isCaI ay rim~ iHim1n miIIñ..% THE~ RT* HON. R* 0.
140-. rmlA2 OFFICIAL OsAk. N2 OF 'ñ Cli, SLOK9
ST. JQU3Hk' 1 COLA-; U4 SYNEY
Y( our Eminence ' Rev* Sro. Provincial, 3ro. Othmar, dir Jot'vi ( McCauley)
anid !.-dies anA p~ zitlement
I thiunk iI& Iat to beoin by tolling you that the tory that
t~ le Wji. ro. krovincial, told about somebody fallin, ti'o ihh the
floor and thus JustifY'ing a now laboratory woke an echo i'i my Mind
beea-auo I onae had a Minister :~ or ,. he Army who ame along to me one
afternoon and put up a most unpassonod plea for a ne-r e: areantal
Hess at Duntroon. I was in a bad mood and I said " Hubjishi
! ioasensoi They can pt a lonig with the old one. " his is not a time
to3e ipendinj all this xonoyW Youz knw, the sort of thiinZ that
Primue ' inisters have to dio occasionally. ' hat night the old
.; jr. oants' Hess -* as burnt loidn. ( Laught.%: r) 1, sent for the Minister
the next mornine, and complimented him on a turn of speed that I hadn't
credited him jit-h. No4 I say no more than at; othe&, riso It might
be woomnonly defama tory.
0 freeze ShNeo wo nI lyan timteer riIb lhya ves oerrvye r thstartu~ c yko u a hcaor ld Iotoi ay: A iitn caJyt dnehye ra aanndd
I will help you, if I may, by being tolerably brie r.
There are two things about this 3chool that 1 x i"--est we
sho-aid all have in = Ind. One of them consists of the C'atjju st
re+ 4erred to by 31r John, that ihon this school was established
years aio It was built and ostablished for far nore boys than then
appa-u-vd to be in sight for the sichool. I discovered i-ith ; reat
intercst this afternoon that this Is, today, the biggest boarding
schtool in the whole of husralia. N4ow this meanxs tliat 3) years alp
t. ere weore poopi. e who had couraj. 9t vision,, and izma? intin, who d
thians in a big way, who accepted the chance of failure -Ao cidnt
under-provide for the service of a sahool, but at iLhat 11me overprovided
ifor it, This is exactly the 3amI spirit as tVie spirit that
has set up in some of he old ajuntries of Surope maificent
cathedrals, wonderful structures 14roviding pluas of worship built at
a time wihen a moe'e handful of people were res.. onsible -2* r :~ eThis,
I . hIn,-c Is a atimulating thing.
It would not ha4e luappened if it had not ijen Zor the
profound belie f in the minds of the rounders of this sC. icol that . hey
were dealin,; with matters of eternal importance. The we o not just
providing a oartain amount. of instruction; they wore praviding
something that would be built into he character off every bo4 who ient
through the school. That was a ireat vision; and it was a vision
fall of a remarkably clear perception of the great truths of education.
I had occasion re -ently, to deliver a speech on broad
subjet of education in Adelaide before a learned body -nd In the
course of preparin for it i awo across one observa. tion thich I will
take leave to quote to you and I do this with all themw. r acooptance,
no 3. oabt, on your pa. t when I tell you these words : ell œ' rtn the lips
of father 31eson who Aad attended a Confer ' noe vftoh initiated the
movement that I was addrossia. Thuse are superb wordas " All
kn~ ovledp Is jrist to the mill of the educator; but unless he concerns
himself with his pupils' character he remains an infourmer, a source
of fr--t) s piled upon one another and imparted to a mind bot1i= ature
and untrained in their propdr use",
This Is the ; reat choice In educaition -the Vi~ ing of
infftmation the acquiring of a stock of facts,, the acquiri S, perhaps,
of some pross tonial skill1 some technical knowledje, Tha on the
one side,, by itself. And on the othei' side ' all that, and lioeiven too'.
2.
All Mthat and the truiil Z In character Ahich, ofh u~ l sa~ xooLs 1 , reat
Church foundations like this are best qualified to provida. This Is,
I think, the jroat truth.
dhen wie iere bein~, told by the kl'ovincial abo : t the" e
dreadful, modern, yet historic episodes it kept oomind back irnto my
minJ -all the time NVh do these things happen?" Not be--uso in those
very eountries uen hadn't been to school, not because there Weret not
people or trained Intelligence on the iron& side but be:!! use they
had rnot learned that civilization is in the heart and in Lhe soul,
they had not learned the ethical iraluea which are involved in
educatioun, That is why poopl trained In ethics bellorers in
relIiin believers in the Aliglty, have been ruthlessly aticked by
people Uwsaw in the. more reactionaries as if It coid be
reactionary to omsidr, t~ o study, to ponder ete~ rnal things. 1 an
as probably you knowl a tremendous believer In Church Schools. I donit
criticise any other kind of schod It Is not ovorybody who cain jo to
a school like this. I myself have had a variety or' expe1ri-noes in the
course of being educationally A4ragpd up In some fashion a kltate
school In a little country village# a Atate school in a bigj-er
provincial town, and a great Church school In a 0, 4at city and the
tlnIveralty, and so on . so that I have looked at this thing from the
inside* The more I look at it, and the, older I become, e more
conscious I an that the problemus of tho world today are prolems of
character more than of anything else, and the so" e thankful I am that
schools lik, this have been established and have flourishod anid are
making such a great contribution to the world.
There are very zmn people, clever people, I sappose, who
thi-ti -hat we are living In the golden age of eiviliztion. ' Why?
Jecause we can rzove through the air at speeds that nobody onoe thought
of; beaaus* vs can stand In frout of a thousand or two thousand
people bnd be heard comfortably ovor a public address sy ; tem; because
we can look at the television, or go back home in a car; 4 cause ye
can enjoy all thes thinp Ahich have all come, In ry owrn lifetime,
And this we are told, is the jolden ade of civilization. Firing a
man to Re. moon which no doubt will be the next piece of lunacy;
putting people into orbit* All this is great stuff dcver stuff,
no doubt very important stuff* iBut the odd thing, the thiing to
remember is that In this century, easily the cleverest corutury In
his tory In teohnoloar and In some aspects of science, wa have seen
more hatred and bitterness more war, more injustice, more, brutality,
than p. orhaps any oth-3r centZr in history was able to witness.* And
why? Because we have failed, broadly, to understand that the two
great tasks In lifo, the two ; reat tasks of civiliation, which, If
performed are the, proof of civilization, is that men should got to
understaa each other and value each other and be just to each other,
and tliat they should be united In a brotherhood which is the
inevitable result of the fatherhood of God. These ure, th e wat
eleamts In civilization; and Air I wou'd like to oon swato you
on We. nt, a director of a a~ ebool, which lives by these pri~ noiples, and
has put them Into practice, and has so, I believe, made 3 re
contribution to our country,