WHERE OUR GOOD MEN GO.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2190, 20 September 1907, Page 2

WHERE OUR GOOD MEN GO.

PROFESSOR MACLAURIN GOES TO AMERICA. Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 19. Professor MacLaurin, dean of the faculty of law. Victoria College,' has resigned to take the position of professor of mathematics and physics at Columbia University, New York.’ Ho desires to be relieved of his duties hero at the end of this term. A meeting of the Council will probably bo held almost immediately to consider the position.

GREAT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY. SKETCH OF THE PROFESSOR’S WORK. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 19. The Columbia University, to which Professor MacLaurin lias just been appointed, .is noted for its size and status. It has 5000 students, nearly 400 professors and an-cl ‘ fcn© mathematical department, to winch Professor MacLaurin is going, is staffed with 13 professors, 8 assistant professors, and 23 lecturers and instructors. The appointment of Professor MacLaurin to Columbia was not of his own seeking. He was approached directly by the University authorities, and the offer made was of such a favorable character that, much as he had wished, and indeed as he intended,, he could not refuse it. The secretary of the Royal (Society (London) was asked by. the American authorities to recommend a man of eminence in the scientific world for the appointment, and Professor MacLaurin’s name was at once selected. Professor MacLaurin will take a chair which has been specially created to encourage post-graduate research in mathematics and physics, and that work Professor MacLaurin will do exclusively, having nothing to do with the ordinary teaching of undergraduates. Professor MacLaurin explained to a representative of the “Evening Post” that by the terms of his agreement with the Victoria College Council his appointment was terminable by six months’ notice on either side, and that six months’ notice has been, given. The offer from Columbia came as a great surprise to him. He was sorry to leave New Zealand, but. there were such facilities for research work at Columbia, which, after all; was within a few days of the European centres of learning, to say nothing of its own and other great libraries in America, that he could not very well refuse the appointment. He (had, he said, made iC. perfectly clear to the chairman of the College Council that he did not seek, the appointment nor did his friends interest themselves at all in his behalf in reference to it. Professor MacLaurin is a son of the late Rev. C. MacLaurin, and was educated a# the Auckland Grammar School and at Auckland University College. He has had a most distinguished scholastic career, and is still a young man. In 1890 he gained a senior scholarship in mathematics, and was shortly afterwards elected a foundation scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He spent a year in America, and returned to Cambridge to study law, and was awarded the MoMalion Law Studentship with £l5O per annum. Ho joined the Honorable Society at Lincoln’s Inn, and was elected a Fellow of St. •John’s (Cambridge). Next he studied for six months at Strasbung University, and he was appointed professor of mathematics at Victoria College in 1898, but he resigned this position in June last when he becamo dean of the faculty of law.

The Professor will find a- great difference between Victoria College and Columbia, for the latter institution occupies grounds 23 acres in extent, on which are 22 buildings, and the property is worth £7,000,000. the annual income being about £125,000. The Victoria College professorial staff has been greatly weakened by the loss within the past- few weeks of two of its ablest professorsTviz., Professor Salmond and Professor MacLaurin.