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I have often wondered why Goldings has a Latin motto, considering
that the subject is not studied in the School and the meaning of
this device on the School badge is, to say the least, not self
evident to our scholars. I confess it has taken me ten years to get
round to the job of finding out. (Why it is written in Latin—not
what it means). When I applied to
Mr. Maslin, who is well qualified
to write the official history of Goldings, he was able to tell me
straight away that a former school master of Goldings, Mr. J. B.
Dempster, proposed this motto somewhere round about 1926 and it was
also due to his initiative that the school magazine THE GOLDONIAN
was started. By a strange coincidence I met Mr. Dempster long after
he had left Goldings and before I came here. The last I heard of him
he was Assistant Director of Education for Southampton and no doubt
still full of good ideas.
Perhaps it's a. bit swanky to have a Latin motto and I notice that
the mottos of the local Grammar Schools are written in plain
English, though many of their pupils would have no difficulty in
making a translation. At any rate it has the merit of making some
boys curious and that is nearly half way to learning. Most Goldings
boys, I hope, can tell you the literal translation of our motto is
"The End Crowns the Work" and I consider it is very aptly chosen for
our School. We may apply it to ourselves in three degrees. First, it
should be obvious that the business of growing older is not a very
good object in itself. A certain young man prided himself on his
physical perfection and was always boasting about being fit. When
someone asked him "Fit for what?" he was somewhat deflated.
We must grow up to be lit for a man's work and our training at
Goldings. if it fits us for our place in the world and prepares us
for useful work, sets a crown on our period of childhood and
dependence. When we leave the protection of this community, our real
testing time comes. Are we going to make a success of our lives, not
only in material sense, such as getting a good job, earning a good
living as we say, but also in the sense that we become a good
influence in the lives of others and, maybe, become husbands and
fathers on whom our dependants can rely. If we do this, that is an
end which crowns our years of preparation. Finally, there is the
crown of everlasting life. This is a phrase which puzzles us and
especially when we are young, appears a far-off thing—not worth a
great deal of thought. Yet here in this home we are taught the
simple tenets of our faith, that if we strive, as in the words of a
hymn we often sing, "to improve our talents with due care," we shall
be found profitable servants, fit to enter into our Lord's Kingdom.
This means we must strive and not drift, we must not accept defeat
but get up and try again and whatever faults and shortcomings we
have we must try to overcome them and rise to the highest of which
we are capable in the development of knowledge, skill, understanding
and character, so that at our latter end our motto will still hold
good. "FINIS CORONAT OPUS."
Mr. R. F. Wheatley,
BSc.
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