UNIVERSITY REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1166, 17 June 1911, Page 6

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

SUGGESTIONS FROM CANTERBURY. (By Telegraph-Press Association.) Christchurch, Juno IG. At tho capping ceremony at Canterbury College this afternoon, Mr. J. C. Adams, chairman of the Board of Governors, said Hint they had heard a great deal about university reform. Ho did not propose to deal with that subject in detail, but he agreed that thero should be - some change in their curriculum. Ho did not mean that the change should lie in the direction of making tho taking of a degree easier. (Groans from the students.) There should be greater opportunity given to the undergraduate during the threo years he was preparing for his degree to specialise in tho subject in which ho thought lie was strongest. It was a great pity that a man who had not a mathematical mind should have to give so much time to mathematics when lie wished to specialise in literature. That was the feeling in the college. Knowing that tho Senate had given that with one hand and taken it away with tho other, they should not rest until a change came about, and a man was ablo to specialise a great deal sooner than was now possible. There were also other things that were absolutely necessary. Tho pioneers laid the foundation of a splendid system of education. Though the college' had splendid endowments it was practically poverty-stricken. They should not rest rontent with what tho pioneers had done, but help themselves as well. They wanted a chair of mental science; they wanted to enlarge the museum; and they wanted further endowments for the Girls' High School; but they had not tho funds to do what was necessary. lie desired to impress on tho people 'of the province that it was their duty and responsibility to help the college. T'aev should try (o ■emulate the foresight of their fathers,'and help forward the educational institutions of tho college.