CANTERBURY COLLEGE.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14842, 6 December 1913, Page 3

CANTERBURY COLLEGE.

TO TOE EDirdß OF "THE PKES3."

Sir,—How sad it is to come back to some old institution, and find that things are not as they used, to be. It makes one feel so old. Ono is almost inclined to resent the march of progress. 1 can sympathise with your contributor, "A Tinline Scholar," to a certain extent, just as I could have sympathised with Rip Van Winkle. The series of articles on Canterbury College twenty years ago were exceedingly interesting but his few remarks on the College at present make painful reading.

For instance "A Tihiino {Scholar" wonders idly whether tho electrical engineers who work behind the red brick wall can ever regard themselves as true members of the College. Now this must be a vory hard knock to every engineer in the place. There is first tho reflection on tho red brick, as compared with the grey stono of the rest of the College. It requires but a very slight engineering knowledge to know that as a building material, brick is much to be preferred to some of the stone used on the arts side. ; A very cursory inspection of tho .walls in the quad will verify this. Then the reflection on tho engineers themselves—"not part of tho College" —ye gods I "Who runs the place,, anyway? With four times as much to do as an art student, and half the time to do it in, the average engineer finds time to take an active part in the management of all the College societies, and can be relied upon to do more than his share of any work that' is going on. It can be that they force themselves forward, either, as the last five secretaries of the Students' Association have been engineers and out of a total of 18 secretaries 9 have been engineers. Your contributor remarks that all the money nowadays is being spent on tho practical side, and seems rather doubtful as to the wisdom of this. Surely there can be no doubt as to which department should get the money. The demand nowadays is for practicallytrained men, no matter what their calling. A man with a science degree is of more use than a man with an arts desr " ee . knows more, for one thing. His mind has been better trained, mainly because he has had to tako mathematics, and think, more or less, for hiraseif. And apart from all that, a man cannot go out and do much with a store of Latin and Greek whereas a very slight knowledge of say engineering, ensures a living. No, Mr Tinline Scholar, the time may come, I fear, when, the arts side of a University will be looked upon as the intruder, and the red-bricked science and engineering branches be the true Alma Mater.—Yours, etc.. _ . OLD STUDENT. Chnstchurch, December 4th, 1913.