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In the context of the populist nature of our modern national education systems, one can hardly believe that there once was a breed of dedicated educators of the innocent young who gave so generously and diligently of their best to bring us up as men of some standing and committed to high values. They judged us neither by our creed nor our colour but preferred, instead to devote themselves to their youthful charges of a very heterogeneous ethnic and socio economic background entirely on the all but forgotten basis of professional duty and personal pride in a good day’s job done. It would be a valuable exercise if something could be done to acknowledge the incomparable contributions of the pioneering teaching staff in some tangible and permanent manner. Even though our boys and girls of today may have no idea of what it was like in those days to have been literally brought up from boyhood to manhood under the unwavering gaze of our “Masters” there is still much merit in having their invaluable and everlasting contributions recorded for posterity.

In recalling the glorious record of HSBM’s seventy five years but we are all undoubtedly very conscious of that proud tradition in the initial years of our nation’s rise to greatness. In all fairness, it must also be said that despite the vastly changed political and socio-economic environment from about the 1970s onwards, the later generation of HSBM products have maintained many of the great records of earlier years. Perhaps this will in some way serve to inspire the new generation to appreciate the value of honouring the past and even once in a in a while, to try and understand the real meaning of being an Old Boy of the HSBM. We are part of the general awakening of interest in the country in recent years for paying greater value to heritage conservation it and consider the preservation of the original wooden school block just past the flag post and School bell at the top of the step. The conservation of HSBM is, after all, a permanent symbol of the rise of this part of Penang from being an unknown rural countryside in the early part of the last century to a bustling high-tech industrial society in which the old school continues to outshine its rivals both academically an in sports.

As the school song goes:

At the high School by the Bukit
Where Mertajam lies her plain
Rears her head the are boys are ready
To face danger, conquer pain

Accomplish or do not begin.

Surely that is as true today as it was then, 75 years ago and will still be in the future!!