AT the Caxton Hall, on Monday, 13th December, the Mayor of West- minster (Mi. S. P. B. Bueknill) presided at the presentation of the prizes won in the Competition in the London area (consisting of the schools under the London County Council). The pre- sentations were made by the Duchess of Atholl, M.P., Parliamentary Secre- tary to the Board of Education.

Supporting the Mayor on the plat- form were Sir Godfrey Baring, Bt.

(Chairman of the Committee of Manage- ment), the Hon. George Colville (De- puty-Chairman of the Committee of Management), the Mayoress of West- minster, and Mr. George F. Shee, M.A., Secretary of the Institution.

There were also present representa- tives of the Committee of Management, the London Women's Committee, and the Educabion Committee of the London County Council.After giving particulars of the com- petition, which has now been held six times, the Mayor of Westminster said :— I want to congratulate all the prize-winners, and their schools, on their success, and in particular, Edward Weller, and the Droop Street Boys' School, of Paddington. His was the best of nearly 300 essays sent in byLondon schools, and he has won for his school the honour of holding the Challenge Shield for next year. This is the first time that the Shield has been held by a Paddington school, a fact which will be all the more gratifying to him and to them. We had hoped to have seen the Mayor of Paddington on the plat- form. He was coming to show how proud his borough is that one of its schools should have won this high distinction.

It is an additional and a very high honour that the Shield and the other prizes are to be presented by the Duchess of Atholl, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, who has come at very short notice in the place of Lord Eustace Percy, President of the Board of Education, for which we give her our warmest thanks. We should have been proud had Lord Eustace been able to come, as he is the son of the late Duke of Northumberland who, as President of the Institution, founded this Competition eight years ago. The fact that the President of the Board of Education was to have been here, and that the Duchess of Atholl is actually here, shows the importance of the occasion in the opinion of the Board of Education.

I will not detain you longer, but will say that I am sure everybody must agree that every boy and girl should know something of the work of the Life-boat Service and of the splendid deeds of the Life-boatmen who show, perhaps, the finest example of unselfish endeavour and pluck that this country affords.

(Cheers.) I will now call on Her Grace the Duchess of Atholl to present the prizes.

The Duchess of Atholl.

After presenting the shield and other prizes, the Duchess of Atholl said :— I am very glad indeed to have been able to come here to-night and to have the honour of handing over that beautiful Challenge Shield and those Certificates, but I am only sorry I am here in the place of some one who would more properly have been here, Lord Eustace Percy, son of the late Duke of Northumber- land, who founded the Competition, We must remember what a very big affair this prize-giving is for essays on the Life- boat (Service. No less than 157 schools in the London area entered for the Competition, and it is very nice to find that the prize- winners come from all over the London area, east, west, north and south. But this is, in turn, only part of a much larger competition which extends to Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Over 1500 schools are now taking part in this Competition. That seems to me a very fine figure, and shows a very satisfactory increase on the numbers last year. That increase has affected almost every one of the six areas into which the country is divided. As a matter of fact, there has been a slight drop in the number of London schools. I just throw that out because I am sure you would like to feel that more and more London schools were entering, and perhaps your example • will eneoaiage others to follow it.

The Service to inspire interest in which this Essay Competition has been instituted is, I think, one of the greatest institutions in the country. A Life-boat Service exists to meet the inevitable peril of an island people. With our great coastline we should be very conscious of the danger from the sea, and an organiza- tion that exists to try to meet that danger has the right to be called national. But the wonderful thing about this truly national institution, the Lifeboat Service, is that, unlike other national institutions, such as the Aimy, and the Navy, and many others we could mention, it is supported entirely bj voluntary funds. (Cheers.) It does not receive a penny either from the rates or the taxes.

This is a great country for voluntary associations, and they are something we would do well to be proud of. But there are very few voluntary associations in these days that have made good without having to receive some help either from a State fund or from local funds, and therefore it is a remarkable thing that the Life-boat Service, existing as it does to meet a peril that inevitably has to be met by an island race, and therefore having a great claim upon the nation, yet exists entirely by voluntary support.

No doubt this remarkable fact is accounted for in two -ways. The first reason must be the recognition of the necessity of having Efe-boata all round our coast. The second reason, I ieel fairly sure, has been admiration for the men who man the life-boats. We have many voluntary workers in Great Britain.

(Cheers.) We have a great army of voluntary workers working for many noble ends. In particular there are thousands of voluntary workers, working in different ways to help children—to help invalid children, to help crippled children, to get town children away for country holidays, to look after small children, or to help the elder children, when leaving school, into employment. All these voluntary workers face fatigue and give much service and time. They also certainly have to give up doing many things which they would very much enjoy doing. But when we come to the army of 3000 life-boatmen we find that they are not only ready to give service and time and to face fatigue, but that they are also ready to risk their lives, and they know *well that loss of life or injury is not a remote possibility, but stares them right in the face, when they hear the call to go out to the help of a ship in distress. (Cheers.) Then we have to remember that, like all the other voluntary workers of whom I have spoken, these men have other work to do, many of them working very hard. But they are ready to take on this obligation, to do this service, to face this risk, at any time of day or night, when perhaps they are already tired from their ordinary day's work. Besides these 3000 men who are ready to go to the call in the Life-boat, some 3000 more men, and women too, I am glad to think, are ready to help in launching the Boat.

I am quite certain that all of you who have been studying this subject, and in particular have been studying the qualities necessary to a good Life-boatman, must wonder at his courage. We specially wonder about it in these days because modern civilization has been able to lessen or remove many risks which had to be faced centuries ago, as a part of everyday life. At one time our ancestors went about in mortal fear of wild beasts. We, however, do not have to trouble about them.

We go to the Zoo, where the beasts are behind bars, and we can afford to admire them and enjoy their company. Later on our ancestors were troubled with highway- men, and many parts of London were noted for this danger. There were other dangers, too, which had to be faced. We to-day have the horrors of war to face, but we are free from many of the things -which, in time of peace, made it quite natural that there should be a great deal of physical courage among men.

It was the quality which was first needed in those days, and it was always looked for first in any man. But in these days when life is safer and more comfortable, it is natural that we should wonder whether there is quite the capacity for physical courage in the nation as perhaps there v?as centuries ago, and so we admire it all the more when we find Life-boatmen, and the men in the late War, ready to leave their comfortable homes and those they love, and to go out to do their work in the face of death.

Then, we remember what a wonderful spirit of self-sacrifice they possess in not thinking of themselves at atf. It is not only physical courage that is needed, but also the capacity to feel that somebody is in need of help, and to say, " I am going to try and give that help whatever it coats me." To do that means to throw self aside, and that is one of the very finest qualities that we can find in any human being.

Thirdly, perhaps, you realize that if anybody is to be able to do the very hard work of a Life-boatman he mast have been living a life of self-control, avoiding all self-indulgence and living healthily, simply.

These are, I think, the three qualities that we specially admire in the life-boatmen, though I expect in the course of your studies you have been able to find many more about which 1 would gladly have read had I been given a chance of seeing your essays. But I have heard enough and I have seen enough extracts from them to know that you have realized the great qualities that are necessary in a Life-boatman. I am sure that you also feel what a great work this is, and that ii it is to be continued and developed, everybody in the country must try to realize how great it is and how necessary is a Life-boat Service to out islands. I am also sure, too, that you are glad of this opportunity that has been given you to Jearn a little about the Life-boat Service, and to think a little about the lives of the men who man it. I expect that you are wondering how you can try to acquire those qualities that make us all admire the Life-boatmen so much. If we can but set about helping them, thinking about them and trying to imitate them as far as we can in our Jives, then I think we shall be doing what we shall be very glad to do, something to help this dear country of ours. (Cheers.) Sir Godfrey Baring proposed and Mr. Colville seconded, a vote of thanks to the Duchess of Atholl and the Mayor of Westminster, and after they had responded, the Mayor announced that each "boy and girl on leaving the hall would receive a small Life-boat gift..