I was driving past a certain extremely prestigious girl's school this afternoon. Like all such schools they had this mile high banner proclaiming their creed / motto / saying. I'm completely not sure what they meant by it:
"nurturing the daughters of a better age" Is the age they are referring to now? Is in we are living in a better age than before, or is it saying that their parents were of the a better age than now and they are the fortunate daughters? Nurturing is nice. What school wouldn't want that word in their creed. I tried googling it, and got the latin. Yes, all good schools in Asia, ape all good schools in the UK / Europe which have Latin in the mottos if not in their curriculum. "Filiae melioris aevi" I tried to see if it was a question of some latin scholar translating backwards, or an actual saying in latin which had been adopted. After 4 pages of 2170 search results only ever referred to the school in question and it's illustrious old girls network, I am tempted to assume the latter. (Please, I didn't have the luxury of a Latin eduction, so correct me if I'm wrong and it's actually a really famous quote from someone significant who was saying something important and profound).
My googles did take me in interesting paths though. Like the link to the history of South East Asian girl's education. It's very worth while taking a read though this. Just so we remember that girls were put in schools not for high ideals but to keep them off the street and prevent them from being degenerates. The most interesting aspect of the research is something that I've experienced personally living in HK - that the new arrivals from China were significantly more liberal and emancipated and filled with ideas than the incumbents of the society they were entering into.
Of course I'm not the only blogger who has noticed this. Here Gurmit the blog notices one which says "Dare to Dream" and comments on how "un" Singaporean it is. My own alma mater high school had the motto "to thine own self be true" (Sibi fidelis ipsi - yes, the year I started was the year they stopped giving Latin). Of course wikipedia has the uber list of great mottos.
I'm wondering what the motto of our household would be. Certainly in the top list of things that I repeat to the kids day in and day out the following few feature highly:
1. Life is long
2. To be kind is better than to be clever
3. Greed or fear or ignorance. It's always one of them (to explain human behavior).
"nurturing the daughters of a better age" Is the age they are referring to now? Is in we are living in a better age than before, or is it saying that their parents were of the a better age than now and they are the fortunate daughters? Nurturing is nice. What school wouldn't want that word in their creed. I tried googling it, and got the latin. Yes, all good schools in Asia, ape all good schools in the UK / Europe which have Latin in the mottos if not in their curriculum. "Filiae melioris aevi" I tried to see if it was a question of some latin scholar translating backwards, or an actual saying in latin which had been adopted. After 4 pages of 2170 search results only ever referred to the school in question and it's illustrious old girls network, I am tempted to assume the latter. (Please, I didn't have the luxury of a Latin eduction, so correct me if I'm wrong and it's actually a really famous quote from someone significant who was saying something important and profound).
My googles did take me in interesting paths though. Like the link to the history of South East Asian girl's education. It's very worth while taking a read though this. Just so we remember that girls were put in schools not for high ideals but to keep them off the street and prevent them from being degenerates. The most interesting aspect of the research is something that I've experienced personally living in HK - that the new arrivals from China were significantly more liberal and emancipated and filled with ideas than the incumbents of the society they were entering into.
Of course I'm not the only blogger who has noticed this. Here Gurmit the blog notices one which says "Dare to Dream" and comments on how "un" Singaporean it is. My own alma mater high school had the motto "to thine own self be true" (Sibi fidelis ipsi - yes, the year I started was the year they stopped giving Latin). Of course wikipedia has the uber list of great mottos.
I'm wondering what the motto of our household would be. Certainly in the top list of things that I repeat to the kids day in and day out the following few feature highly:
1. Life is long
2. To be kind is better than to be clever
3. Greed or fear or ignorance. It's always one of them (to explain human behavior).
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