UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1549, 19 September 1912, Page 4

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.

A- . HOW DO THEY LEAVE COLLEGE? During discussion on tho question of altering .Hie present constitution of the Council of Victoria College nt the monthly meeting of the Council last night, Sir Robert Stout referred to a statement made by Professor Picken that a great majority of students, after a course at the university, loft it wrecked physically, maritally, and morally. Sir Robert Stout deprecated such attacks. Mr. H. H, Ostler: He never raid it. Sir Robert Stout said that iia had read it in both the Auckland papers, and th« "Star" had commented on it. Mr. Ostler: He never said it. Ho was mi.sreported. Sir Robert Stout: Why had it not been corrected then? Mr. Ostler replied that Professor Picken had corrected it in one of the Auckland papers. Sir Robert Stout -rejoined that it had been telegraphed nil over the Dominion by tho Press Association. Why had it not lieon corrected in the Wellington papersP He had read it in The Dominion, Mr. Ostler did not furnish any reason for this. Sir Robert Stout then stated that h« hoped that tho press would take notice of what had licen said, and that, reporters would in future see that profosso.-s wero properly reported. A little later ho repeated a statement that ho had previously made that the professors of the .Victoria Collego had always received eveiy consideration from the council, no thought that if professors of o'her universities hail attacked their university ns ours had done, they would novo hwird about it from Iho council.

(Professor Pic-ken's statement ns it appeared in The Dominion \ycs that "tho examinations of tho University Senate wore conducted by men whose only knowledge of tho actual work done was what they could learn, from ft bald syllabus, and tho conditions wero such that the work required could bo done very ranch bettor, and at much lower cost by coaching hacks than by distinguished men of learning. So for from the work being done for which the University existed, a great majority of the students left tbo colleges less sound in body and mind and soul than on the day they entered, except for the salutary influence of tlioir personal conduct with one another." The statement was taken from the professor's own copy of bis speech as one of the deputation, which waited on tho Government on August 26. On the following day the professor expressed regret that somo of tho condensed portions of his speech had not appeared more fully, but stated to a reporter that there was nothing in tho report to warrant a correction.)