WISE BENEVOLENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 March 1935, Page 4

WISE BENEVOLENCE.

The gift made by Mr. George Shirtcliffe to the University of New Zealand has vision as well as generosity behind it. The donor has endowed a trust with £20,000 for annual awards- of a university fellowship, a research scholarship and a bursary, a recognition in some degree of the stages in education in which assistance is warranted. Mr. Shirtcliffe has been for some years the chairman of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and his university endowment is a fine tribute to the value of specialised training with which his chairmanship has brought him in close contact. It is unfortunate that for health reasons Mr. Shirtcliffe has relinquished that position, for there is room on such a council for the experienced and sagacious business man who has sufficient public spirit to give of his time and means to community service in which there can be little public recognition and no political or social advantages. It is very satisfactory that close association with research and research workers should have convinced a generous citizen that further efforts in that direction are essential to the welfare of the Dominion. As regards the regimentation and control of industry by the State there art many opinions, but of the value of the assistance and even the control of industrialism by specially trained experts there is scarcely any question among progressive organisations. The private benevolence that chooses for its expression the support of specialised training is building perhaps better than it realises, and increasing an influence that has taken an indisputable place in the development of the Dominion. There is nothing narrow in the conception of the Trust Mr. Shirtcliffe has given the University for the benefit of New Zealand. It envisages higher education in the best sense of the words, and it leaves it to the trustees to apply the means provided in a manner that will best serve the purpose of the trust. The example set by Mr. Shirtcliffe will, it is hoped, be folldwed by many others, and from the same sense of public service that has actuated his generosity.