HONOURABLE DISTINCTION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8358, 19 February 1913, Page 3

HONOURABLE DISTINCTION

.resolution by education coneeeence. Prior to the close of the Inspectors Conference reference was made to the exclusion of educationists in the distribution of Public Service honours. Mr Bakeweli t Wellington} moved: _ "That the comerenoe record its high appreciation of the distinguished services rendered to the cause of education by Mr Petrie, late inspector, of Auckland, and Mr (ioyen. late chief inspector, ot Otago, and trusts that they may long live to enjoy the honourable respose to which they are so justly entitled." The mover said it was not his intention to enlarge on the great work done in the field of education by these men, whose conspicuous abilities and brilliant records had made their names household words from one end of the Dominion to the other. What he did wish to say was tills: That while the work of men in other branches of the Public Service was so liberally acknowledged by award of those honourable distinctions with which it was customary to show appreciation oi devotion to duty and eminent service to the State, the men who laboured in the cause of education were persistently passed over, though the importance of education to the very life itself of the nation was so uni-, versally admitted. Year by year the most distinguished men in the profession were allowed to retire from active service without recognition of the great debl that the country owed them. It was with this view that, with the permiss’on of the conference, he would add to his original motion the following: "And the comerenoe can only express regret that in the distribution of honours so freely bestowed on other branches of the Public Service no recognition appears to be made of the fact that men who have devoted their lives to the discharge of the highest duty and the noblest function of the State have also deserved well tf their country." The motion was agreed to.