Trinity College Newsletter, vol 1 no 29, December 1985

Page 1

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The three new Fellows of the College (L. to R.) Mr. James Guest, Mr. Robert Cripps and Mr. Peter Jones with the Warden, Dr. Evan L. Burge, and Professor Manning Clark at the recent service for the Recognition of Fellows and Commemoration of the Founders and Benefactors.

STIRRING ADDRESS GIVEN BY MANNING CLARK At the recent Service commemorating Founders and Benefactors, Professor Manning Clark presented a stirring and thought-provoking address. He has kindly allowed us to reproduce here the notes which served as the framework for his address. I would like to thank the chapel choir and organist for today's music. As Tolstoy said, great music makes the hearer feel capable of doing what he is not really capable of. I am an historian, so I will begin with a remark by another historian: T. B. Macaulay, in his essay on von Ranke, wrote: "When some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul's ... " So my image is of a traveller from the Old World contemplating from Naughton's Hotel the ruins of Trinity College—the cloisters of Clarke's, the ivied walls, the mullioned windows. He would have no doubt these were the ruins left by people who had believed in transplanting British civilisation to the New World. The founders were men of faith. In 1872 they established Trinity College as a "glorious boarding-house where the residents learned to play billiards". One observer did not know what it rightly was. A retreat? A college? A theological seminary? A home for distressed parsons? Or a home for a caretaker? All that changed when Alexander Leeper was appointed Warden in 1876. Leeper was a graduate of both Trinity College Dublin, and St John's College Oxford. He was the son of a Dublin clergyman and had been second master at Melbourne Grammar School. He and Bishop Moorhouse were men of vision, men who held a faith: the faith to withstand the challenges pf rationalism and unbelief, and of the Kingdom of Nothingness. What they believed in, with Macaulay, was the Protestant religion and British institutions: liberty and the rule of law; tolerance and a higher level of material well-being than in other societies. So they transplanted British religious life and ecclesiastical architecture, British schools and colleges. They were Calvinist in their theology. They believed in the omnipotence of God and the impotence of Man; in the total depravity of Man; that God alone could work great marvels. Yet, paradoxically, they believed in education. They believed that knowledge is virtue, that knowledge is power. They were men of faith and of vision. But, as you will remember from Hymns Ancient and Modern, "Time like an ever-rolling stream Bears all its sons away ... " History has turned the faith of the founders of Trinity into an anachronism. The sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse and the fall of Singapore in 1942 were milestones in the decline and fall of the British. A PUBLICATION OF TRINITYCOLLEGE WITHINTHE UNIVERSITYOFMELBOURNE Registered by Australia Post — Publication No.VBG 4336

The horrors of the First World War—the carnage and the slaughter, the Great Depression, the holocaust of the Jewish people during the Second World War, the massacre at Katyn, the bombing of Dresden, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the purges in the Soviet Union—these have made our situation quite different. It is now difficult to believe either in God's world or in the capacity of human beings for better things, in their desire or their ability to steal fire from Heaven. All those who dreamed great dreams or saw visions now live in Heartbreak House on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Those who once experienced a wild ecstasy listening to the Eroica Symphony or to the trumpets in the last passage of Bach's Gloria now find comfort in the (cont. p.2) melancholy of Satie ...

LATEST PLEDGES TO THE FOUNDATION Initial Goal $1,500,000 $1,400,000 $1,200,000 $1,000,000 $800,000 $600,000 $400,000 $200,000 $100,000

June Dec June Dec June Dec June 1983 1983 1984 1984 1985 1985 1986 At the time of going to press, pledges to the Foundation had reached $1,150,000. The initial goal of $1.5 million is well within reach, and to achieve it WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT. Should you require further information please contact the Chairman, Mr. John Gourlay (602-1666) or the Executive Officer, Miss Angela Mackie (3471044).


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Trinity College Newsletter, vol 1 no 29, December 1985 by Trinity College Collections - Issuu