Teacher and Broadcaster

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 658, 15 February 1952, Page 16

Teacher and Broadcaster

EWS of death seems to come with a sharper edge when the victim has given the impression of being more than usually alive. There was always something fresh and vital about Cecil Hull, teacher, essayist and broadcaster. She had known private and shared public sorrow, but she preserved -into middle age the spirit of youth, refreshed by observation and affection. Hers was a gay wisdom. Her friendships were deep and lasting. Educated in the nineties when the student of Greek was a rarity, she learned it from her grandfather, Dr. Philson, of Auckland; one of those old-fashioned doctors who superimposed medicine on the humanities. Latin and Greek were part of the foundation of her exceptionally good judgment in literature and her passion for sound English. For many years she was English mistress at the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School. She was one of the brightest light essayists in the daily press, but she could also sound depths of emotion. The second war took her out of retirement to, teach Greek and Latin to the boys at King’s College, Auckland, and the happiness she found in this was characteristic. Broadcasting was the last stage in her career of communicating apprtciation of

"the things that are more excellent." As with so many, the microphone not only widened her audience (till it became national), but it gave her more scope. One can be more pleasantly . discursive

more intimate, more personal, over the air than in print. When a voice like Cecil ‘Hull’s speaks it, the bit of enthusiasm takes on added fire; the touch of pathos is more poignant; the witand she was one of the wittiest women in the country-is more engaging. Cecil Hull’s work lay largely in the preservation of literary values, which to her meant something much wider-values in living. She loved words, their beauty, romance and power, their sanctity, and she strove to have them used with due respect. In one of the broadcasts published in her booklet Talking of Words, she quoted with approval L. A. G. Strong’s conviction that it was wrong to regard English as a school "subject." "English," he said, "is not a subject. Enelish is evervthine. English is life."

This could be her epitaph.

A.

M.