SCIENCE AT OUR UNIVERSITY COLLEGES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1857, 17 September 1913, Page 8

SCIENCE AT OUR UNIVERSITY COLLEGES.

Sir,—l see that the Minister for Education and members of tlio House of Representatives aro not a little oxercised as to tlio deplorably meagro demand for scienco at our university oolleges. Tho explanation of tho problem is that a scienco course leads to no definite profession or career, as in the caso of students contemplating becoming lawyers, doctors; or clergymen. Surely if a student ia to devote himself seriously to tho study of scienco for four to six years (with a view to getting a degree worth possessing in science) his work should ensure him at the end of that, time somo liopo of securing a position worth £500 to £1000 a year in the course of time? Practically every student of scienco worth his salt that our university colleges have turned out up to tliis point has had to leave New Zealand to get a billet worth working at. Surely a respectably-equipped scienco student or scholar cannot bo expected to accept the ,miserable £150 or: £250 that attaches to an average mastership in a primary or secondary scliool? I am told that not 30 students— wlio can bo called bona-fido scienco students—aro nt present on tlie roll at Victoria College—and yet there is a teaching staff of ten attached to the scienco side. Not onty so, but I understand" that , tlio Macarthy Trustees aro being asked t-o help tho collego to, among other tilings, provido funds to increase the science staff to such an extent that five or six of tlio 30 or so students now taking science at night classes might bo able to attend day classes! The arts and law ments aro boing starved to maintain a parasitic white . elephant at all four university colleges! Several professors on the arts side,' with practically no assistance at all. have classes three to four times a_s large, numerically, as the whole science faculty at Victoria College taken together—and yet this science faculty absorbs annually nearly half the money expended on tho colMOTS.