BOARD OF EDUCATION.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 154, 1 December 1874, Page 2

BOARD OF EDUCATION.

Monday, November 30. The Board met at the usual hour. Present: Mesßsrs C. C. Bowen (chairman), Inglis, J. N. Tosswill, W. Montgomery. NORMAL SCHOOL. It was resolved that the Government should be requested to send home at once for a master for the Normal School, which was now being rapidly erected. The following resolution was agreed to: —" That the Government be requested to take steps to procure a competent Head Master for the Normal School, at a salary of £6OO per annum, with allowances." ANNUAL REPOKT. The draft of the annual report of the Board for the past year was brought up, read and approved, and the secretary was instructed, to forward, the same to the Superintendent. RESIGNATION OP THE CHAIRMAN. The Chairman said that, as he had intimated at the last meeting, he had forwarded his resignation of his seat as a member of the Board to the Superintendent. Mr Montgomery said that, looking to the very great interest taken in the cause of education in the province by Mr Bowen, and the able and efficient manner in which he had discharged the duties of chairman, he considered it to be the duty of the Board to place upon record their high appreciation of the valuable services rendered by Mr Bowen to the province as connected with education. Not alone in the many public offices which he had filled would his loss be sererely felt by the province, but more especially at that Board; and he felt sure that all the members would agree with him when he said that they would miss Mr Bowen very much. He regretted that all the members of the Board were not present on that occasion, but he knew he was expressing their feelings in the resolution which he was about to propose. In the higher sphere to which he was about to remove Mr Bowen would be enabled to do as good service for the colony at large as he had done for the province, and this in some degree lessened the regret they felt at losing the services of so valuable and energetic a member from amongst them. The resolution he had to propose was as follows: "The members of the Board of Education desire to convey to Mr Bowen, and to place on record, their high appreciation of the valuable services which that gentleman has rendered to the cause of education while he has been a member of the Board." He trusted that in the more extended field of public usefulness upon which Mr Bowen was so soon to enter, he would not forget them, but that he would in that more exalted sphere help forward as faT as was possible the cause of education in Canterbury, which both he and they had so much at heart. Mr Tosswill seconded the resolution with great pleasure. He felt with Mr Montgomery that in losing Mr Bowen the cause of education in this province lost a most energetic and earnest worker, and they as a Board had more especial reason to regret that he was going from amongst them. Mr Inglis said that as a member of the Board he fully endorsed all that had been said regarding the loss the Board and the province would sustain in the removal of Mr Bowen. He felt that in losing that gentleman they lost a most valuable man, both as chairman of the Board and a worker in the cause of education. Mr Bowen said that one of the things that caused him deep regret at leaving Canterbury temporarily was the giving up the part he had taken with the gentlemen of the Board in the cause of education. He had never taken part in anything which had given him greater pleasure, because there had been so much cordiality and unanimity in the carrying on of the work, that it had really been a labor of love. So far as he could, he assured them that he would always be ready to take a part in the work of education—a work in which he should always feel the deepest interest, alike as regarded the colony generally, and the province of Canterbury in particular. He could not leave the chair without again expressing his sense of the cordiality and unanimity with which all had worked together, and thanking them for the courtesy and good feeling which had always characterised their intercourse. The engagements of his new office would prevent him again from taking his seat at the Board, but he assured them that he should not forget his connection with the cause of education in Canterbury. Mr Bowen then left the chair, which, upon the motion of Mr Inglis, was taken by Mr W. Montgomery. After the reading of various letters from the chairmen of different school committees, the Board adjourned.