PROFESSOR A. K. RULE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18425, 4 July 1925, Page 5

PROFESSOR A. K. RULE.

RETURN TO CHRISTCHURCH. Yesterday afternoon a representative of ''The Press" had an intcrestingch.it with Professor A. K. Rule, son of the Rev. Frank Rule, of Christchurch, who returned to Christchurch from America on Thursday after an absence of nine and a-half years. Professor Rule is staying witli his father in Fitzgerald avenue, and has como to Christchurch for tho purposo of seeing his people. He has had a most distinguished career, having taken high Vnivorsity honours. He passed the matriculation, examination at the ago of 11 years, and being too young then to enter tho University, went to the Boys' High School, Christchurch, whero ho studied for three years. Later ho went to Canterbury College. Professor Rule took his M.A. degree with first-class honours in Philosophy and Mental Science at Canterbury College, and then went to the United States, where he took the degree of Bachelor of Divinity at Princeton University, New Jersey. While there he-won a Foundation Scholarship and went to Edinburgh University in Scotland, there taking his Doctorate of Philosophy. Now he is Professor of Philosophy aJid Bible Knowledge at tho Presbyterian College, Jacksonville. Professor Rule was at Princeton for three years and in "Wichita for two years. College Management. At the reporter's request Professor Rule outlined the schemes of management of the American Colleges. Ha stated that they were smaller as regards the number of students in many cases, and thus were more manageable. The idea was to have not more than about 600 students. Everybody knciv everybody else. and the personal element, the personal touch, was strong. These colleges were residential and there was a very fine feeling of camaraderie between the students themsehes and the students and the faculty. In the larger colleges, Columbia College, for instance, there were over 10.COO students, possibly 15,000, and the atmosphere there- was necessarily impersonal to a large degree. It was found that the larger Universities were not altogether ideal. The movement was-begun in the West by President Harper many years ago. and also by the University of California. Transfers were made regularly from the Junior to the Senior Colleges. An attempt had been made to get rid of the huge classes of freshmen and sophomores, thus leaving the larger institutions free. The motsment was spreading to the East, continued Mr Rule. A band of Yale students, known as the Yale Band, cooperated and played a large part in the early history of Illinois College. The first president was Edward Beecher, and tho second president .Sturtevant. It is interesting to note [that Sturtevant assisted Love joy to \ guard his now press against the mob when the agitation was made for the emancipation of slaves. Sturtevant was away for a day. and Lovejoy was killed in a riot. This was at Jacksonville, where Mr Rule resides. S. A. Douglas, the first opponent of Lincoln, taught near Jacksonville, and W. J. Bryan got his degree there, where he settled for a time and later moved to Nebraska. Charles Bryan, a brother, who was a candidate for the. VicePresidency, attended Illinois College, hut did not graduate. Working Their Way. Referring again to the general college life. Professor Rule said that the students lived in dormitories, hut some of them got ahead of the ordinary dormitory facilities and resided elsewhere. The case with which the student who was not well off financially secured his education was remarkable. The great majority of men so situated did some work on the side in part payment of their expenses. The college had a large . scholarship endowment given upon the basis of need rather than competition, and there was ' a great absence of the element of snobbery. But these students had to maintain a, certain standard of work. There was no tendency for the student who did not- have to work to pay his expenses to consider himself superior to the other man. That spirit was lacking to a very great extent, and the same thing applied to the country as a whole. As an instance an editor of the "Wichita Eagle" had attended the University and paid his expenses in his early days by carrying papers. _ Therewere hardly any night classes in the regular colleges in America, said Professor Rule. The day started at 8 a.m. and instruction ended at 4 p.m. After that athletics were indulged in and the students were free to look after their various jobs and do any extra study in the evenings. The Dean of the College assisted in the finding of jobs for the students not well off financially, and one of the students made it his special work, after instruction hours, to find jobs for the other students. That was his way of working his way through the college'. In fact practically all the janitor work was done by students, who were suitably paid for it. (students ranged in age from 18 to about 22 years, and they did not take themselves so seriously as students as New Zealand people, and the snob was practically unknown. The University of Edinburgh was also democratic in its atmosphere. So far as the residential portion of Jacksonville was concerned, it was the home of the old solid American stock and there were many fine homes there -which were a pleasure to go into. In the big citks the majority cf the middle-class folk lived in good flats, and the poorer people in very poor flats, the streets" being the common plaving ground for the children: As a parallel to the W.E.A. in New Zealand there were the High Schools in America which did most of that work, and there had been a great growth in correspondence classes. Any one coukl join these classes and thus receive a v-erv good University education. The High Schools had large halls whero public lectures "were given and tho playgrounds were public during the summer months. Religious Education.

A remarkable feature of advance in America at the present time, remarked Professor Rule, was the gradually growing all-round system of rcligious:education. The first step grew out of the application of educational technique to the Sunday schools. Vocational Bible Schools we're instituted where children gathered in the long holidays for three hours every morning for some weeks. The children attended voluntarily and enthusiastically. The latest step just developing was the week-day church school. Frequently children were let out from the public school during tho school day for' a period of instruction in their own Church, and a great deal of the public sentiment was in favour of the idea. In answer to the reporter's question, Professor Rule said that there were notmanv open-air schools as far as he knew in America, but there may be some in, California, and there were certainly a lot. in Honolulu.