Curator's Choice: 1930 School Certificate

From our archive comes a blank New Zealand School Certificate from the 1930s. Listed are all of the possible subjects then available to students. Nearly a quarter of them are technology based subjects suited to young males intending to sign articles for a five year industrial apprenticeship, with a further 20% tailored to the requirements of their eventual spouses to be.

Beyond compulsory English, a further six languages, including Mãori, offered graduation opportunities. Among them were Latin and Ancient Greek, and although the former might still be available in rare instances, by the later 1950s not even Christchurch's more exclusive groves of Academe offered Greek as part of their curriculum for a classical education.

Thus it was that a youthfull Mr CH would cycle down to Miller's Department Store in Tuam Street (currently the City Council offices) every Saturday morning, where Leslie Beaumont Miller (1890-1960) made his top floor staff cafeteria available as a classroom for serious lads hoping to learn sufficient Greek as to be able to enjoy Plato in the original.

Now and Then: Christ's College

More than a century apart, these photographs are views of the south-eastern side of the quadrangle of Christ's College on Rolleston Avenue.

To the Left in the earlier image is the Architect Benjamin Mountfort's 1859 Synod Hall and Library for the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch. Built in the medieval Gothic revival style, it was demolished in 1919. The building's original doorway and portico survive as a gate between the College grounds and the Botanical Gardens.

Archaeology Podcasts

Feedback from our readers indicates a significant level of interest in Archaeology. Here then are our reccomendations for regular podcasts relating to recent develpments in this scientific field. Links open in new windows.

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From Cambridge University via BBC radio comes the Naked Archaeology programme about recent international developments. Web site   RSS audio feed.

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Employing more than 200 archaeologists, Wessex Archaeology produces Archaeocast, a weekly digest of European Archaeology. Web site  RSS news feed   RSS audio feed.

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Each month more than 150,000 readers view the Stone Pages Web guide to European megaliths and other prehistoric sites. Web site   RSS news feed.   RSS audio feed.

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Finally, should one be immune to an overdose of American hyper-vivacity, then the weekly Audio News Digest from Archaeologica might be considered worth a listen. Web site   RSS audio feed.

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About Podcasting:

For those new to podcasting please read the Introduction to Podcasting article.

Halswell: Mount Magdala

An interesting Photographic Essay from the Slack Ninja web site.

An excerpt from the text:

"Mount Magdala was a Catholic institution run by the Good Shepherd Sister’s on the outskirts of Christchurch, near Halswell. It operated from 1888 to 1968, at which time it was taken over by the St John of God Brothers, who ran a boys home. It is interesting to note that both of these groups have paid out compensation to people who claim they were abused while in their care. There is an interesting article about abuse in Magdala institutions www.peterellis.org.nz/church/2003/2003-0503_Press_DirtyLaundry.htm


My dad ran a nearby bakery and would donate each days leftovers to the St John of God boys. Lord knows if the boys ever got the leftovers but at least the dirty old priests didn’t get their hands (or any other parts of their body!) on me! Like many large institutions of the time, Mt Magdala was largely self sufficient, which included running their own farm. There are 5 buildings left, but 4 of them have been given demolition consent. The remaining one, called the granary (a building where grain is stored) is safe for now. It is a long thin building – maybe 6m x 30m..."

Audiobook: Thus Spake Zarathustra

Thus Spake Zarathustra is a 365 megabyte free audio book released today by Librivox.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, using a distinctive German language style and displaying a fondness for aphorism. Nietzsche’s influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism.

Thus Spake Zarathustra is a work composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885. Much of the work deals with ideas such as the “eternal recurrence of the same”, the parable on the “death of God”, and the “prophecy” of the Overman, which were first introduced in The Gay Science. Described by Nietzsche himself as “the deepest ever written”, the book is a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality, featuring as protagonist a fictionalized Zarathustra. A central irony of the text is that the style of the Bible is used by Nietzsche to present ideas of his which fundamentally oppose Judaeo-Christian morality and tradition.

• Gutenberg e-text
• Wikipedia - Friedrich Nietzsche
• Wikipedia - Thus Spake Zarathustra
• LibriVox’s Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None Internet Archive page
• Zip file of the entire book (365MB)
• RSS feed · Subscribe in iTunes · Chapter-a-day

Restored School Re-opened at Waimate

Douglas school was once a centre piece of the small community 17km South-west of Waimate. The school opened with a roll of 20 in 1912, closing in 1951. The old building was donated by Timothy Mehrtens, whose father Martin was a former pupil of the school.

Moved in 2005 by the Lions Group to the grounds of Waimate Museum, the Mayor addressed a crowd in a top hats and coat tails yesterday at the re-opening of the restored School.

The Timaru Herald, Monday, 18 February 2008

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Cultural Evolution and Polynesian Canoes

The process of natural selection can act on human culture as well as on genes, a new study finds. Scientists at Stanford University have shown for the first time that cultural traits affecting survival and reproduction evolve at a different rate than other cultural attributes. Speeded or slowed rates of evolution typically indicate the action of natural selection in analyses of the human genome.

This study of cultural evolution, scheduled to appear Feb. 19, in the online Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, compares the rates of change for structural and decorative Polynesian canoe-design traits.

More at Science Daily 17 February 2008

More at About.com 19 February 2008

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Natural selection and cultural rates of change -- Rogers and Ehrlich, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Deborah S. Rogers and Paul R. Ehrlich

Abstract

It has been claimed that a meaningful theory of cultural evolution is not possible because human beliefs and behaviors do not follow predictable patterns. However, theoretical models of cultural transmission and observations of the development of societies suggest that patterns in cultural evolution do occur. Here, we analyze whether two sets of related cultural traits, one tested against the environment and the other not, evolve at different rates in the same populations. Using functional and symbolic design features for Polynesian canoes, we show that natural selection apparently slows the evolution of functional structures, whereas symbolic designs differentiate more rapidly. This finding indicates that cultural change, like genetic evolution, can follow theoretically derived patterns.

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The Things We Forgot To Remember

From Britain's Open University comes a series of discussions by distinguished academics. Although not specifically pertinent to Canterbury they broach subjects that are relevant to how we perceive and record history. Of ten to twenty minutes duration, they're particularly recommended to the serious scholar.

Transcripts of the discussions are available from the University's Web site.

The Nation and the State

How has the writing of history, especially the scholarly aspect of it, been associated with the nation and the state?

Download the mp3 file

Memory and History

Remembering on a historical scale is a conscious act. In this podcast we look at how commemoration doesn’t just happen, it has to be willed. This often brings us back to stories told that refer to things we have in common, such as the nation and religion.

Download the mp3 file

Historical memories

Why do historians change their view of what's important? Who decides what's important anyway and what do they use as their sources?

Download the mp3 file

Families in history

How does our relationship with our ancestors change our view of history? Can we ever escape from our family and should we want to?

Download the mp3 file

Individuals in history

Is there something about the way we think that changes the way we remember history? When it come to our memory of big events, do our minds play tricks on us?

Download the mp3 file

Communities in history

What are the ways that communities fix and transmit their views of the past? Do communities remodel the past to suit its own interests?

Download the mp3 file

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Canterbury University College 1877-1891

A recently restored photographic sequence showing the architectural development of the former Canterbury College of the University of New Zealand from 1877 to 1891.

Originally a residential area, the 1933 purchase of Llanmaes House (subsequently the Student Union and now the Dux de Lux restaurant), completed the acquisition by the University of the block enclosed by Worcester, Hereford, Montreal Streets and Rolleston Avenue.

The Medieval Gothic Revival buildings have comprised the Christchurch Arts Centre since 1991.

From the top; 1877, 1878, 1882, 1891 & 2007.