A FINE SPIRIT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4804, 30 January 1925, Page 1

A FINE SPIRIT.

AN EFFICIENT WAITRESS.

STRIVING FOR EDUCATION,

Af one of our seaside hotels during the Christmas and New Year holidays (says a Melbourne contemporary) a party of holiday-makers was struck by the quiet effiicency of the girl who waited upon them at table.

Before the holiday was over, one lady of the party, whose dream of domestic comfort embraced just such a treasure as this in her household, tentatively and rather nervously approached the waitress with an offer of employment. The girl politely thanked her. but, without entering into any explanations, said that she could not consider the offer.

A week later the lady was introduced to the waitress at a uocial gathering at the house ci a friend. As neither made any attempt to conceal the recognition, explanations were forthcoming. The waitress was a second-year medical, student at the University, who kept herself and helped to pay her class fees by working during the vacations at a c, ailing in which her home training had made her proficient.

Inquiry prompted by the story leads to the discovery that this is no isolated instance. There is at the University a regular' employment bureau for the large number of students of both sexes who could continue their studies only by earning enough money during the holidays to keep themselves while the University is in session.

Many men students pack a handbag as soon as classes are oyer and go off to the country peeking work as harvest hands or fruit pickers. Some get employment in the city. One graduate in ar.ts now studying for his degree of divinity is reported to be carving portions in the kitchen premises of a large city restaurant. Girl students find work in shops and factories, as waitresses and as domestic servants. There is no humbug about manual labour. These boys and gills will do any honest, hard work for the wages that mean the opportunity for education.

It is a line spirit. It is the spirit that sent the Scottish crofter’s son, with his meal-bag. on his back and a hard-won five pounds in his pocket, tramping down to the University of Aberdeen. There “meal Monday”, in the middle of the session is still a holiday from classes, relic of- the time when the poor student’s mealbag would be empty, and he needed the week-end to visit his home W have it replenished. The passion for education among its young men and women is the greatest gift a nation could possess. We have it here. The sicry of the last Victorian Rhodes scholar was the story of a boy who, by his driving ambition, had won his own way through schools and university. It is shown in the grit of so many poor students at Melbourne University who are paying their way by hard and sometimes mental labour. What are we doing to encourage it T For a’l our professions of democracy this is not a country of equal educational opportunities. The rich mans’ son can buy a place in the University. The poor man’s son has the hardest task to earn it. In except? noal cases brain and grit win through, but there must be thousands of youngsters in our State schools, children of poor parents, who have quietly to surrender their 1 ambition's. The Scottish universities are so richly endowed that no youth of ability need go without a university education for lack of money. At Melbourne University there are so few scholarships that only a few students of exceptional brilliance can benefit, Here is a chance for the wealthy, successful citizen of our State to pay a tribute to our plucky youth, the younger brothers and sisters of the men who fought on Gallipoli, by endowing scholarships that will -put a university education within the reach of all who are stretching but eager hands towards it.