VETERAN PROFESSOR

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11423, 20 January 1923, Page 9

VETERAN PROFESSOR

DEATH OF G. 8, 6 ALB. FIRST CLASSICAL CHAIR IN'NY. faring hU annual report to tbe senate of, tho New Zealand .University, Sir Robert Stout, tiie chancellor, stated:— "The sad intelligence of the death of the first Professor of Classics in New Zealand—Professor G. 8. .GUa—reached us at tho dose ot the year. Et vu appointed in 1870, and entered on Us duties in July, 7871. He had leached th« great age of 91 years whan ho pawed away. He was bom at Rugby in IBSL. ffis academio career was a distinguished one; he was a student at Trinity College and had aa his eontemporaries as brilliant a set of 'allow students as ever entered the Cbllege at one time. He took in 1854 first-plane honours in classics and nanrmd nlaag honours in mathematics. His collage two later elected him to 8 Fellowriup, and in another two years appointed bins lecturer in classics. His health failed him and he resolved to come to Mew Zealand ,»nd as a pioneer of Canterbury he,-in 1861. entered another university—' what an American writer has called the university of *hard knocks.’ In these early darn—fox tire Canterbury settlement was only about ten years' old whan he landed —he followed mgpy avocations; he was the first editor of the "Press,** of Christchurch, and he went to the diggings, having a claim, with other university men, at the Blue Spar. In MB he was appointed Government Agent and Commissioner at Hokitika. We nest find him- in London studying for the bar; ‘he relinquished that stud? wham he accepted the position as first pwfes 1 sor of classics in the Otago Univcsaitj.' He was a man of deer mud and strung character, most honourable in ell his' doings, with high ideals -of life. Am a teacher he glossed over no mistakes, nor carelessness in work. His students respoctod him, and those _ that had the fortune to become his friend never loot his friendship. He wae the moot intimate friend of most of the best early settlers, and they revered him. Pioneers like James Edward Fitzgerald. William Rolleston, Mr Justice Williams and others were his closest friends. "He went hack to the Mother Country to London is 1908, and was present—stopping in Ms old College of Trinity—at the Darwin Centenary celebrations In Cambridge in 1900. Though he was unable to move about in 1921. bis interest in New Zealand and in the University was unabated, and it waa a pleasure to discuss with him our educational oofiook. New Zealand was fortunate in her earliest professors.'and. amid the galaxy qf talent that came as teachers to us. Professor Sale occupied no seoond nlaoa. B* has -left a widow and two children, and to them the Senate will no doubt send its sympathy, and let them know that the memoTT of the heed of their home will not be forgotten by any who knew him ”