DEATH OF PROFESSOR MACMILLAN BROWN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 8

DEATH OF PROFESSOR MACMILLAN BROWN

Sixty Years’ Service For University of N.Z. WIDE RANGE OF INTERESTS Dominion Special Service. Christchurcli, January 18. The death occurred to-day of Professor John Macmillan Brywn, Chancellor of the University of New Zealand. Professor Macmillan Blown was born in .Scotland in 1546. and went to both Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities. At Glasgow he was Induced by Edward Caird to try for a mathematics scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, and although his natural bent was rather toward Classics and English, he won the scholarship. Thai scholarship was worth £7O for three years, and Caird, having decided that his pupil was capable of better things, induced him to enter for a Snell exhibition, worth £l2O a year for five years at Balliol. He went, therefore, to Oxford, and came under the influence of Jowett, the famous Master of Balliol. whom he described as the greatest influence on his left. He met, through Jowett, Matthew Arnold and Swinburne, who were often visitors to the Master. Appointment to Canterbury College. After leaving Balliol he spent a little time on the geological survey of Scotland, and then came to New Zealand as Professor of Classics at Canterbury College on its inceptien in 1874. “That was 60 years ago,” he said, when interviewed by a reporter on May 4 last year, the day before his eightyeighth birthday. “I said at the time that I would be back in Scotland in two or three years, as I had been offered positions as a leader-writer on several London newspapers as weii as positions in Canada, India and Japan. I came to New Zealand thinking that I would be here for three years at most, but I became so enamoured of the enthusiasm of my students and ■growth of my classes that here I am after 60 years, instead of two or three.” “The work of th cchairs of Classics and English, both of which he occupied, was very strenuous, and in his fourth year he was told that he was overworking, and was offered an assistant. He agreed to relinquish the classical side of his work, but to his teaching of English he added that of Political Economy ami History. These years were particularly strenuous ones when he was working 16 to 18 hours a day regularly, getting to his bed at the Christchurch Club at about midnight and rising again for the day's work at 6 o’clock. In 1877 he became a member of the Senate of the University of New Zealand. and has held that position since. He has been Chancellor of the University for the last 14 years. He was a member of the Education Commission of 1878 to 1882, of which one of his greatest works was practically the foundation of the present New Zealand University. He retained his great affection for the institution he did so much to bring into being, and it was with distress that he was forced to give up his teaching in it.

Study of the Pacific. The disability of sight which forced him away from education, brought Professor Macmillan Brown into contact with the peoples of the Pacific, and his keen brain soon began to puzzle with the riddle that these races offered. “My eyes made it necessary to follow the sun so that I could read as much as possible,” he said. “I travelled a lot Jn tlie Pacific, and gradually began to take up the study of tlie peoples of the Pacific. I became, in fact, an anthropologist.” So keenly did lie apply himself to this new study that he amassed a volume of knowledge which ranked him among the experts of the world in this branch of science. Ho proceeded to investigate the Malay Archipelago very thoroughly, and later went to Japan to study the Ainu who were thought to lie tbe indigenous race of Japan. He discovered, however, that there were very definite traces of an even earlier race, taller than tlie Ainu, who were in their turn taller than the Japanese. In- China, he found there were again several separate races, and that throughout history changes in climate in Ccptral Asia were constantly driving new peoples into China. His year in China was 1910, tlie last year of the Emperors, and the country was in a most disturbed state. His books, his lectures to learned societies, and his addresses to less expert audiences made the work of Professor Macmillan Brown on anthropology and ethnology known throughout the world and added materially to the sum of human knowledge. He spent what to most men would have been a complete lifetime in that effort. Trouble Coming. With his intimate knowledge of the Pacific, Professor Macmillan Brown regarded trouble witli Japan as certain. He looked to the future with a candid expression of thankfulness that he would not be here to see the trouble be predicted for tlie whole world. “This is going to be the hardest century the world has ever had,” he said. “It will be troublous because of the isolation caused by tariffs and tlie growth of nationalism. Every nation is wrapping its cloak about it, and that is bound ultimately to lead to wars and disasters. After that there is no saying what will happen. lam not sorry that I shall not live through it.” He saw Japan as the leader of the East, ambitiously seeking the complete mastery of Asia and fighting the Soviets for that mastery. He saw Italy and Germany as two ambitious nations whose Governments would not last. “There is undoubtedly going to be a collapse of civilisation. What will come after is a matter for conjecture,” he said in the interview previously quoted. "The safest thing for the world would be a real alliance between Britain and America. If these two were united in their aims no other nation need be feared. The Americans are a little mistrustful of the British, but an understanding will have to come about, because America needs the help of the maritime British in the coming tussle with the -East.”

Professor Macmillan Brown felt that there was no hope for unity among the world’s nations till the nations riil themselves of tlie vices they are increasingly showing—vices of jealousy, hatred, and mistrust. There

would be no unity till they jot rid of those passions, first in the individual, ami then in the nation.

LONG PUBLIC SERVICE Oldest Practising Lawyer in New Zealand By Telegraph.—Press Association. New Plymouth, January 18. A distinguished record of public service ended to-day with the death of Mr. Robert Clinton Hughes, the last surviving member of the old Taranaki Provincial Council, at the age of 87. He was the oldest practising solicitor in New Zealand, having been admitted to the Bar in 1870. Born at Auckland in 1847. Mr. Hughes came to New Plymouth at an early age, being articled to" a solicitor. As soon as he qualified he set up on his own account. He has practised and lived at New Plymouth ever since. To the last he gave public service to several bodies that always had his stout allegiance. One of these was the Pukekura Park Committee, another the New Plymouth Beautifying Society, and a third the S.P.C.A. The guardianship of the inheritance of nature for future generations was always his especial care. He was one of the prime movers in the acquisition of Pukekura Park for the borough, and occupied a seat, on tlie first board, which lie retained for more thau 50 , years.