Tributes Paid To Mr Beeby At Farewell Function

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29067, 2 December 1959, Page 15

Tributes Paid To Mr Beeby At Farewell Function

(New Zeatana Press Association;

i WELLINGTON", December 1. New Zealanders today had an education system which had been especially adopted to suit their needs. It was a very good form of education and what had been achieved was largely the work of the retiring Director of Education (Mr C. E. Beeby), said the Minister of Education (Mr Sko”lund), last night.

Mr Skoglund was speaking at a farewell to Mr Beeby, in Wellington, on his retirement from the position of Director of Education.

The Minister said he had belonged to a body of teachers that in the early forties, had criticised the “new methods of education” but “I say today that, though we cannot say we have a perfect form of education, I believe we have a very good form.”

Mr Beeby had set out to give New Zealand children not an English education, not an American education, but a New Zealand education and the education he had set up suited the New Zealand temperament very well indeed.

The Minister said he had just returned from Australia where he had spent two months and a half seeing primary, secondary, and technical schools.

“I can say without any fear of contradiction that our education here stands very high so far as Australia is concerned,” Mr Skoglund said. “Throughout Australia I met New Zealanders at the universities in top positions.

I want to know what sort of edukn4 . 15 we have in New Zeathr d W ? e £ we can have the top ttree at Duntroon, the top at the College - “d leading authorities m many fields.” • W ™ S the education persons m . New Zealand were inclined to criticise. TJiere was no system in the world better than the system in New Zealand. '

. He did not say it could not be unproved, ‘‘but I do say that Mr Beeby has built an education system in New Zealand on a very, very firm basis and it is one that we and all New Zealanders should be intensely proud of.” said the Minister. Mr Nash’s Tribute In Mr Beeby, New Zealand was sending as an Ambassador to France a man who from his early youth had been one of New Zealand’s most brilliant exponents of imaginative thought, said the Prime Minister (Mr Nash). At the same time Mr Beeby had the ability to convey his thoughts to others and in turn, enable them to convey these ideas to the country’s youth. Mr Nash paid tribute to Mr Beeby’s work for education and his service to U.N.E.S.C.O.

New Zealand was lucky to have held the services of such a man. He had been offered many important posts outside this country.

This was an occasion for great congratulations—a splendid end to one part of a career, said Mr R. M. Algie, M.P., representing the Leader of the -Opposition (Mr Holyoake). Mr Beeby’s appointment to France was richly earned and was one of the highest compliments a government could pay to one of its citizens.