DR. DIAMOND JENNESS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 163, 23 April 1935, Page 6

DR. DIAMOND JENNESS

DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR. GREETINGS TO ALMA MATER. (Special to the “ Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, April 20. The Senate of the University of NeAV Zealand in January last aAvarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature to Mr Diamond Jenness, M.A., a graduate of Victoria University College, Wellington, Avho is on the staff of the National Museum of Canada, OttaAva.

The executive committee of the Senate, at its meeting in Wellington this Aveek, received the following letter from Dr. Jenness:—

“Will you please conyey to the Senate of the University of New Zealand, and to the Academic Board, my deepest appreciation of its graciousness in awarding me the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Literature. Such an honour from my own country, from the university where I spent four of the happiest years of my life, gives me greater pleasure that I can express. “We who have wandered away from our New Zealand homes feel that we carry a double responsibility, for while Ave owe our best services to the countries that have adopted us, we realise that those services inevitably must reflect credit or discredit on our motherland. Like most men, I live too close to my Avork to be able to appraise its true value, yet I can ask for no higher reAvard than to have it thus recognised and crowned by my oavii university. “I Avish that I could absent myself from Canada long enough to attend the graduation ceremony in May, but that is not possible. May I, hoive\ r er, as a foster-child of V ictoria University College, send her a greeting, and express the joy with Avhich I have folioAved her splendid growth. I can still remember how her first building sloAvly took shape on the ‘Old Clay Patch at Kelburn,’ and I feel an immense pride that in so brief a term o years the infant college lias become one of the great institutions of the Empire/’ The degree awarded Dr. Jenness is the first honorary Doctorate in Literature the University of New Zealand has awarded, and in all the third honorary degree. Honorary Doctorates in Science have previously been awarded Lord Rutherford, of Nelson, director of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, “ New Zealand’s greatest living son, and to the late Dr. Leonai d Cockayne, formerly of Wellington. Dr. Jenness, who is chief of tne division of anthropology, National Museum of Canada, avus both in © lington in 1886. He was educated in Victoria University College, where lie took his M.A. degree with first-class honours in 1908, and at Ballio °‘ ege ] Oxford. He is a fellow of the Roya Society of Canada, and of the Roya Anthropological Institute. He aa research student in ethnology a Papua, for Oxford University in 191112, ethnologist with the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-16, Canadian ethnologist from 1916 to 1925, in Avhich year he Avas appointed to his present position.