Epilogue

As we look back over the past 100 years it is natural that we should think of some of the shortcomings and some of the failures which the school has turned out in the past. The system of recalling boys to the school, and the daily press, ensures that we do not forget. But let us also remember that all schools have their disappointments and failures. In writing of the old Westminsters, J.D. Carleton states: - "Great libraries would not hold all the books that they have written, and calendars could be filled with their crimes. The last remark is true no less than the first." *

The successes of our school have been less spectacular and receive very little publicity, but they have been very great and more than justify the tribute which was paid to Revd. G.M Yorke in the "Birmingham Daily Mail":-

"Birmingham owes something to a clergyman who keeps his church in such admirable condition as S.Philips. It owes something, too, to the gentleman who founded Gem Street Industrial School - a work of practical Christianity, better possibly, in its ultimate results, than a good many sermons." **

The school has undergone great changes during the past hundred years, and perhaps even greater developments lie ahead, for the experimental outlook which is encouraged to-day ensures an absence of that self-satisfied complacency which, by subordinating the past to the present, fondly imagines that we have reached finality.

Whatever lies ahead, may Tennal School continue to live up to its motto :-

"VINCE MALUM BONO !"



* Page 152, J.D. Carleton - Westminster.
** Page 133, Pulpit Photographs - cuttings from "The Birmingham Daily Mail," 1871/2