ELOQUENT GIRLS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 404, 13 December 1932, Page 6

ELOQUENT GIRLS

• t SPEAK AT ROTARY ! 'JUDGES UNABLE TO SEPARATE j THE FIRST TWO SPEAKERS TIE FOR GARDNER MEDAL The two judges, Rev. Archdeacon F. W. Chatterton and Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., had the utmost difficulty in adjudicatlhg in- the competition ! for the Gardner medal eontest for , High School girl speakers which came j up for decision at the Rotary Club | luncheon yesterday. I So much so that they were unable to separate two out of the three finalists and the third was extremely dlose behind the joint winners. The decision was: — Miss Margaret Budd and Miss Betty Keane, equal, 1. Miss Betty Urquhart, 3. The standard of elocution was very high and the speeches gave evidence not only of careful preparation, but of an intelligent interest taken by the speakers in the subjects they had chosen. Subsequent to the speeches, Mr. T. B. Strong, Director of Education, who was a guest of the club expressed his satisfaction at the standard set and also at the interest taken by the club in the activities of the younger generation. He ref erred with enthusiasnx to the evident feeling of eomradeship between the masters and their pupils and concluded by voicing the opinion that the world was just as safe in the hands of the coming generation as it had been in those of the present day. Mr. W. G. Harwood, headniaster, spoke of his appreciation of the efforts of Rotary to assist the school and trusted that these would be maintained. "Mary Slessor" Margaret Budd toolc as her subject the som'ewhat unusual ' figure of Mary Slessor, the white woman who followed so closely in the steps of the great traveller-missionary, David Livingstone, and spoke of her domination of the eastei'n interior of Central Afriea. Mary Slessor's work, said Miss Budd was just as noble in its way as that of any of England's queens. Entering a factory at the age of 11, she had dreanled at her looni and it was after the news of the death of David Livingstone had reached her that her dreams began to crystallise. She determined to take up the work of Livingstone and had first to overcome many difficulties amongst them being those of language and the natural antagonism of officialdom and " trade. She had set out to bring Christianity to Central Africa and despite the warnings of the white nien on the Calabar Goast had penetrated inland where eventually she became the vktual ruler of thousands of natives. She found them smothered under thc thrall of superstition and praetising infanticide and wife murder and left them prosperous and contented. She had encouraged trade with the coast and though when one thought of empire-builders the narnes of Robert Clive and Cecil Rhodes sprang naturally to the mind, that of Mary Slessor was worthy to be rankee with them. When British penetration began she led and advised the consuls, for none had such a knowledge of the nooks and crannies of the native mind as she. She was appointed vice-president of the Native Court and her judgments, made without precedent or law books, wero suited to the native temperamenty In 1915 she died, but her name would be forever spoken of in the hutments and engraven on the hearts of the negro population. Her influence, that of the Great White Mother would never cease in Africa. "Elizabeth Fry." Elizabeth Fry and prison reform was the burden of Miss Betty Urquhart's theme and she told of the way in which in the interests of prison reform this young Quaker girl had carried on the work begun by John Howard. Born in Norwich in 1780, Elizabeth Fry (as she became) came from a wealthy Quaker family and yearned to do good in the world. As the result of a sermon by William Sallery at the age of 19 she set up a school for poor children. It was in 1813, that her attention was directed to prison reform, for. in those days, the conditions in the prisons were appalling in the extreme. Men and women were sentenced to ■death for the most trivial of offences and the lot of the other prisoners was terrible. No food or clothing was provided by the State for them, and especially in Newgate, the conditions were awful. They were dependent on the gifts of the charitable and particularly in the case of the women fared very badly. Elizabeth Fry set up a school in an empty cell and she also obtained work for the women prisoners. Then she, with eleven Quaker women and a clergyman's wife formed a society to assist female prisoners. This resulted in very much better conditions obtaining. This was noticed by the authorities and she was consulted by them with the result that many of the Newgate women were transforined from their previous terrible state. Elizabeth Fry appeared before a committee of the House of Commons and told them of her work wliich in turn was ■ assisted by Lord Lansdowne's great speech demanding prison reform. Later she visited the Continent and instituted prison reform in various countries and finally did much to abolish the horrors incidental to transportation of criminals. She died in 1845. The Lady With the Lamp Quoting Longfellow's "Lady of the Lamp," Miss Betty Keane told her hearers of the wonderful work of Florence Nightingale in the Crimea. She was brilliantly • educated, being an accomplished musician and linguist. Of considerable private fortune she travelled on the Continent and Egypt. From her earliest days she had a passion for nursing and though her desire to attend elasses at the Salisbury Hospital was frowned upon by her people she was finally able to study nursing in Germany. This led to her being appointed to the control of a charity nursing hom^ii^Iferle^StreeN

•ne wrote that the wlrole of the Brit"sh arrny was perishing for want of , roper attention and the army eall'd upon Florence Nightingale to go .ut. Accompanied by 87 nurses she ■vont to Scutari and found the condlions of the men in hospital terrible ndeed. This was in November, 1854. At first she had to face the opposiion of the doetors and the Governarent offieials. The state of the only hospital was indescribable and her "irst job was to scrub the floors her•elf. Then she established dietetie .itchens and before long she was ''eeding and clothing the whole of he inmates of the Scutari hospital it her own expense. She had great difficulties with the Purveyor of Stores who would not issue goods no matter how urgently they were needed without delay and often she had his stores brolcen open. However a fund of £7000 wras subseribed by her friends and with this she was able to reduce the death rate from 42 per cent. to 2 per cent. In 1855 she went to the trenches and was doing good work there when she was striclcen down with fever. On her return preparations were made to give her a wonderful welcome, but evaded this and came to England quietly. A sick woman she devoted the next years of her life from a sick bed to reforming army, workhouse and infirmaries systems of hospital work. A fund of £40,000 called the Florence Nightingale Fund was raised by her admirers and this she spent upon organising and establishing schools for nurses. She was awarded the British Order of Merit and five other similar deeor-