The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1930 THE PROGRESS OF LEARNING

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1030, 22 July 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1930 THE PROGRESS OF LEARNING

AXE man in Auckland at least should be happy over his work for v the community. This enviable citizen is the Hon. Sir George Fowlds who, for the better part of his active life, has devoted much time and constructive thought to the cause of education and tiie promotion of the best educational interests. He has the great satisfaction of knowing that none of his eager efforts has been wasted; moreover, he has enjoyed more triumphs of administrative achievement than setbacks and failure. Such knowledge in itself is a great reward for service. For the past ten years Sir George Fowlds has been chairman of the Auckland University College Council, and so keenly has his leadership been appreciated by colleagues that, at the council’s meeting yesterday, it was resolved with congratulatory unanimity to re-elect him president. In addition, the hope was expressed by Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie that the council’s leader would he chief administrator three years hence—the jubilee year of the college. Both the decision and the sentiment associated witli it will be confirmed and echoed by the citizens of Auckland who, with reasonable pride, have seen their university college develop steadily in strength and service within recent years and in spite of many abnormal difficulties.

To mark the passing of the decade the president reviewed the progress of the college in that period, emphasised main features of enterprise, and revealed some of the handicaps that still fetter the council. For example, the college does not enjoy with Dunedin a constant pouring-in of gifts and benefactions from many public-spirited and generous citizens. Of course, it lias not been forgotten entirely by Auckland’s rich men, nor has it been treated too niggardly by the community. But, allowing for the most handsome generosity the University College has experienced from several outstanding individuals, Auckland’s record of financial support for the highest education is comparatively thin. Statistical evidence as to the university’s expansion since the World War need not be reiterated in detail. Let us all take pleasure in observing that, in the number of graduates alone the college has experienced a four-fold increase in ten years. Close on a dozen new chairs has been established firmly and with good J esuits already, and progressive building programmes have been carried out in one direction and planned in another. The State alone has not kept pace with Auckland’s university expansion. True to political character, it lags behind in the proportion of its statutory grants to the college. This weakness ought to he drummed into the heads of the full score of Auckland Provincial Parliamentary representatives. A community with about onethird of the Dominion's population within its borders should not find it too difficult to wrench from politicians its right share of the public money available for higher education. In a naive, almost a pawky, way Sir George Fowlds explained yesterday that the first, the second, and also the third quality required in a university administrator was patience. It is an admirable virtue, but too often political administrators misinterpret its exercise as a desirable softness. The authorities in control of Auckland University College should not be too patient or too soft in their demands. Although the president had ample opportunity to practise just a little boasting, he was content to let the facts of progress speak for themselves, but he indulged the luxury of looking ahead with a long and somewhat wistful vision. Sir George spoke of that “some day when our own, our separate university, will be a prized and well-tended asset of our great City and province.” It is a bit early yet to talk of a separate University broadbased on ready community support and civic love of learning. The rawness of provincial development is such as to compel university administrators to realise that, in existing circumstances, New Zealanders are a practical rather than an intellectual people. Even a university training would not alone increase production, promote self-reliant industry, and improve local and >State government. Men learn in many ways, and some of the best schools in life are not confined within expensive walls. Intellectuality may not always he an asset either in business or in industry. It is now alinpst unknown in politics. The best that the university can do is to go forward valiantly, consolidating here, gaining there, steadily advancing everywhere.

THE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

A FITTING climax to an efficient and conscientious career of civil service has been provided by the appointment of Mr. W. G. Wohlmann, Superintendent of Police at Auckland, to the highest position in the New Zealand Force —that of Police Commissioner. No community partisanship can tinge the congratulations that are to be offered heartily to Mr. Wohlmann, for he is a man of Dominion-wide experience and friendships, both official and private. It has been only an incident in his remarkably varied life as a police officer that his most recent service has been given in Auckland,, and because of the fact that he is known almost equally as well in other New Zealand centres, lie will be fortified in his responsible position by the knowledge that he holds the esteem of the country as a whole. Districts from as far Soutli as Invercargill to the Northern border of the Auckland area have been fields for the new Commissioner’s work in various capacities, and a feature of his record is the rapidity and consistency of his advancement. Few police services offer opportunity for rocket-like careers to even the most brilliant of men, and the New Zealand Force is far from being an exception to the general rule. Nevertheless, Sir. Wohlmann’s rise from a clerkship in Invercargill (appropriately enough, he was horn in the police station oft Southland’s capital) to ultimate seniority proves that the organisation he now controls offers adequate reward to men of outstanding merit; in other words, that every constable carries a Commissioner’s baton in his knapsack. In every centre to which he has been assigned in the past 35 years Sir. Wohlmann is respected for the thoroughness of his "work, the fairness of his methods, and the sterling qualities of his character. It will be these attributes which, of a certainty, will make him an ideal Commissioner of Police, and his scrupulous fairness will temper liis lifelong practice of firm discipline. Members of the Force will be neither irritated nor discouraged by an exercise of official impulsiveness or overbearing autocracy. Beyond an acknowledgment of Mr. Wohlmann’s unique work in Samoa nearly 10 years ago, it is unnecessary to review in detail his varied career. Sufficient it is to say that at all times lie lias been an honest, hard-working officer, keenly appreciative of the duty of the police as individuals, and no less sensitive to the rights of the people. He is to be congratulated sincerely on his reward —one that is a proper acknowledgment of exceptional ability.