APPOINTMENT OF HEADMASTER

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22592, 23 December 1938, Page 8

APPOINTMENT OF HEADMASTER

CATHEDRAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL

MR HERBERT A. H. INSULL APPOINTED

Mr Herbert A. H. Insull was last evening appointed headmaster of the Cathedral Grammar School. The appointment was made by the School Board of Governors, which had before it a big list of applications.

Mr Insull is a member of an old Yorkshire family, which has been closely associated with the Church of England for many generations. He was born in England and came to New Zealand with his parents 28 years ago. He is an old boy of the New Plymouth Boys’ High School and received his academic and professional training at Victoria University College and the Wellington Teachers’ Training College.

Wide Teaching Experience

Mr Insull has had teaching experience in many types of schools and for more than nine years was senior geography master at the Hastings High School. In July of this year he accepted an appointment to the staff of the Christchurch Boys’ High School. . He is a graduate with equivalent honours, holds the university’s diploma in social science, and has partly completed his B.Sc. degree in pure and applied mathematics. He is the author of two textbooks in modern geography, both of which are widely used by leading secondary schools throughout the Dominion.

Besides having gained representative honours at his school and college in athletics, swimming, boxing and football, Mr Insull is an instructor (first-class) of the Royal Life Saving Society and holds certificates in first aid. He is a captain in the New Zealand Defence Forces and is a firm believer in the value of games, drill and school hobbies’ clubs as instruments of education. In an interview, in which he discussed his new appointment, Mr Insull said he was proud to become the headmaster of a school which was one of the oldest in New Zealand. Its traditions were very fine indeed. The school was not only cne of the best equipped schools that he had seen, but its governing body had wisely provided ample scope for its expansion. Its staff, too, was well qualified and efficient.

Association With Cathedral

“In the past the school’s association with the Cathedral has enabled it to play a unique part in the life of this community,” he said. “The contribution that church schools can and do make has never been more urgently desirable or valuable than it is today. A wider and more sincere application of Christian principles of conduct would be a means of solving a great many of the social ills that beset the world of our time. “There are some who say that religious instruction of boys and girls should be carried out only in the home. For my part I appreciate the difficulties that the average parent has in this matter, and I believe that cooperation between parents and a school such as the Cathedral Grammar School is the best way to meet the situation. In fact, any schooling which omits religious instruction must be incomplete and unsatisfying. The Cathedral Grammar School does provide for this all-round development of its boys, and while I am deeply sensible of the responsibilities to be carried, I am happy to t have been appointed its headmaster.”