xii ' Obituary. 



He represented New Zealand at the Empire Bducational 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 intro- 

 duction of the degree of Bachelor of Science in Home Science, and this is 

 one of th6 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 Eapt 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 ] 891 he was Secretary of the Seismological Committee of the Austral- 

 asian 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 in Single-member Constituencies, with Special 

 Reference to the Counting of Votes." When some time later the Christ- 

 church 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," publislied as a parliamentary paper. The report of 

 the committee, which owed much to Mr. Hogben's care and fairness to 



