TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16402, 23 December 1918, Page 7

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

DOMINION SUPERINTENDENT APPOINTED. The announcement was made on Saturday that Mr W. S. La Trobe, who for the past fourteen years has been Director of the Wellington Technical College, has received the appointment o.f Superintendent of Teciinical Education for the Dominion, at a salary of £700 per annum.

Mr La Trobe, whose father, now a resident of Takapuna, Auckland, was one of the Auckland settlers, was born at Ngaroto, in the Waikato, 48 years ago, and received bis education at tho Paterangi School, Auckland Grammar School, Atickland Training College, and Cambridge University. He spent ten years in the Old Country, and for eight years of that period was lecturing and teaching in the engineering school at Cambridge University under Professor J. A. Ewing (now Sir James Ewing, present President of Edinburgh University). Mr La Trobe's tutor at St. John's College, Cambridge, was Dr. (now Sir) Donald Macalister, who is the present President of Glasgow University. While ho was in Auckland, Mr La Trobe took hifi M.A. degree with Honours in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics, and when he went to Cambridge he took the Mechanical Science Tripos (First-class Honours in Parts 1 and 2), and gained his M.A. degree thero. During tho time he was at Home he was appointed to take charge of the Technical College in Wellington, a position which he has filled with conspicuous ability. His many friends will be very gratified to hear that tho authorities nave recognised his oxcellent record in connexion with technical education.

Dr. Anderson (Director of Education) told a Wellington "Post" reporter that one of Mr La Trobe's first duties, in consultation with the Director of Education. would be the consideration of tho whole basis of the maintenance of technical schools, with tho object of arriving at some principle of ready application which would secure at least equally efficient control, and would much diminish the amount of clerical work that was now unavoidable in the technical sqhuols themselves and in the Department's offices. Unc'er tho Director of Education Mr La Trobe will have charge of the general administration of tho technical education work of the Department, and will be also practically chief inspector of technical schools Dr. Anderson spoke highly of Mr La Trobe's broad and deep knowledge of technical education from the viewpoints of the schools and the country's industries. The superintendent should be able to give valuable advice to tho Repatriation Board and other organisations on the use of technical schools for the training of returned soldiers.