Reading School pupils were urged to face the future.

Colonel Wilson’s Address.

Colonel Wilson, who was accorded a very enthusiastic reception, said he considered it a great honour to have been invited to present the School prizes. He wished heartily to congratulate the School on its record, particularly its war record, which was one of which any School might rightly be proud. They had, too, another record – that of being one of the oldest Schools in the United Kingdom, with a history extending over nearly 800 years, and, if he might offer a word of advice to the boys, it was that they should always remember their School after they left it, and never do a single thing that might put a black mark on this brilliant record. (Hear, hear.) The last 4.5 years had done a great deal to bring back to many of them memories of their School life, and the memories thus revived, when they had met with those with whom they had been at School, had always been happy ones. He was a great admirer of Kipling and of the patriotic spirit that permeated his writings. Patriotism, however, was something that was born in them. They did not talk about it very much, but they liked to think about it. He wished to say one word to them on the spirit that had animated the nation during the war – a spirit which he hoped and trusted would animate the nation during the serious and difficult times that lay before them. The generation to which he belonged was passing away, while the generation to which they belonged was coming on and would have to tackle the vast problems of the future.

The Old Spirit.

He often wondered when the war broke out, whether the spirit of the men of England, which had animated her soldiers on the battlefields at Agincourt and Crecy, and her Sailors at the Nile and Trafalgar, would manifest itself in the men of 1914, after the passage of so many years. It was only after the gallant old Regular Army and the French Army had had a really serious series of reverses on the Western front that the British nation said, “We are up against somebody who means to fight us and is trying to beat us” and it was then that the spirit of the nation awoke. This war was entirely different from any war in which England had fought in the past. It brought together men of all classes, the vast majority of whom never thought of the profession of arms as one they would ever be likely to follow. If the comradeship which they had made at the front was going to last, then it was the best thing that had ever happened to this country of ours. (Applause)

The British soldier – and he said this with no thought of detracting from our Allies – was entirely different from the soldier of any other country. The British soldier was never so cheerful as when he was hopelessly and miserably uncomfortable. When things were at their worst he was the most cheerful person he could find, but as soon as things were happy and comfortable, he started “grousing.” (Laughter.) But the British soldier had what was, to his mind, the greatest saving grace of all-and that was his wonderful sense of humour. It was the cheerfulness, the sense of humour, and devotion to duty which had characterized the British Soldier and the British nation that had enabled it to win through as it had won through.

Difficult times lay before them, and if they were to win through them also, he would advise his young hearers to imitate those men who had been through 4.5 years of war. Let them imitate the high sense of duty and the high sense of patriotism and determination which had characterised all of their actions. And he was sure that if they did in civil life as they had done in military life, there would be no doubt as to the future of the nation. He asked them to remember when they went out into the world, that other men had just as much right to live as they had, and that is was their duty to see that they had the same advantages as they themselves had had, if it was in their power to give them. He urged them to be patriotic. In this as well as in other lands there were lots of people who seemed to have far greater admiration for the laws and legislation of other countries than their own. Let them love and venerate their own country, and if they thought its institutions needed altering, well let them alter them, but that did not mean transferring their love to another country. He did not believe the cosmopolitan patriot- “the sturdy patriot of the world alone, the friend of every country but his own.” He begged them always to remember their duty to their country, for if they did so they would be sure of leaving it better and happier than they had found it. (Applause.)

Reading School Magazine, April 1919 (SCH3/14/34)