St Peter's School Learning Centre opening

May I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language.  Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the morning (Sign).

May I specifically greet you: Arthur Bryan, Chairman of the St Peter's School Trust Board;  Steve Robb, Principal; Rev Chris Tweddell, School Chaplain; Harding Howe and Hanna Seifert, Head Boy and Head Girl respectively; Distinguished Guests otherwise; staff and students; Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you for the invitation to attend the opening of this Library and Information Technology Learning Centre here at St Peter's School.

As Governor-General I have been asked to officially open the centre later in the proceedings.  I would like to speak briefly about the School and the significance of this new centre.

This School has a proud tradition and in 2011, when New Zealand hosts the Rugby World Cup, St Peter's School will celebrate its 75th Jubilee.   I understand a history is being prepared to mark the occasion.

A key figure in that history will be Arthur Broadhurst, this school's founder and principal for 24 years.  An Oxford graduate who survived the horrors of the First World War trenches, he could have lived a very comfortable life in the United Kingdom.

However, he had a vision of the transforming power of education, and instead left a family cotton business to become a teacher.  He toured the world to find a suitable place to build his school and that place was a farm near Cambridge, New Zealand.

It was no collection of prefabs that he erected.  He hired the noted American architect Roy Lippincott, who had earlier designed Auckland University's well-known neo-gothic Old Arts Building, to design his School.

Not only did Broadhurst build the School, in a magnificent gesture he gifted more than 100 hectares of land, the buildings and equipment towards the School.  He served as joint principal and later principal from 1936 to 1960.

His vision was of an education for young people that focused on more than reading, writing and arithmetic.  Reflecting his own education, he believed that music, art, drama and sport were just as important as Latin, history and science.

His philosophy of "body, mind and spirit" was well encapsulated in a speech he gave at the 1943 Prize Giving, where he recited a key paragraph from the School's founding prospectus.  St Peter's was a boys' school at the time, so you will have to forgive the masculine references, but the general principles it makes remain valid.  He said, and I quote:  "The ideal at which the School aims is the education of the ‘Whole man' by a balanced development of mind, body, and spirit: a training of character, based on religion, discipline, and sound learning, which will lay the foundation for a life of service and produce future leaders in thought and action."

Since that time, St Peter's has remained at the forefront of education, becoming a secondary school in 1971 and fully co-educational in 1987.  From just 37 students in 1936, when the school was opened by the Minister of Education, and later Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, it now as a roll of more than 1000. Its Education Review Office report of January 2009 underscores the fine quality of education avaialble here.

I am advised that this $5 million facility, contains a new state-of-the art library, information technology centre and eight English language teaching rooms.  It is one of a number of significant capital investments, including the new swimming complex opened last month. Congratulations are due to everyone who has contributed to this significant and worthwhile project and I add them.

The emphasis on technology in this place as an aid in learning, is yet another reflection of how the storage and transmission of knowledge is being transformed by information technology and the internet.

It is hard to imagine now, but prior to Gutenberg's invention of a printing press in Germany in the 1430s, books were copied by hand and literacy was confined to a small minority.  For most people, knowledge was passed orally from one person to another.

Printing, and printed books, not only resulted in a massive increase in literacy, but also played a key role in the scientific revolution that followed, by allowing scientists, philosophers and others to transmit, and discuss, the new knowledge they were creating through scholarly journals.

And so it is with the Internet, which has opened up even more methods for people to communicate and has further hastened the development of new knowledge. In the same way that printing resulted in works of both high and very low quality, so it is with the internet. There was a time when someone who wanted to raise an issue publicly was limited to writing a letter to the editor of his or her newspaper or, I might add, the Mayor, the Prime Minister, or the erstwhile Governor-General!

Now so many people seem to have a blog where they can expound their views to all.  Sifting the wheat from the chaff has now become more difficult as a lot of what passes for comment it is not worth the kilobytes they occupy in cyberspace.  It brings to mind the comment of the 19th Century Swedish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who said: "People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for freedom of thought which they seldom use."   It is a point some, who email, might think about before pressing the send button!

Seriously, however, technology is also transforming education.  Distance is no longer the limiting factor it once was. Students no longer have to go to lectures, but can study online.  Universities and schools are holding lectures simultaneously in New Zealand and elsewhere in the world connected by multimedia equipment. 

This facility then offers the students and teachers of St Peter's School so much.  However, bricks, mortar, glass and technology can only facilitate learning, they cannot make it happen.  Symbolised by the School Badge, of the Owl of Wisdom holding St Peter's keys-the key of life and the key of knowledge-it is up to you to put this facility to good use.  Based on your School's proud history, I am confident you will and that St Peter's will continue to produce "future leaders in thought and action."

And on that note, I will close in New Zealand's first language, Māori, by offering greetings and wishing everyone good health and fortitude in your endeavours.  No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā koutou katoa.

To view images from the ceremony, click here