DEATH OF PROFESSOR PEARSON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2102, 7 June 1894, Page 19

DEATH OF PROFESSOR PEARSON.

London, June 1. Dr Pearson,. Secretary to the Victorian Agent-general's office, is dead. June 2. Dr Pearson's illness began with pneumonia. The Westminster Gazette published a glowiDg obituary, describing him as a valued contributor. He often said that ha wrote the latter part of his " National Life " under sentence of death, and this explained the appearance of hastiness in that section of the work. The Chronicle describes Dr Pearson as a practical statesman and an original thiDker, who rendered this generation important services. The late Charles Henry Pearson (according to Mennell's "Dictionary of Australian Biography") was a son of the Rev. John Norman Pearson, M A , and was born on September 7, 1830, at Islington. He was educated at Rugby, King's College (London), and at Oxford University, where he matriculated on June 14, 1819. He waj a scholar of Exeter College from 1850 to 1853. B.A. in 1853. Fellow of Oriel College from 1854 to 1873 ; M.A. in 1856, honorary Fellow of King's College, London, and Professor of Modern History from 1855 to ISGS;- Lecturer on Modern History at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1869 to 1871. He emigrated to South Australia in 1872, and was married at Gawler, December 10, 1872, to E'lith Lucille, eldest surviving daughter of Mr Philip Butler, of Tickford Abbey, Bucks. lie removed to Victoria, and became Lecturer on History and M.A. of Melbourne University in 1874. He was head master of the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne, from 1875 to 1877 ; in the latter year he unsuccessfully contested Boroondara in the Liberal interest He was Royal Commissioner to inquire into the Btaxe of education in the colony, and so acted in 1877-78. being elected in the latter yearto represent Castlemaine in the Assembly. Ho was elected to accompany Mr (now Sir) Graham Berry to England to request the intervention of the Home Government in the constitutional crisis then pending between the two Houses of Parliament. lie was absent in England from December 27, 1878, to June 17, 1879. Dr I'eaTson -was member for Castlemaine till 1833, when he was returned for East Bouike Boroughs, for which he sat till the general election in April 1892, when he did not contest the seat. He was Minister without portfolio in the third Berry Government, from August 3, 1860, to July 9, 1881 ; Minister for Public Instruction in the GilliesDeakin Ministry from February IS, 18S6, to November 1890. Dr Pearson was editor of the

" National Review " (1862-63), and has published "A History of England during the Early and Middle Ages" (1861-68); "Historical Maps of England during the First Thirteen Centuries" (1869), third edition, 1884 After he went to Australia Dr Pearson published a "History of Kngland in the Fourteenth Century," and an " English Grammar," the latter written in conjunction with Professor Strong, with whom he also collaborated in editing "Juvenal" for the University of Oxford. From 1877 Dr Pearson to the time of his departure from Victoria was a regular contributor to the editorial columns of the Age and Leader, besides writing articles for the leading English periodicals. He was an honorary LL.D. of the University of St. Andrew's. As Minister for Public Instruction he set himself steadily to separate primary from secondary education, in opposition to the general and colonial tendency, which was to run the one into the other. He did so by founding 200 scholarships a year, which admit the scholars of primary schools to high schools ; by reducing the limit of compulsory attendance from 15 years of age to 13 ; by increasing the term of statutory attendance from 30 days a quarter to 40 ; and by liberally endowing special technical schools, which increased during his term of office from two to 14. He imported an expert from South Kensington to reorganise the teaching of design ; he raised the incomes of the certificated teachers ; and reduced the average expense of the national school system by employing teachers of slightly inferior' qualifications for the very Bmall schools. Dr Pearson was the firm advocate of secular education, as by law established, as the only system that could be worked with fairness in a country divided between many sects. Before leaving office he was preparing to abolish the system of payment by results, and laboured hard while lie was Minister for Education to make the so-called compulsory clauses of the Education Act a reality, as they are in Switzerland. Last year he was appointed secretary to the Agent-general's office on the death of Mr Cashel-Haey, but the. appointment was not regarded with general favour.