A Controversial Gem

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 15, 16 April 1908, Page 9

A Controversial Gem

A once popular ditty told how ' one summer eve, with pensive thought ' (' pensive thought ' is rather good), the singer ' wandered by a sea-beat shore . While doing so, he picked up an assortment of shells, 1 and threw them one by one away . He probably found nothing in them to reward his search. In wandering ' with pensive thought ' along the shores of journalistic life, we pick up our pile of shells, and ' throw therm one by one away '. But sometimes we come across a shell that holds a pearl of price. This was what Happened a few days ago, when we packed up an esteemed Otago contemporary. We were about to throw it away, when, in a too obscure corner, we found a gem of controversy, which deseTves the best setting we can give it. So we mount it as best we may, and set it in our best showcase— to wit, our first editorial page, so that all may see and admire the play of its purest ray serene. • Like all pearls, this one was produced by irritation. In the present case the irritation was produced by the series of sweeping victories which the boys of the Christian Brothers' School, D-unecßn, have been winning year by year in the Otago schools' athletic championships. At the last meeting (reported in our issue of April. 9) twenty-four of the leading schools of Otago competed, and over five hundred and fifty competitors tooto part in the contests. The, Christian Brothers' ' boys secured sixteen firsts out of a possible twenty-four (carrying, off twenty silver medals out of .the thirty awarded), and won, besides, fourtfeSn, seconds (with bronze medals) and seven thirds. It is, perhaps, more than a mere coincidence that some other Catholicschools in the Dominion have also acquitted themselves with great credit in the field of manly sports, while at' the same time holding (like -the Dunedin school) a high place for success in scholastic work. The overwhelming victory recorded above was the irritating grit that led to the secret/ion of the gemi in question. Here's the jewel itself :—