UNIVERSITY REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1864, 25 September 1913, Page 8

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

THE NEW ZEALAND SYSTEM.

DR. STARR JORDAN'S CRITICISM,

Tho views of Dr. David Starr Jordan on the Now Zealand University system will be read with interest in New Zealand. Five years ago Dr. Starr Jordan, the much-travelled president of the Lelund Stanford University in San. Francisco, was in New Zealand, and, says the London correspondent of the Auckland "Herald," we aro told'in a correspondent's letter to the educational supplement of tho "Times," that tho origin the University reform movement in Now Zealand was a report mado to Sir Robert Stout by Dr. Jordan, and embodied by tho Chancellor in .his speech in 1908.

Dr. Jordan is at present in Europe, and I took advantage of this to got his views on tho present position of,itho reform controversy in New Zealand. Dr. Jordan said ho had kept more or less in touch with New Zealand since his visit tliero, because he felt that "tho establishment of a sound and thoroughly-equipped university" there was of "vastly greater importance to New Zealand than all the social reforms for which tlft Dominion had become noted."

Three Necessities, "There are three principal matters," said Dr. Jordan, "in which the University of New Zealand fails, namely, lack of concentration; stress on examinations instead of on teaching; trust in foreign examiners, as if the examination— the least important .factor in sound education —were a sacred function too high for any New Zealand professor to undertake. In my judgment thero is no such distinction as a teaching and an examining university. An 'examining -university,' as London University was, is a pretentious farce of no permanent value. A university should be n collection of books, of laboratories, of scholars, who should bring every varied genius to its hospitablo walls, and by their combined influence set tho heart of tho youth in flame. An examining university only tests the value of outside cramming with or without teachers, with or without facilities, as though all that which constitutes a real university were of incidental value.

Too Many Universities. "New Zealand," Dr. Jordan says, "cannot support four universities. If all wore put together in one place it would be a centre of power, but oven then tho equipment for work would be far below that of the universities—the real ones—of the United States or of Canada. Divided into four, not one has adequate libraries, laboratories, or student body. It may bo impossible now to accomplish this real union, but tho right way would be to centro all university ivork—research, law, medicine, engineering—at ono placo, and to make the other preparatory schools, like tho English colleges. Unless tho schools can all ba concentrated in one place, thero is little t'aluG in tlio nominal union as New Zealand University.

"Furthermore, all requirements should be stated in terms of work actually accomplished in laboratories or by other scholarly means, not in terms or examinations required. A clever memoriser could pass all the engineering examinations at Christchurch and not have the slightest fitness for practical engineering work. "Finally, any man competent to hold a professorship is better fitted to examine his own students than anv examiner in London could be. All that the university .asks is that the student shall have mado proper use of his brains, his hands, and his time. This the London examiner knows nothing of. Ho only sees that the proper answers are returned to questions, mostly long since stereotyped. The Case for London. "London University lias now become a group of disorganised teaching institutions of all grades of merit, no one helping the others, and all jealous of their own autonomy. As an examining institution it has done more harm than good to British scholarship. This is' bceauso its degrees lay no stress on the personality of the_ teacher, nor on tho value of conditions favouring thorough and sympathetic study. Tho professors in an institution, being educational experts, should practically oontrol all matters of study and of degrees. Tlicy should bo expected to dismiss all students whoso prcsenco wastes their time, and their judgment as to fitness for degrees on> tlio part of a student should be final."