UNIVERSITY SYSTEMS

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 970, 10 November 1910, Page 8

UNIVERSITY SYSTEMS

PROFESSOR WELLISCH'S VIEWS. Mr. E. M. Wellisch, who after a brilliant university career at Sydney and in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, has been appointed to a research professorship at Tale, arrived in Wellington by the Sydney boat yesterday. His work at I Yalo will be mainly to prosecute research work in electricity, and also concerning the ultimate structure of matter, and dealing with the minute particles known as electrons, which were isolated as a result of the efforts of Sir J. J. Thomson under whom Professor Wellisch worked at Cambridge. .Whatever .teaching will be required of Professor Wellisch at Yalo will be connected with Ms research work, and may comprise experimental lectures to advanced classes on X-rays, radium, electric rays, and similar subjects. Speaking to a Dominion reporter, Professor Welliscli said the American universities were very keen on advancing scientific research. They realised that the practical results would eventually more than repay the initial expense. With his first-hand knowledge of universities in different countries, Professor '.Vellisoh, whose present visit to New Zealand is his third, is entitled to express an opinion on those ijuestions of university management which are being agitated in this country. He is a firm opponent of the system of external examinations.. "They prevent a professor exercising originality in ideas and methods, he said. •"A professor" does not teel free to deal with his own subject in his own way, but has to adapt his teaching so' as to conform to the whims and fancies of-some examiner, far away. This contrasts strongly with tho American svstem. -In .the leading universities of the States each professor is . given absolute freedom to direct his classes in his own way. ■ The American universities insist muoh more strongly on the actual training that is given .to the students than on high examinational results. "I noticed," .continued the Professor, "hat. Sir. Robert Stout,, speaking at tho Victoria College capping ■ ceremony as Chancellor of the University, referred to the fact that in the leading universities of England the system of external examinations still obtained, but he seemed to forget that in England the external examiners are closely in touch with the teachers themselves, whereas, in New Zealand, ' the case is far otherwise."

But is not the value of New Zealand degrees enhanced by the fact that they are conferred after external examinations?

"I do not think so at all. And, after all, the leading. scientists: of Great Britain really do not attach much important* to degrees. A man is judged at Cambridge, for 'instance, simply on what he does'whenhe is there."

Professor Wellisch. considers that the American system of university control works out more satisfactorily than that in force in this country. Instead of academic affairs being controlled mainly from outside, as in New Zealand, the assent of the council in an American university is a pure formality, affairs being really controlled by the professorial staff. He thought an approximation to that arrangement . would ba advisable here.