kdr. Presidegnt, ladies and jsntle
It is no moe form of words for me to say that I am
delighted to be here,, because this is a very exciting oaasiozi
It is a wry exciting act of raith and of ina.; inution.
We ure accustomed, In Australia,, to think or ourselves as
lukiing an almost painfully now country. I daresay that some of
As here today have thought what a contwast there would be between
this bohoolt so far ans It has gpoet and . Vsminmter School In
London. Juif we have enough imagination to tiarn our eyos backc
Into history we will roeulise thatpafter all that Zciool had a
3egmS9g wAn Westminster itself had a bekning, It in one of
t~ ie things that I like thinking about when I's in ; London, that at
V-A very tim when . iotmixistor 14ll was beind built, the Ureat
.[ al of Auflana Rufus* there were fields and furm -iun~ d it.
aid when the Abbey sprang Into existence, the vhi4 shining Aauay,
as it was at that time, thero were fields ja4 frm~ s around it.
mdc need every now and then to have an act of faith in
order to lift ourselves above the ordinary comam round. I don't
know whether any of you, or many of you, have had the opportunity
of seeing the great EUl Cathedral In the esstern provinces of
Sagland a nagnificent cathedral rising out of a villip, built
at a time when there were a fey v; ljaes and a feow farms scattered
around. What a tremondous act of inazination ind faith.
Therefore I as delightedo not only to be here, on such an
occasion, but I an particularly Interested in the name that hasn
aeon chosen. 4ec aum 1 am a poeut believor in the contirnuity of
good traditionst a sense of continuity , a sense that we are not
hera today and gone tomorrow, a sense Ufat we are part of' an
izmotal procession of huna'i beings. This is the Me~ At : ning, i
iellove, in the national character.
And there at Jestuinster, whose fn you have taken what
doe ones, I even today? The at~ hall of iluliam Rufus built In
the -% velfth oentury, still sta g, q rimed with smake an two
occasions in its history, stll thor. the ! al in which Clarles
i was tried; the UIll outside whichoday looki;-.& Into
Parllaaent Place,, stands tine atuo of 0liver Cromwell; h Hall
out of which opened the doors into little, rooms in which the whole
of the Suglish Comoon Law was developed,, the agat uiediaeval
Oourts of the tLing's iJench and of the Common kleas and of the
444hequor, This Is, of all plaoes In our omunity of n& ationsO the
most fascin~ iting and the most historic. And just over tin road,
sao to speak, the coeat Abey with all that It contains of Jt'itish
~ Ii story. How this 1L think Is something that I. hope every boy
who ames here viM aw to understand. I would li1e to think that
the full. significance or what has happened and is ! zppening, in
Jestainater becaine known. We are so acmastaned today to having
0,, rlianents. 3a people think that we have too many. I
oocauionially share that fae, p but only in a momentary way. The
rirst Parliament that ever atq sat in Iestminster " all, The model
PAirliament sat in iesttiinstor lall. And today, If You wish to & V
In or ambers wish to 4o in to the '" Ouse of Commons one of their
main avenues of approach is Viraigh eaistr ; a1l. it at Il
remains the great source of all our parliament.-Ary Instituztions,,
and of all the Or~ t institutions of Vie Comoi Uiv, Vlwru in no
Ar" Of -ff : TIE IjIM13= 8 rw las
place to compare with it* And thwrerores, Oa I Wa to the boys,
there is no name to vapare vith it. Ths s it m.& nificent and
i & inative decision.
air, one other thing that iL vuuld like to say is this.
It Is no easy matter to create a School; it is no easy matter to
say, " Well, we must start; we viii jet our first b ilding.
Jomeday we will. jst our seoondand our third and our fbifth. And
in due course the jrounds of the school will Wo developed and we
will have all those thins. that So with a ; twat ~ co1" It must
rather try the patience for people who are no longer jromgto be
able to postpone to their childrtsn the satist ct o hat te
would have loved to have had themselves In seeing th, thing
ecupleted. And yet, what I want to remind them of is this: that
this In not just creating scow gounds, or creating saw buildings.
Zhis Is creating a sc~ ool which, so t-at it is properly understood
and properly aapported, will be tort for hundreds of yamrs, and
wi1l itself boooe the spiritual 2uther of oths.-scaiools in other
places. There have been very great cluanges in the world of
education. If we p back to the middle apss when higher education
was scholastic# vas conducted against a basis almost entirelyof
rellion, whten It was considered t~ w , erqiisite of ticue who
were destined Zor the Churoh, when It involved almo3t monasntic
excl-aliau frus the world when it dealt entirely with classical
knoledp, we find one ; Mn of * ducation, a-d one : or X'iich I have
myself a protbubd respect. jkat nov the wheel has t Lraed, Today
higher eduo~ tion is taking place not In the upe of nediaeval
scholastiim but in the age of science and tachnology, in which
man Is actully beginning to burst fromtbe surface of th. earth in
Is exploration and aroh for krnoidedjs9
sIo the whole matter has changed. It seems to As to have
somthinig of ugency rather than omethinj of reflection. It is a
search for something new, rat& eWr thian the study of something old*
Sat the choice Is not quite so gim. as thiat, bocause it
still remains tnie that there is no higher education -wort.-the
namne unless It embraces not only the knowledge of physical
science but the knowledge of mankind# the knowled,; e, of the
huiltest a broad sweep of education, a broad and balanced
training. And that Is somthing that we aivays have to keep In
mind so that we won1t be, tempted as so mmmy people are, to adopt
as our p~ al fr education a Ozpa~ an conception of physical
knvowledeo Nov t ~ st is a Church School. This in one of those,
schoo~ ls standing vividly and ondwringly for that most Important
ooneeption ofeducation over the whole field a belief not only
that we stould have humane letters as well as science but that we
should have chmracter as well as knowledge. A the ! un* 4ticn of
this school is to producoe character, not a lot of clever son with
destructive mind with no conception of tawir obligations to
tVair ,, O* Uow men, and no conception of their duty to ! aod but
people of character, of a high morality, trained with a tackpgounl
of reliioni able to understand right through their lives t-At
It Is a Q0 thing to be intell1jent, it is a jood thing L ' beb
successful It is a pyod thing to be able to do thi~ s, or this, or
this. 8, but thatIt is a better thin& to be u ine man# abetter
rilh time those e ternal t~ uths whicoh make all the dif ference
between a great man and a little ons.
And so, ; ir, I am delighted to be here. i an so'z'
that I am not as young as I use to be boouase if I yoie as young
as I smostiaws tool wbfl I am under & titok, I would tool confident
of cocing baak here in 4O yers' tin* to have & L look over it,
. Ut I don thlflk t at I can) look " orward to t: mat. Mh0so boys
will look forwar'd to it* And I would like then to ta 14isselwes
trig pioneers of this school, the tirt bqys who will over boome
txo ' old boys" of Oestainster. I would like tb= to feel that
they are helping to start a truditioc in one sense but in
another sense to * ry an the Jmat tradition whiA is eaplified
in the Church schools of this aountty, and in partioular, to feel
proud of the fact that their shool has a nuse which associates
It in the mind, and in the heart with the areat entre of all
those things ian Parliament to the Iay which have marked our
race and whioh have been among our rat oontributions to
man In'd" ow, -Ar-having said that I exprese my ploasu'e and
Vie pleasure of my wif at beinj here and I shall now, I think,
if I have understood my instuctions aoetzatey, step smartly
the President told ae " stop wartly three cricket pitt lengths
to the left and 1 h! je that in the course of doine, so I won't
pull a musole. ( Applause)