Sir James Darling’s Acknowledgement Of The ‘Paramount’ Need To Solve The Human Condition

 

In the following essay the most eminent Sir James Darling, a very great Australian, former headmaster of Geelong Grammar School and a former ABC Chairman, acknowledges the all-but-denied existence of the WTM’s area of inquiry into the human condition, and emphasises its critical importance to the human race.

 

Sir James Darling was headmaster of Geelong Grammar School (GGS) for 30 years until 1961, the school that a number of WTM members attended, including WTM founding directors, Jeremy Griffith, his brother Simon Griffith, Tim Macartney-Snape AM OAM and Christopher Stephen. During the years 1961 to 1967, Sir James Darling was chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (as today’s Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC, was then known). Before that, from 1955, he was a member of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board.

 

Sir James was knighted in 1968 for ‘his services to education and broadcasting’ and in Australia’s bicentennial year, 1988, he was officially designated one of 200 ‘Great Australians’. Of the 200—22 then living—Sir James was the only headmaster, public recognition thereby being given to his exceptional, indeed unique, influence in Australia as an educator. In fact by the end of Darling’s tenure, GGS had become one of the most highly regarded schools in the world. The current heir to the English throne, Prince Charles, was sent there from England for part of his education.

 

The following is a link to an astonishing essay by Jeremy Griffith which is based on Sir James’ writings and speeches and shows that his life was specifically dedicated to cultivating the initiative of addressing the all-important task—Sir James referred to it as the ‘paramount purpose’—of solving the human condition: <www.humancondition.com/darling>.

 

Read Sir James Darling’s 3 November 1995 The Australian newspaper full-page obituary which described Sir James as ‘a prophet in the true biblical sense’ at <www.humancondition.com/darling-obituary>.