A Pioneer’s Vision

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 315, 28 March 1928, Page 10

A Pioneer’s Vision

COSTLEY INSTITUTE’S WORK Consummation of Noble Purpose FORTY-FIVE years ago Edward Costley bequeathed £12,150 toward the education of children placed in indigent circumstances through the poverty or neglect of Their parents. . Realisation of the vision has consummated one of trufinest child welfare efforts in New Zealand. The <Lo>.:e' Training scheme is doing all that its founder could hat e wished.

i CCORDIXG to those who knew him, Edward Costley did not look a wealthy man. He looked, as one contemporary saw him. as though he might not have had sixpence in the world. But Edward Costley, nevertheless, was a man of alert faculties. Arriving in New Zealand practically penniless, he invested in property with pronounced wisdom and equal success. Furthermore, he cherished the vision of a fortune dedicated to noble purposes. So came that magnificent

memorial, the Costley Home; the Costley Training Institute, the work of which may now be opportunely reviewed, and the Costley bequest to the Auckland Library, which was thereby enriched by £12,500. To-day the Costley Training Institute is taking children from* squalid and oppressive surroundings and setting their eager faces toward the light of education and character training. With the funds at its disposal the institute maintains a small hostel, and each year, from now on, a certain number of rescued children, properly trained to start their careers as useful men and women, will pass from its hands. SCHOOL RELINQUISHED

On Friday the annual meeting of trustees will mark the consummation

of a protracted experiment- A report presented by the child welfare officer «Mr. J. S. Cupitt) will record the success of children for whom the institute accepted responsibility four or five veers ago. These children are now so advanced in their education*or apprenticeships that their progress cube noted, and the success of the venture determinedin the beginning the Costley bequest, or such part of it as dealt with the training of poor children, was lef. to the Kohimarama Training School. The sum involved in this par'.cn.-r bequest was one-seventh of the whole estate, which was therefore worth nearly £90,000. _ . . But by this time (ISS3) the Kouimarama Training School had oeasci to exist, and the trustees therefore recommended the establishment of an institution to take boys and girls on their discharge from the State Industrial Schools. This institution was established in Richmond Road, Ponsonby, a brick building being erected to house it, but as years passed it became apparent that under thi3 arrangement the bequest was not fulfilling the intentions of the founder. Accordingly the training school was relinquished, and the building is now used as an Anglican children s home. ' APPLICATION WIDENED For some time. In order that their \ resources might be strengthened, the trustees allowed their funds to ac-i cumulate. Then, five or six years ago, j they succeeded in obtaining Parlia- : mentary authority for the application of the bequest to be widened, and under this arrangement a small hostel is run with the aid of the Y.M.C-A. children are helped through secondary schools or into the firm security of trade apprenticeships, and the institute allies its forces with the experience and understanding of the officers of the Child Welfare Department. As a result boys who would otherwise have drifted into useless indolence, if not into actual crime, have been placed on the road to good positions in trades or professions; several exceptionally talented girls have passed with honours through secondary schools, whereas otherwise they would have been condemned to lives of darkness and drudgery; and parents in hopeless circumstances have had the satisfaction of seeing their children saved from the consequences of the family’s difficulties and misfortunes.