The Rt. Rev. Abbot Taylor, 0.S.B., presided at the distribution of prizes at St. Augustine's Abbey School on Saturday, July 2. He extended a welcome on behalf of all present to the Rt. Rev. Mgr. John McNulty, D.D., Bishop of Nottingham, who presented the prizes to the boys.
In his address His Lordship spoke of the inestimable value of the Benedictine tradition, a tradition of scholarship, peace, and a sense of humour, in education.
There was more, he pointed out, in the education of boys than merely giving them saleable knowledge : to educate boys is not so much to teach them how to earn a living as to teach them how to live.
He stressed the fact that good teachers are of more importance than good buildings or good classroom apparatus. Educa lion may truly be said to be training for citizenship—not only in this world, however, but also in the next; if the heavenly destiny is missed, everything is lost. Education, therefore, must teach a true sense of values.
Mgr. McNulty urged the cultivation in schools of music and the arts; most classes of men do not lose their souls whilst at business, but by the misuse of their leisure. Good taste and an ability to use leisure well should therefore be acquired in youth, and music is an invaluable aid to this. The training of a child comes from the Church, the parent and the teacher. The Church has received from Christ a mandate to teach all nations; the parent receives from God the duty and privilege of fashioning the child's character for eternal life; the teacher gives indispensable help to the parent in this, and there should be the closest co-operation between them.