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George Hogben, 1853–1920.
George Hogben, whose death occurred on the 26th April, 1920, will be remembered for two things: as being one of the most eminent educationists the Dominion has produced, and as being the outstanding pioneer of seismology in the Southern. Hemisphere.
Born in Islington, London, in 1853, the son of a Congregational minister, he was educated at the Congregational School, Lewisham, Kent (now Caterham School), from 1864 till 1868, and at the University School, Nottingham, where he held a scholarship from 1869 to 1871. (In the interval he was a pupil-teacher in a private school for boys.) He then entered the English Civil Service, and attained the high position of junior auditor in the Accountant and Controller-General's Department. He left the Service to enter at Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1877 and M.A. in 1881, after fighting the battle of the non-conformists with the sectarian conservatism of the old university. He was Mathematical Scholar and Prizeman at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, with the added distinction of Exhibitioner of the Goldsmiths' Company. While at Cambridge he rowed on the Cam three years for his college, and proved himself a good exponent at cricket and football, besides achieving the distinction of being president of the College Debating Society. After graduating with first-class mathematical honours, he took post-graduate work in physics. He entered the teaching profession as mathematical and science master at Oldenham Grammar School, to which appointment he went immediately after leaving Cambridge.
In 1881 he was selected by commissioners in England as mathematical and science master in the Christchurch Boys' High School. Five years later he was appointed by the North Canterbury Education Board to the position of Inspector of Schools, and he held this post till 1889, when he was appointed headmaster of the Timaru Boys' High School, where he remained for ten years. During all this time he had taken a keen interest in all matters pertaining to education, being for three years president of the North Canterbury Educational Institute, and in 1886 president of the New Zealand Educational Institute.
In 1899 he was appointed to the position of Inspector-General of Schools under the New Zealand Education Department, and he held this post until his retirement in 1915. During his tenure of office were carried out very many important educational reforms, for most of which he was directly responsible. It has been said by a teacher who was much associated with him, especially in the fixing of the scale of salaries of primary-school teachers, and in the drawing-up of the teachers' superannuation scheme, “No other man who has ever been associated with the administration of the education system of this Dominion has left a deeper and more permanent impression upon it, nor can any other man of his time lay claim to have done more to further the cause of educational progress than did the late George Hogben.” His plans were all most carefully thought out and most thoroughly presented; he would justify and defend has schemes with skill and vigour, but would accept his occasional defeats with unfailing good spirit. The same teacher has said of him, “He was a hard fighter, but a fair fighter, and was absolutely without vindictiveness.” This was, indeed, one of the most charming features in his character.
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He represented New Zealand at the Empire Educational Conference in London in 1907, at the International Conference of School Hygiene, the International Conference on the Teaching of the Deaf, and the International Conference on Moral Education — all in the same year. On his return his valuable report on “Schools and other Educational Institutions in Europe and America” was published as a parliamentary paper.
Upon his retirement from the Public Service Mr. Hogben continued to render good service as a member of the Council of Education. He was also a member of the University Senate for some years, and was always radical in his idea of reforms. He was largely responsible for the introduction of the degree of Bachelor of Science in Home Science, and this is one of the reforms which has already justified itself. His public services were acknowledged by the bestowal of the C.M.G. in 1915.
His activity in the educational sphere did not prevent his indulging an original bent in mathematics and physical science.
His first contribution to the New Zealand Institute was a paper, read before the Canterbury Philosophical Society on the 7th October, 1886, entitled “Transcendental Geometry: Remarks suggested by Mr. Frankland's paper ‘The Non-Euclidian Geometry vindicated.’” His last paper was “A Note on East Coast Earthquakes, 1914–17,” contributed to the Wellington Philosophical Society on the 12th December, 1917. Of his numerous papers published in volumes 20 to 40 of the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, eighteen dealt with earthquakes, and he was the recognized authority on seismology in the Dominion. It should be noted that the last paper from his pen actually published appeared in the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology in the very month of his death—April, 1920. It dealt with the subject he had made peculiarly his own, and was entitled “The Interpretation of a Typical Seismogram.” This shows that the keenness of his mental faculties was unimpaired to the last.
He was President of the Canterbury Philosophical Institute in 1887. From 1891 he was Secretary of the Seismological Committee of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. For many years he was correspondent for Australasia of the American journal Science. He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, and in 1919 was elected one of the original Fellows of the New Zealand Institute.
He was a strong advocate of proportional representation, and in September, 1913, read a paper before the Wellington Philosophical Society on “Preferential Voting Single-member Constituencies, with Special Reference to the Counting of Votes.” When some time later the Christchurch City Council held an election under that system he went there to conduct the election for the authorities.
During the war he wrote a valuable little paper, which was printed in November, 1916, on “Night Marching by the Stars.” Two methods were given, one of which was recommended to members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, who were provided with copies of star-maps and brief directions how to use them.
In 1917, when the question of the relation of scientific and industrial research to national efficiency was under serious consideration, a committee (the New Zealand Institute's Scientific and Industrial Research Committee) was set up, and Mr. Hogben was appointed chairman by a unanimous vote. He was a joint author of a report on “The Organization of Scientific and Industrial Research,” published as a parliamentary paper. The report of the committee which owed much to Mr. Hogben's care and fairness to
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all views, both provincial and departmental, was adopted by the Board of Governors of the New Zealand Institute, and, with slight amendment, by the National Efficiency Board, and was forwarded to the Government.
Of his best-known publications, the following might be mentioned: A French text-book, Méhode naturelle; Four-figure Logarithms; and Notes on the Teaching of Mathematical Geography. Since his retirement he had been revising a Table of Logarithms, and this work is now in the press.
Mr. Hogben was happy in his marriage with a daughter of the late Mr. Edward Dobson, C.E., of Christchurch, who, with her two sons, survives him. Six sons were born to them, two of whom died in childhood. Of the four remaining, three gave their services and two gave their lives to the Empire during the Great War; and there is little doubt that their loss, borne without murmuring, contributed to his final illness.
George Hogben was a man of wide reading and scholarship, a thorough and indefatigable worker. He was a true and warm friend, and, through his fairness and broadmindedness, a benefactor to his fellow-men.
G. M. Thomson.