Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

conveyed and reflected, tell us something of how a school sees itself and its role. The public reception of these images may also provide measures of a school's significance to society. Pam Barnett's scholarly handling of the symbiotic relationship between learning and art brings the school to life for the uninformed reader, such as myself, and will make old boys· and current students alike realise how lucky they are to have been educated there. The description of the iconography of the Lilley Medal, initiated by Sir Charles LIiiey-a former Premier, founder of the School and Trustee--to honour significant achievement and endowed on I February 1869, seems to me to encapsulate her own perceptions. It was the origin of the Lilley Medal, with its face bearing a simple laurel wreath, encircled by the words, Brisbane Grammar School, and the School motto, Nil Sine Labore, which was henceforth to crown the winner symbolically. The medal, by the classical allusions of its design, came subtly to celebrate the achievement of the scholar and the objectives of the school. Neither the School's crest nor its building feature on the medal. Its design is a celebration of standards, not of place. In an atmosphere like this it is perhaps not surprising that the Latin tablet commemorating the achievements of LIiiey himself is left without a translation. Indeed, what Lilley medalist would have need of onel For this is a book about the pursuit of excellence: • excellence in the building of the Great Hall, in which we are today, with its own sense of Gothic aspiration; • excellence in the commissioning of the stained-glass windows, with which we are surrounded and from which men famous in various fields of endeavour look down, as an early newspaper article put it, 'on our Grammar School boys and invite them to emulate their noble deeds'; • excellence in the formation of the collection of paintings and other works of art; • • and, finally, excellence in the writing and production of the book itself. As I read it and allowed the images of the school that it conveyed to be absorbed into my own mind, I kept thinking of the last line of Tennyson's Ulysses-'To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield'-words which, in a sense, are really an extension of the School's own motto. And now, ladies and gendemen, it gives me great pleasure to proclaim this book, Images ofa School, officially launched. May it spread its messages far and wide. 8 Speech at the Queensland Art Gallery Tenth Anniversary Celebration, 29 June 1992 I would like you all to know that this is the third occasion within two weeks that the Premier, the Hon. Wayne Goss, has visited the Gallery in an official capacity. The first occasion was the opening of the exhibition 'Secret Treasures of Russia' and the 113