Motto and School Song
The school motto, Consule Cunctis, was adopted in 1925, and whilst originally translated as "Do thou take thought for the good of all men", is now taken to mean "take thought for everyone". Originally, the school song was "Forty Years On", the school song for Harrow School, but in 1926 two friends of the Headmaster wrote a new song, also called "Consule Cunctis". "Forty Years On" continued to be sung along with the new song at important dates in the school calendar, such as Speech Day, until the late Forties. To reflect the ever increasing numbers and diversity of the school, and particularly the inclusion of female students within the sixth form, the words have changed, in theory at least, from "four hundred fellows" to "one thousand students".
Read more about this topic: Gravesend Grammar School
Famous quotes containing the words motto, school and/or song:
“Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light which it is destined to receive thence.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“Do you hear the wind? It’s not dying,
It’s singing, weaving a song about the president saluting the trust,
The past in each of us....”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)