To
Honour Their Veteran Teacher
Port Dover
People are to hold a reunion
of W. H. Smith's Old Boys and Girls
on Dominion Day.
The people of Port Dover are
preparing to mark with appropriate ceremonies the completion
of
Mr. W. H. Smith's 43rd year as principal of their school.
The function is to take
place on the school grounds on Saturday, 1 Jul 1916, and an
invitation is extended to every ex-pupil who sees this, to be
present.
In connection therewith the
following has been sent in to us from New York for publication:
William
Henry Smith
As one of his "old
boys" it is with a great source of pleasure and pride that I
pen this humble tribute to William Henry Smith.
It has been said that the
best kind of teachers are born teachers. Mr. Smith is a living
acknowledgement of this statement's truth. His native ability made
skill in teaching possible, while knowledge and training added to
natural endowment, made such skill an actual a dependable
possession.
Mr. Smith is the very
embodiment of ability and aptitude for imparting instruction and for
stimulating and guiding the young in their struggle for knowledge
and self-improvement.
Most among the hundred of
his old boys and girls, in different sections of the globe, who have
made good, owe it to a large extent to Mr. Smith's painstaking
endeavor. He laid for them a sure foundation upon which to build
their structure of success and splendid renown. To those who have
failed, the fault is their own, and obscurity in the world's affairs
is their portion.
Mr. Smith's birthright
manifested itself in a natural interest in and a love for them all.
He was endowed with the happy faculty to awaken interest in further
study and to inspire enthusiasm for the task and the opportunity
before them.
Mr. Smith was more than a
born teacher. He was a citizen of whom any town might well feel
proud, and to those whose good fortune it was to penetrate his
reticent nature, he was the best of friends.
I have compared and
contrasted him with hundreds of people both in New York and in the
West, and my conviction remains that his was the most perfect
character I have ever met.
Mr. Smith's fellow citizens
of Port Dover are to be congratulated in seeking the co-operation of
his former scholars to honor the man who for over 43 years has
honored them -- a man whose character and ability make him worthy of
a testimonial such as will be accorded him on Canada's natal day.
I rejoice at the prospect of
a great gathering of Mr. Smith's old boys and girls on that day, and
I am not alone, I am sure, in extending congratulations and in
expressing the hope that the end of his useful and honorable career
is yet afar off.
W. F.
McGilvery,
2061 Story Ave.,
New York.
