AGS Again

More about Auckland Grammar School

 

There were many things about AGS that provided a positive atmosphere for teenage development.

 

First was the emphasis on academic achievement, hard work and regular study habits. The encouragement of the teachers, the constant reminders of the advantages of passing exams with good marks, the background assumptions that University was a positive goal to aim for, the awareness of a host of old boys who had gone on to successful careers in business, professions, sport and education – all this ensured we did not forget our primary purpose.

 

Although I now realise I could have made much more use of it than I did at the time, the variety of extra-classroom activities available was another plus. Within the limits of what we would now call a macho culture, arts and culture were encouraged, music was regularly part of the programme, drama was sanctioned, and other activities like debating, skiing trips, and non-traditional sports like softball were allowed.

 

I distinctly remember outings to various events, about once a term, were supported: Old Vic Theatre visits, music concerts, such as violinist Leo Cherniavski, pianists like Lili Kraus, outstnding films like “Scott of the Antartctic” or “The Third Man”, test cricket, Rugby test matches, and several days of athletics at the 1950 Empire (Commonwealth) Games were all organised.

 

George Marshall ran a voluntary German course after school hours, which I attended in my final year, successfully enough to win an oral German prize from the Goethe Society and to study German Stage I at university a couple of years later. This was enough for me to grasp the elements of German grammar, though my knowledge of the vocabulary is pitifully small.

 

Although I would now wish that our time spent on military drill in the cadet corps had been put to more positive use, I found it useful when I came to do Compulsory Military Training later, and I spent the last two years as Sergeant and then Sergeant-major of a company of junior pupils.

 

My “extra-curricular” time was spent on Crusaders, Library, and later the Magazine Committee. This not only produced the end-of-year official School Magazine, it also set up a new project which provided lots of learning experience very useful later, the preparation and publication of a school newspaper, which we christened “Lionlow”, after the lion badge we all wore on our caps.

 

This meant we wrote, proofread, and sub-edited all the material, news, articles and so on, and then took the material to the printers, then read the galley-proofs and later the page-proofs, and then sold the resulting publication to our fellow-students. In this way we learned the whole process, so we were almost experts (!) by the time we worked on the official magazine. Owen Lewis, whose idea it all was, was a wonderful mentor; “learn by doing” was one of his very good principles of education and it certainly worked in this case. It has inspired me in many different enterprises since, and still does.