Great Scot September 2018 Gt Scot_154_September_online | Page 6

Principal
Mr Tom Batty – School Principal
General Sir John Monash
GCMG KCB VD
He is entwined with our story, our rituals and our values.
MR TOM BATTY
SCHOOL PRINCIPAL
BELOW: BUST OF
SIR JOHN MONASH,
DISPLAYED IN THE
RANDALL BUILDING
FOYER.
6
Soon after my appointment to Scotch, while on one
of our prized five minute inter-class coffee decamps to
Eton’s School Library, my great friend and mentor, Dr
Colin Basey, announced his opinion that the school I
would be shortly joining as Principal had produced one
of the two greatest Allied generals of the First World
War. I had heard of both Monash and Ferdinand
Foch (Dr Basey’s other choice), but my knowledge of
the First World War wasn’t that of my friend. Over
subsequent Library sojourns, I was to learn of Monash’s
transformational role in the battles of Hamel, Amiens,
Mont St. Quentin and the St. Quentin Canal (also
known as the Battle of the Hindenburg Line).
These treasured moments came to me with some
force earlier this year. One of the quirky Scotch rites of
passage is Medieval History Day for Year 8 historians.
Two chaps come to the School and entertain (and
educate) the boys on the Main Oval. One, dressed in
armour and equipped with wooden sword, challenges
the boys to combat; the other instructs them in archery.
Walking past the visiting swordsman (who had again
emerged unscathed from his various duels), I overheard
him informing the boys that in medieval times, anyone
could be knighted on the battlefield. If the King felt
a person worthy of such honour, he would lay sword
to his shoulders and raise him to knightly service. I
paused, went over to the group and asked if they knew
who the last person was to be so knighted by the King
on the field of battle. I confess to taking a degree of
pleasure in informing them that it was one of their
own, a boy from Scotch, who, for his vision, bravery,
intellect and compassion for his fellow man, was
knighted on 12 th August, 1918, by King George V on
the battlefields of northern France.
Monash’s contributions to his country as soldier,
engineer, administrator and statesman are well
documented. We, at Scotch, also know his significance
in affirming and further embedding the principles
and values of our School. Across from my study chair,
towards the French windows looking out over Old
Scotch Square, sits a bronze bust of Monash. It is so
angled to direct the great man’s gaze steadily upon me.
It is important for a school to have values bigger than
itself, and it is important that such principles have a
narrative through which they can be told and passed
Great Scot Number 154 – September 2018
on generation to generation. Whether such things
are important elsewhere is for others to decide, but at
Scotch they are intrinsic to our being, and have form in
the life of General Sir John Monash (1881).
On a number of occasions, I have noted my view
that the spaces in which we engage have significant
impact on the outcomes of our collaborations; of
Aristotle’s inclusion of the Agora as one of his classical
influences of negotiation. It is my view that when we
interact, we leave something of ourselves in the lives
of each other and, perhaps, this resonates from the
spaces around us. In addition to watching over the
ninth Principal of his School, Monash’s presence hangs
large amidst boys and staff in Memorial Hall. He is
entwined with our story, our rituals and our values.
Two recent engagements brought Monash’s legacy
as engineer, administrator and statesman to the fore of
my thinking. The first of these was a conversation with
our School Captain of 2017, Michel Nehme. Miche,
with customary eloquence and conviction, opined
that to understand China’s strategy for influence, one
must keep in mind that its leadership is dominated
by engineers. Miche’s view, as I took it, was that, as
engineers, China’s leaders assess the complexity of the
current internal and world situations, plan for the long
term and get things done.
A few weeks later, in an article in The Independent,
Professor Brian Cox, arguably Britain’s most celebrated
particle physicist, put his view that Britain needed
scientific minds to tackle an issue as complex as Brexit,
because, caught amidst personal ambition and ideology,
politicians ‘can’t think clearly’. He went on to express
his concern regarding what he viewed as an emerging
divide between those who care about evidence and
reasoning, and those who are happy to abandon them
altogether. Professor Cox gave his view that scientific
thinking is the opposite to thinking ideologically, and
that whilst in politics, rhetoric can usually get you
through, current issues, such as Brexit, fall much more
into the fold of scientific problems.
Monash certainly demonstrated the power of
rational thought, of Aristotle’s Logos, in getting things
done. It is interesting to question whether the growing
complexity of a world driven to a rhythm set by the
instantaneous and ubiquitous flow of information