Heritage

By the time the Ginner-Mawer School reached 21 years of existence, Stanley Baldwin had been British Prime Minister three times.  Irene Mawer quoted Earl Baldwin, who I presume is the same person.  I have tried to find where the quotation was used by Baldwin, but have failed, however, I can see the message that Mawer was intending to convey.  She was talking to her students, past and present, reminding them that Ginner-Mawer had done its best to give them a healthy start to their adult life and that she hoped they would carry on with all the traditions that had been passed to them, and to live honourable lives.  In addition to Baldwin’s wishes, Miss Mawer also gave her own love, good wishes, and not least, her thanks.  Here (below) Miss Mawer is coming to the end of her speech and apologises to the audience for the length of it (again, self-depreciation, a seeming-trait of Miss Mawer):

‘Forgive me if I have kept you too long.  But twenty-one years is a long time.  And you are the heirs of our labours as you have, some of you, been the sharers in them.  We want you to feel that it is a good heritage.  At least we have tried with all our hearts and minds and bodies to make it so.

What Earl Baldwin said on a much greater occasion I say to you with no less sincerity: “We are passing on to you the duty of guarding and safeguarding what is worthy and worth while in our past – our heritage and our tradition, our honour and all our hopes.”  Please take with them our love, our good wishes for all your enterprises, and our many, many thanks.’

21st birthday, Mawer’s speech.  The Link, Oct 1937, p.23