SIR ROBERT STOUT

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1931, Page 3

SIR ROBERT STOUT

UNIVERSITY CHANCELLOR'S TRIBUTE,

AUCKLAND, January 1-i

“We have to mourn the loss of one of the truest friends o’f education New Zealand has known, our former Chancellor, Sir Robert Stout,” said tiie present Chancellor (Professor J. -Macmillan Brown) in the course of his address to the Senate at Auckland to-day. “He was horn and brought up in the environment and atmosphere that were saturated with the love of education and the belief that if there was any panacea for human ills it was education.”

After outlining Sir Robert’s career first as school teacher, then as lawyer and politician who rose to the premiership, the Chancellor con tunica: “But he never abandoned the aims and ideals of his earliest profession. Education be considered the first duty and interest of a community or State; if that were neglected or mistaken tn aims and methods or false in ideals, then there was nothing right, especially in a democracy. Like all the Otago settlers, he had brought, with him the idea tnat a system of education without a university was like, a body without a head ; and as a journalist and politician lie did hi;? best to aid tlio movement in favour, of a university to complete their local system. . . By tiie' early ’seventies of last century the project had taken form in the University of Otago, and Sir Robert took part in it first as student and then gs. teacher.' Sir Robert Stout’s inter work jn the interests of university education in New Zealand were also touched upon J>.v the speaker. 'When he was in the Gray Ministry in 1879 Sir Robert had a large Commission appointed to report on the situation, and mainly hy his persistent energy Victoria College was founded ill ’Wellington towards the end of the last decade of the century. “Whatever form university institutions may take in the future we may be sure that there will always *ie men of the highest educational ideals to manage them, if we are to judge fiy the history of these institutions. They have always had men of the finest char-’ actor and aims fo administer their affairs. We have-just lost a man rtf that stamp, who had much to do.with the founding of pur University institutions and as much tn do with their guidance and development. Sir Robert Stout has left us the memory of a nolde life which it will bo well for the graduates and students of the New Zealand University in the future to cherish. To the las’ll is thoughts were busy with educational ideals and their influence on the destiny of mankind. We feel the world is poorer. for liis departure, so warm-heartee was he, so generous in his enthusiasms, so unfailing a friend to education “The ranks of those who helped him im his altruistic, work for this Univer- ! sity are fast thinning. One of the earl- 1 iest graduates and long a member,of this Senate, Dr. Fitchett,■•■has gone, and; so has another 'rtf -our fellow members, Professor- Scott,. who did so -much for the development -of- education in engineering. /To' see So many of the friends and helpers of our •University ,pa ss in a single year tends to make the heart sink,- were it not that we have no: only faith, but knowledge that our. University with all it-s defects and .limfiations provides such a training for our youth of calibre as will fit them to j ■follow in'the footsteps of the pioneers | of education.”