Professor Macmillan Brown

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21376, 19 January 1935, Page 14

Professor Macmillan Brown

We announce litis morning the death of Professor J. Macmillan Brown, Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, and do so with a regret which will be widely and deeply felt. In Canterbury, the home of his long and faithful adoption and the scene of his most remarkable labours; throughout New Zealand, among whose intellectual leaders he moved from eminence in youth and maturity to the status of a pre-eminent veteran, marvellous for a power constantly renewed; far and near about the world, there are old pupils, there are those to a living memory has been I transmitted, there are scientific and literary colleagues, all of whom will hear with no facile, passing 1 emotion that this full and influential life has closed. There directed it such a force of mind and character as would have carried him to distinction along any path. He has himself described the chances that varied his early studies and appeared likely to launch him upon a career very different and far away from an academic one in New Zealand; and nobody who knew him will doubt that, if geology Had claimed him—or, for that matter, philosophy or " rhetoric " —the world would have heard of him. In point of fact, he came to Canterbury College 60 years ago, to profess n:>t only English literature but classics and history; and this triple burden was too much for his shoulders only. Relieved of the second and third, he made the Chair of English at the college the source of an inspiration, not merely to the pleasures of literary study, but to that ardour in the arduous which marks the scholar and rewards him with mastery. And when, after more than 20 years, illhealth compelled him to retire it was not long before he advanced to find a new reputation in the fields of anthropology and ethnology. It was

characteristic of him that he himself discovered the cause of his illness, and characteristic, also, that he devised and followed a system of life which gave him security against it and, at the same time, forwarded his researches. Professor Macmillan Brown's life is at many points like an application of the Parable of the Talents: it was his genius to make the utmost use of his endowments, and, such was his adaptability, to turn even handicaps and disadvantage to account. At this period, again, his extensive travels fed his keen interest in political and economic forces and their resultants, and produced many of those vigorous articles, which, with others purely literary, it was the privilege of "The "Press" to publish. At no time, however, did his direct connexion with the University of New Zealand cease; for he retained his seat on the Senate, and when he succeeded Sir Robert Stout as Chancellor it was to exhibit again the administrative ability which had made him more than a professor at Canterbuiy College—an oz-ganiser and a builder of its strength as an institution of learning and public service. The nature of his influence upon University policy, during these years, it was easiest for the public to deduce from his addresses, the last of which was read to the Senate by the Vice-Chancellor the day before his death. He never hesitated to make these addresses occasions to develop his conception of the relation between higher education and the practical way of life. Realist and idealist were perfectly adjusted and harmonised in him; and he returned often to the indispensable virtues of struggle and competition within the academic shelter. Elsewhere to-day we print tributes from a number of Professor Macmillan Brown's associates and admirers; and we shall encroach on their substance little further. It is enough to add that Canterbury was' fortunate in receiving the young man within the new walls of its university college, and was still more fortunate in his preferring to remain within them and to help magnificently to create within them their tradition. It has been fortunate, finally, in the length f days during which he survived to watch and advise and still, by his example, to guide and inspire the life of the liberal scholar.