UNIVERSITY DEGREE

Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 20

UNIVERSITY DEGREE

AUCKLAND WOMAN RECEIVES HER M.A, MOTHER OF SIX SONS. In the pass list of the University of New Zealand degree examination is the I name of Ethel W. Wilson, who is Mrs A. M. Wilson, of Mount View road, Morningside, Auckland. In these clays the gaining of a degree is becoming almost a matter of course among the younger generation, who, leaving school, go on to the university and study when the brain is fresh and receptive. But Mrs Wilson is a woman who has brought up a family of six sons, the eldest of waoni is thirty years of age and the youngest twenty-one. When her children were “ oft her hands ” she made up her mind to study for a degree, with the result that in May, 1932, she graduated bachelor of arts and gained a diploma in journalism, and this year she succeeded in obtaining her M.A. with honours. Before her marriage Mrs Wilson was a school teacher, first at Matakana and later at Papakura and Newton West. She has always taken a keen interest in public affairs, and was a very active member of the Patriotic Association during the war. She was the first honorary secretary of the Kowhai School Committee. Studying for examinations is not the only thing that absorbs Mrs Wilson. She is very fond of outdoor life, and, being a keen botanist, her seaside residence at Green Bay is embowered in native shrubs and trees, all of which she planted as seedlings which were gathered during many bush rambles. Mrs Wilson is indeed an excellent example of a woman able to make a success of being a wife and mother of a family and yet carve out a career for herself. American women are renowned for their efforts in this line, but so far there are few New Zealanders in whom the desire is urgent enough to make them “ swot ” when it is not imperative that they should.