The Story of a Great SchoolmasterWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
The Story of a Great Schoolmaster
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Sanderson, F. W. (Frederick William), 1857-1922; School principals -- Great Britain -- Biography
Here is evidence of that divergence in a passage from a sermon preached
after a gathering of parents and old boys in the Court Room at the
London Grocers' Hall to discuss the chapel project. I ask any one
trained in the services of the Church of England and accustomed to
enter, pray into a silk hat, deposit it under the seat, sit down,
stand up, bow, genuflect, kneel decorously on a hassock, sing, repeat
responses, and go through the simple and wholesome Swedish exercises
of the Anglican prayer book, what is to be thought of this project of
a chapel with hardly a sitting in it? And what is to be thought of
this suggestion of wandering round the aisles? And what is this talk
of young gentlemen who have died 'for king and country,' casting down
their lives for the rescue of man?
'For the years to come, when the war is over, it will be well to have
some visible memorial; some symbol of the redemption of the Great
War, and of the heroic part old boys have taken in it; some record of
the great struggle from out of which the new spirit will rise; some
record of the part the whole school took in this; some record of the
boys who have fallen; some thanksgiving symbol for all who have given
their service. And for this it is proposed to build a chapel. But when
the time comes we shall be sad to leave our present building. It is a
poor building, but it is very rich in its associations. The services
in this temporary chapel have taken a large part in the building of
the school. Simple as is the Tent in the Wilderness, yet we have hoped
that the Spirit of God would come and dwell in it. We have hoped that
the Divine Spirit would come into all the activities and outlook of the
school in its diverse occupations, whether they be literary or whether
they be scientific or technical. And we have always looked onward to
the day when a permanent chapel should be built, symbolic of the Divine
Omnipresence for worship and for sacrifice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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