WORTHY OF EMULATION.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1598, 9 December 1920, Page 38

WORTHY OF EMULATION.

MR. BEN. J. FULLER’S GIFT.

Ln order to enable the new Rhodes scholar for New South Wales, Mr. V. H. Treatt, to go to England and take up his studies, Mr. Ben. J. Fuller, managing director of the big vaudeville and theatrical firm of Fullers, has come forward with a donation of £lOOO.

In announcing the gift Mr. Storey, Premier of New South Wales, said that Mr. Fuller had been prevailed upon by him to make the fact public. “A statement recently appeared,” said Mr. Storey, “to the effect that the selected Rhodes scholar, V. H. Treatt, was unable to take advantage of the prize owing to the inadequacy of £3OO a year in England at the present time. Mr: Ben. J. Fuller, when he read the statement, lost no time in getting into touch with the young Australian concerned. He found that he was the 15th child in a family of 18, and that going to England under all the circumstances was out of the question. ‘I asked him,’ said Mr. Fuller to me, ‘how much money he needed to take advantage of the scholarship. He named a sum, and then I straightway paid £lOOO to his credit at a bank, and told him to keep it dark.’ “That is where I joined issue with Mr. Fuller,” added Mr. Storey. “In my opinion it is a gift that should not be kept dark. Our wealthy men are far too backward in taking the initiative in matters of this kind. Mr. Fuller saw at a glance the importance of the occasion, decided on the right thing to do, and quickly did it.”

“I am pleased to be able to announce also that Mr. Fuller regards this donation of £lOOO as only a start ing point in assisting the advancement of education. Like myself, he is conscious at times of his own limitations, through lack of access to the University. An Englishman born, he is an upholder of British institutions, and has great faith in the universities. By sheer hard work, courage, and natural gifts, he has succeeded in Australia, and desires to employ a portion of his fortune in assisting young men, who, like him self in earlier years, want to get to the university and cannot. No definite plans have yet been formed; but I am ..safe in stating that Mr. Fuller, so far as his means permit, intends to help all he can in the cause of education in New South Wales.”