UNIVERSITY OF NEW ZEALAND.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1338, 16 January 1912, Page 2

UNIVERSITY OF NEW ZEALAND.

AUTICI.K IN "THE TIMES." The following article on the University of Ne»- Zoiilaad appears in the educational .supplement of the London "Times" of December s:— - ■■ - - liiirciy, one hopes, have any educational authorities bran responsible ; for such-' wi<k. sl ,rea<t evil as were tho loiimleis ui , the old exaiiniiiiiK imivorsity. All over .th'j Empire universitits were modelled on the iJiittern'of the original. University of Ijoiuloii,' and all over the Knuiii-e llw? re.sults have been ili.sislrou.*. "Jmlia, i>ctlwps, sullered most, Iwcausu the taint spread into the world of polilics; from the purely, educational jiomt of view, oven India was .scarcely a trrcater sufferer than is New Zealand. Then; a university, \\]\it\\ its present Clumcellor once described us "a mere peripatetic Senate," exists solely to determine the conditions and control the examinations necessary to a degree. No person engaged in leaching may be a member of the Senate, or (except in medicine and dentistry) an examiner; the first seems to be a .-.talutory prohibition', the second a vulc of the Senale's own making. . The necessary teaching is given in four collcjrrs—at Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and ])unediii—which are uAilinteil to the ui.iversity. The=?', through tlieir graduates, their councils, and their professorial boards, elect fivc-sixtlis oi' the Senate; but the councils themselves—except in Dunedin, who.rn two professors may sit on a council of twelve—aro- destitute of tho teaching element, iuid the. professorial boards elect only_ four members out of tweiit.vrJoui , ; ; Kiieh council appoints its teaching staff, determines the general character and hours of the leaehins, and interferes actively in minor details; one council at least has been known to demand from it.-i exiiminprs the mark l"ts .for'certain college distinctions, it. older to judge for itself 'whether they wen; being iiroporly awarded. The teaching stuff, in fact, is little more thtiii a collection of contractors, from whom supplies of certain articles—lectures, to wit, and a littlo instruction .in. other forms—aro obtainable on demand, tho kind, quality, and ainoiint of the supply being fixed for them by outside and usually inexpert authority. It is "hardly surprising that the professors at New Zealand colleges should clint'6 under these, restrictions. To work contentedly under a system so permeated with distrust of the teaching staff would almost afford sufficient justification of tho. distrust. Dissatisfaction came to n head •last, year, when thirteen members of the teaching staff of Victoria College, Wellington—the youngest of tho four, founded in 1897—petitioned the ,New Zealand .Parliament for an inquiry info the condition of university administration and education. As might be expected from that Parliament, tho petition ;was sent to tho Inspector-General of Schools for report, and -the inquiry was adjourned for a year—a period which will now be doubled owing to a prenialure dissolution. Meanwhile tho University lieform Association, which was formed 'last year, promptly stated its case in a circular letter sent to about .100 officers arid professors qi British, American, and Australian Universities. It has included the sixty-five replies received in a pamphlet which lias just reached,us, in which also the grievances of the teachers and the remedies proposed by them are more . fully set forth. Roughly speaking,- four charges nre preferred ngainst the ; university and 'its atlilinted colleges—that research is almost entirely neglected; that • teaching is made subordinate to examinations; that tho methods of appointing nnn- professors aro bad,; and that the conditions laid down for attaining it B.A. degree are of . unsuitable: type: ,and low standard. Tho intermediate grievances, *'or which delinito remedies are proposed, aro the system of purely external examinations and the almost total exclusion of _ tho teaching staffs from influence on university policy; and it is to these remedies that ' the . sixty-five ' replies refer. On |One ,p,f, t}io ,; questiojj? put by the 'Univeftity iTWorin "Association— what .powers.the , .teaching staff should have in determining university and collego organisation—the opinion of. the writer is ,is practically uimnimous; they should have vracticiilly full control of the educational side, and should have some representation on the otherwise lay l)od,v_ that controls the. finances. Professor S. P. Thompson, indeed, would give them "a slight -majority" on all governing .bodies. But on the second question—whether tho purely external examination should give way to some test> in which the. opinion of the teacher counts—tho division of pninion is very marked. Twenty-two nut of twenty-seven British authorities (including Prol'pssovs-Asliley, Dimdy, ileterdeii, Liirmor, Muirhead, llcitl, Sadler, Tout, Tyrrell, and Ward, and the Master of Downing) strongly advocate the combination of teachers with external examiners; only three—Professors Gibsoiij Sir William lfumsay, and Professor S. P. Thompson—would .entrust solely to the teacher the examination of his pupils. Ten out of seventeen Australian professors prefer the combination, six have leanings towards a purely interna) scheme. But of seventeen American replies, thirteen (including those from an ex-President of Harvard) and the. Presidents oi Yale, f'lark, and I.elimd,Stanford) insist on.it fclmt c.v»miiiati:in should l>e "n function of the professor, not of tho university,", and refute tu hear of any external interference. ■■■■■■• • ....

Tho University llcforin Association's, pamphlet, from which muny of the above facts aro taken, is avowedly an ex parte statement. But there is ample evidence to confirm its accuracy; and the regulations of the university and the colleges are their sufficient condemnation. They cannot expect good men to lake up work in which they are allowed so little freedom of action and practically deprived of initiative. The method of appointment seems to be that which we described last April as "the worst which could, bo devised." If by good luck''men of tho' right type arc-as; in fact, .they sonictimes arc—secured despite all these diHiculties, the conditions under which th:?y must work hamper them at every turn. H has been contended that tho purely external examination n/iintains tho standard and "enhances the commercial value" of New Zealand degrees. Without going so far as Sir William liamsiy, who says roundly, "There is no standard, and your degrees are of no value in Europe," wo may be permitted to doubt whether it is good lor the reputation of any university to advertise tho fact that its teachers may not take any part in its test. Many ol the iJritish professors already mentioned act, or have ncli-d, as external exondners, and Ihcy condemn tho system; Professor Tucker, of Jlelb'jurnV—who has himself boon under the harrow—calls it cumbrous, humiliating, and educationally a drag. But, whileProfessor Dixou declares that under the purely external system students a.i;e likely to throw the responsibility of their failure upon the teacher, Dr. MacCraeken, of New \ork, points out with equal truth that under tho purely internal American system professors aro disposed "to place upon the stuiknt the whom responsibility for his acciuirement of knowledge." It is to be hoped that both in this particular detail of administration an 1 in the general scheme of reform which the University of New Zealand stems to need no greatly, it will be found possible to avoid extremes, and to adopt (with, perhaps, a few modifications necessitated by the local requirements of. four collcfies scattered along nine degrees of latitude) fomo sush constitution as tb.it if Birmingham, or that of its own near neighbour, Svtlne.y, under which tho teaching staff takes its proper place as a really powerful, but not all-powerful, factor , in university life. , . ' '. '