MR JAMES WALLACE.

Evening Star, Issue 26043, 6 March 1947, Page 6

MR JAMES WALLACE.

“ Otago has shown the way in administration and active work connected with education in New Zealand,” said Mr James Wallace, when lie was re-elected chairman of dihe Otago Education Board in 1946. If that is so then it is on Mr Wallace, whose death last night we announce with regret, that the fullest credit niust be bestowed. A member of the hoard since 1914, and continuously chairman since 1918, Mr Wallace could, without any exaggeration, he termed the presiding genius of education in this province. In the years he held office his unlimited knowledge of education administration was applied with a justice and a fairness that'accorded with the loftiest ideals of public duty. It was the measure of the man’s ability that he held so exacting a position as chairman of the board for so many years. The minute that was presented to him when he had occupied the chair for twenty-five years, a minute recording his “ sterling character, his proven integrity and adherence to principles,” was a deserved tribute paid few men until after their death. But to Mr Wallace honours such as that, and earlier inclusion in the King’s list, were less

than the work to which he had committed himself. Devotion to the requirements of education, in the primary schools and {lie University of Otago, were as part of his life, a dominating passion that led him to surmount the difficulties imposed upon him by deteriorating health, so that to the last his unquenchable spirit fought as hard as ever it had done to maintain the high traditions in Otago education that he himself had done so much to consolidate. He has earned a place in the record of Otago’s few; great, and his passing is a severe loss not only to education, but generally to cultural and religious spheres, where he had a strong influence, less well known than in the realm of education, but no less enthusiastic and earnest.