If we can digress for a moment, “Athenaeum” is a name usually given to scholarly periodicals and compilations. Just how scholarly the year book was and is remains debatable! But, for better or for worse, the name has stuck and “Athenaeum” has become the pride of the Secondary School.
To continue, the word “Athenaeum” is itself derived from the ancient Greek goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom and the protector of the city of Athens, birthplace of democracy and the western tradition of philosophy. Naturally, the citizens of Athens were known as Athenaeans. Under the watchful eyes of the statue of Athena on the ancient Acropolis, such luminaries as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle laid the foundations of modern political thought and debated the source of society’s ethics and morality.
Another famous statue of the goddess, known as Athena Nike, the Goddess of Winged Victory, now resides in the Louvre, Paris. As anyone with a pair of shoes from the company of the same name will tell you, “Nike” means victory in Greek. That’s a meaning we like very much when applied to the alumni association.
The animal most closely associated with Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, was the owl and it is from this tradition that western folklore claims owls are wise. With this in mind, an owl as the logo for the alumni society seems quite appropriate. We hope you agree.
So be proud to be Athenaeans, ex-pupils of Sri Kuala Lumpur School who share the ideals of those ancient Athenaeans, philosophers, artists, mathematicians, doctors, orators, engineers, craftsmen, architects, soldiers, poets, play-writes, seekers of the truth and dreamers of a better society for all.
