UNIVERSITY REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2681, 29 January 1916, Page 7

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

Sir, —The subject of whether the University examinations should bo conducted by external examiners or whether the professors themselves should act as examiners is again engrossing the. attention of the Senate. It seems to mo that some points against internal _,examinations nave not been emphasised sufficiently, and as one who was for many years connected with tho University, I.'think ifc my duty to lay stress on these. In the first place, our degrees would have little value outside the Dominion. I found on applying for positions in England that my degrees only received consideration when I explained that they were granted under Imperial charter, after examination by men of standing in England. Tho change would not only lower the value of the new degrees, but also of those already granted. The chief advantage of the external examination lies in the check it places upon'the work of the professors. _In the past certainly we have faddists, lazy and ultra conservative professors, and even if we wore for the moment freo of these, the future has to be considered. Under tho proposed

plan that the teaching staff at each college shotdd examine the students of that college, all that the student would be required to do would bo to "swat" up his lecture notes, and answer each lecturer according to the idiosyncrasies of that lecturer. This used to bo done freely and deliberately in the college examinations conducted by the teaching staff, and met with a considerable degree of suocess, and accounts in a very large measure for the anomalies referred to in the Senate. It is a debatable point as to whether the. professors are not more to blame for these reversals 'of form than the examiners.

The failure of. the faddist and- tho lazy lecturers and professors were made evident to both board and students by the outside examinations, and their evils were thereby partially checked; but under the new plan they would have a free field, and no one could Teadily ascertain wnat the quality of the teaching really was, especially if each, college conducted its examination separately.

It cannot be pleaded that, the present plan makes for stagnation, for the Senate can,'and; does, alter the syllabus from time to (time, in accordance, with.' the wishes of. the professors; nor is the professor debarred from lecturing. according to his inclination to a reason-; able, extunt, ; but the students and, indeed, the general public,' have a right to ask that there shall be'some control exercised over the teaching. One is entitled to ask whether tho motive actuating those professors responsible for these proposals is not the desire to escape from the restraints lm. posed -by the outside examiners, and whether that very fact is not a proof of tho need of such a control. Alter all, the function of the University, and the colleges is not to afford an opportunity to the various professors of promulgating their own ideas, but to secure a sound education for the students, fitting them for their after life—l am, etc., I OLD GRADUATE.