for complete accuracy and clear thinking, which these subjects called for, was a most valuable discipline, but it was one for which only a minority of the more intellectual people were suited. “Our task is to find some equivalent discipline for the majority-, and on the whole, we find it ji. more practical things today,’’ said Miss Evans. ‘The making of diagrams and maps, the setting up and labelling of the kind of exhibits you saw in the biology exhibition ,the mounting and correct placing and hanging of pictures, the choosing of colours and clothes and properties for a stage set, the careful finishing of a piece of needlework, the correct learning by heart of a piece of music; all these are ways in which a high standard of finish can be learnt and a habit of mind which will not be satisfied until the task is as perfect as it can be made,” said Miss Evans.