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The Jubilee Committee are having erected, a very fine Memorial Arch in the front of the school grounds in honour of the brave men who have made the great sacrifice. This will be a permanent and fitting way to ever keep before the minds of the scholars their great and glorious past.
During recent, years other improvements have eventuated, with the result that the school property now consists of eight large class-rooms, a large hall, a completely furnished cookery-room, a library containing about 1,000 volumes, a teachers' retiring room, and residences for both head teacher and janitor.
Besides the large amount of money spent by the Board in supplying this accommodation and equipment, hundreds of pounds have been supplied by parents, to whom the various Committees never appealed in vain when the proceeds were for school requisites.
The first School Committee consisted of seven members—viz., Messrs. Alex. Millar (Chairman), Sheddan (secretary and treasurer), Anderson, Ellison, Grey, Laing, D. Miller. They strove in every possible way to do their duty, and their successors reaped the benefit of the extremely creditable foundation they laid. An intelligent foresight and a persistency of effort characterised this and other early Committees who, by deputation after deputation to the Educational authorities, at last got their claims conceded.
It is impossible to place in this record the names of the scores of committeemen who gladly worked for the Kaikorai School during the past fifty years;; but the minutes of past meetings show that parents and pupils are much indebted to Messrs. Millar, Sheddan, Haigh, Lambert, Lister, Sonntag, Taylor, Wales, Dillies, Curle. Tewsley, Callender, Cunningham, Davie, Wright, Begg, Chisholm, Jackson, Wilkinson, Fraser, Carlton, Farley, Duncan. Harlow, Church, Pilkington, Hitchcock, Calder, and Haggitt.
From 1869 to 1878 the energies of members of Committee were greatly taxed in finding money for such purposes as part of the teachers' salaries, books, prizes, improvements of playgrounds; but soirees and dances (tickets 2/6) towards the end of each year generally managed to furnish the cash required. The pioneer Committees also instituted a scheme of school fees. charging—for infants, 5/- a quarter; for pupils to Class TV., 8/- a quarter; and, for those seeking higher work, 10/- a quarter. But when the present Education Act was brought into force in 1878, fees were abolished, and teachers' salaries and allowances to Committees were arranged by Education Boards.