The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1915. HONOUR DESERVED.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 3, 5 January 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1915. HONOUR DESERVED.

The recognition given to education in the New Year Honors list , this year is especially pleasing to New Zealanders, because of the selection of Mr George Hogben, Inspector-General ot Schools, who has been created a Companion of St. Michael and St. George. A man of exceptional ability, Mr Hogben was selected by Commissioners in England to bo mathematical and science master in the Christchurch Boys’ High School, when the school was founded in 1881. He held that post until 1886, in which year he was made Inspector of Schools in North Canterbury under the North Cantetbury Education Board. In 1899 he was appointed headmaster of the Timaru High School, and he had control of that school until 1899, when ho was appointed Inspector-General of Schools and Secretary for Education. This position Mr Hogben has held ever since, and it has been no easy one, for several Education Bills have been dealt with by the legislature, making important changes in the Dominion’s system of education, both as regards administration, and on the purely educational side. No doubt as chief adviser to the Minister, the InspectorGeneral has had much to do with the framing of these Bills, but his work has been undertaken from the commencement with the earnest desire to lift educational affairs in New Zealand out of the rut into which they had fallen. In many of the advances made in our educational system, though he stood for a long time almost alone, I results have proved in the best inter-! ests of education proper. His important services on the Education' Commission in New Zealand some years ago will not he forgotten, and at least one member of that important body, who had joined the Commission with the fixed idea that Mr Hogben was a theorist and faddist in bis educational ideas, freely admitted at the conclusion of the Commission’s work that he

had altogether changed his mind and, had become convinced that the In-spector-General was the best educationalist south of the Line, fins is certainly very high praise, but we be-' lieve it to be deserved. Mr Hoghen is an Englishman and graduated as a 13. A. at Cambridge University in 1877, taking his M.A. in 1881. He has held office in numerous educational and sci-j entitle societies. He was president of the New Zealand Educational Institute in 1886, President of the Canterbvny Philosophical Society in 1887, secletary from 1891 until the present time

oi the Seismological Committee of the Australasian Association, president of the Home Reading Union for several rears, and he is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. He represented New Zealand at the Einyrs F/lucaimn Conference in London in 190.' av the G ‘ernnl ana 1 C(v>:ence jf Sr bool Hygiene. Hr- Inter uP.oi-al Conference on the Teaching of the Deaf, and the International Conference on Moral Education, all in the same year. After- long and honorable service to his Department and the State, Mr Hoghen retires from active service in February, and his place will he taken hy Dr. Anderson, Chief Inspector under the Canterbury Board of Education, h man ably fitted to carry on the fine work of his predecessor,with whom, it is understood, lie is entirely in sympathy.