AP

ON LEAVING SCOTCH COLLEGE

In 1960s Melbourne, my parents gave me the enormous privilege of attending a private school. Moving from a local state school in Grade Five, it was awe-inspiring to walk through those gates for the first time and begin what became a nine-year, life-shaping journey. Childhood memories linger, don’t they? And they carry surprising strength.

What I didn’t expect was a complete reorientation of my week. Saturday quickly became my favourite day. It was compulsory Saturday sport – and how I loved visiting the Associated Public School (APS) family. Each campus felt like its own miniature civilisation, and each left its mark on my imagination.

Xavier was impossible to miss – that heavenly dome rising above Barkers Road like a Melbourne annex of Vatican City – lifting one’s thoughts upward. Of course, I soon learnt that there was nothing particularly angelic about the behaviour of Catholic boys. Thugs on the footy field, Jesuit-trained or not, are all the same.

Melbourne Grammar, by contrast, with its austere bluestone towers, felt like an academic Alcatraz brooding over St Kilda Road. I was convinced the temperature dropped a few degrees the moment you crossed its gates – as though it generated its own weather system.

Then came the meandering bus trips down the old Geelong highway. If you were in the left-hand window seat, just past the petroleum works, you could glimpse a romantic slice of an English boarding school shimmering above the tree line: Geelong Grammar. It was hard to concentrate on cricket in a school that seemed to have been gently uplifted from England and set down beside Corio Bay.

Wesley offered its own story – with its architectural bravado in an almost nauseating yellow – while Haileybury felt positively nomadic with its wide-open spaces and experimental forms way out there on the southeastern fringe.

But then … there was Scotch College – offering a gentle comfort by all its soft red brick, its green serenity, and its buildings that seem to speak quietly to one another – all nestled seamlessly by the Yarra River. An architect friend once described it to me as “a quiet autumn afternoon translated into architecture.”

As I stand here tonight, concluding 23 years of service on the Council of Scotch College, I do so with deep gratitude. Thank you for welcoming this old Carey Grammarian into your hallowed fold — into a community where beauty, purpose, and tradition converge in the great enterprise of educating boys. It has been one of the great privileges of my life.

I confess that when the Presbyterian Church approached me in 2002 to join the Council, my knowledge of Scotch College was … sparse. What I did know was vivid: flour-bomb jostling along the Barwon at Head of the River, frayed tempers at Olympic Park, and blood spilt on the Main Oval in hard but fair contests. That was about it.

So, what began as distant rivalry has become deep affection. Scotch opened its gates to me not merely as an institution but as a living community – anchored in Christian faith, enriched by tradition, courageous in vision.

I have witnessed first-hand the calibre of education that sets Scotch apart – pedagogically second to none, and shaped by the clarity of its Christian foundation.

Our founding father, the Rev James Forbes, believed that the highest education for the boys of this young colony would be found only by looking to Christ and grounding their learning in the Christian faith.

Forbes wrote: “the great end of all Christian education is not merely the furnishing of the mind, but the forming of the heart.” He knew that academic knowledge is incomplete unless joined to the knowledge of God – as revealed in Jesus Christ. Education detached from Christ becomes thin; education rooted in Christ becomes life-giving.

This year, with our strategic plan, we rightly highlight Scotch’s three values: respect, responsibility, and reverence. These are noble, beautiful, and deserving of celebration.

But may I offer a plea, born of more than two decades walking alongside you: values detached from their origin inevitably hollow out. Pulled from their source, even the finest values become merely admirable slogans – truisms that the culture of the day can shape into whatever it prefers at the time.

Respect, responsibility, and reverence are not inventions of Scotch College. They arise directly from our Christian foundation; they take their richest meaning from the Scriptures and from the life of Jesus Christ. He embodies them, shapes them, defines them. Yet at times here at Scotch, we hesitate to say so. Why is this?

You only have to read the Gospel accounts of the life of Christ to verify what I’m saying: as He healed the sick, showed compassion for the lost, taught God’s truth … it’s Jesus Christ who embodies respect, responsibility and reverence, it’s Jesus Christ who shapes them, and defines them. So, why is it that at times we are embarrassed to emphasise this, preferring to speak of morality and values as if they are entities of their own? I don’t get it!

When we isolate the values from Christ, they will be diminished – and the school will drift. Many once-Christian schools in Melbourne have severed their roots, with a form of pride or self-confidence that their values will survive on sentiment alone. They have not. They will not.

Let’s think sideways for a moment: consider Aristotle. He was, for the most part, a good man, and his virtues – courage, temperance, prudence, justice – remain admirable. They didn’t emerge because he embodied them or lived by them, but from his rational thought. Aristotelian values stand on reason alone, not revelation. They are noble … but not sacred; admirable … but not anchored. Only a clear foundation – in Scripture and in Christ – provides moral ballast for a school like ours to survive.

By not setting before our boys the One who embodies these values … we’re asking them to imitate principles with no power to sustain them. And then … any good man might become our model.

But Scotch was built on more than good men. It was built on Jesus Christ. And it will flourish only as it continues to look to Him. He only is the One who embodies virtue perfectly. He only is the One to turn to in faith: for new birth … for a new start … for eternal life.

Having allowed me to issue my plea, now, let me reflect briefly on my journey with you. I have had the honour of serving alongside five remarkable Chairmen of Council:

• Michael Robinson AO, with his commanding, almost maverick leadership – one of the last of the old-style, and bold, champions-of-industry, lifting Council’s vision to greater heights.
• David Crawford AO, with a tightly reined, no-nonsense style – often, it was “my way or the highway” – and whose most significant achievement may have been securing a young Master from Eton.
• David Kemp AC, politically astute, purposeful, and always strategic – walking in the footsteps of Rev James Forbes, quoting him with wit and wisdom at every turn.
• Alex Sloan, a gentlemanly and steadying presence, loyal to the core, who guided Council with grace and helped secure our current Principal when we needed him most.
• And now there’s Hamish Tadgell, still writing his legacy, whose brilliance, vigour, and discernment have ushered in a season of clarity, energy, and unity – and whose dedication has endeared him to us all.

Serving as Deputy Chair to four of these men has stretched, challenged, and enriched me.

I’ve also served under three exceptional Principals:

• Dr Gordon Donaldson AM, our distinguished Irishman – steady, wise, loyal: a man of integrity.
• Tom Batty, our man from Eton – a force of pedagogical brilliance and vigour: a man of energy.
• And Dr Scott Marsh, proving that Sydney can indeed produce brilliance, compassion, and integrity, and who is still writing his legacy by his deeds, borrowing a school motto from Mont Albert Road:  spectemur agendo … “by our deeds may we be known.”

As an addendum: having enjoyed serving alongside these three great men, I also wish I’d known Principal Littlejohn – I’m inspired by his legacy. During the 1920s, he was regarded not only as a scholar himself, but an inspiration to a generation of Scotch students, a friend and support to fellow headmasters around the country, and as one of the greatest of educational leaders in Australia.

Dr William Still Littlejohn, Principal of Scotch from 1904-1933 said: “The Scotch boy must leave our gates not just trained for university, but prepared for life – ready to serve God, his country, and his fellow man.” Council members, as directors of this great school – that continues to be your role … to do all in your station that enables Scotch and her staff to prepare the boy for life – ready to serve God, his country, and his fellow man.

As I conclude this chapter of my life, I reflect not only on Scotch, but on how Scotch has changed me. I arrived with blood that ran black, blue, and gold, and that was life-shaping, and good. But somehow along the way of life’s journey, there’s been something like a radical blood transfusion. It now runs cardinal, gold, and blue – which are not merely the colours of a school, but the colours of a calling. It’s all part of the cardinal thread that binds.

I’ll be following you “with a keen but loving eye”.

Once more I say: thank you for the privilege of serving you for nearly a quarter century. May Almighty God continue to bless Scotch College, now and always.

– Rev Dr John P Wilson

(November 2025)