UNIVERSITY REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2685, 3 February 1916, Page 7

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

Sir,—l shall be glad if a. few words from me can help in any degree to clear away the amazing tissue oi cross purposes and misunderstandings wliieh obscures the question between internal and external examinations.

"Internal examination," or "examination by the teachers," does not mean, as is so often asserlod by peoplo who ought to know better, that a candidato for a degree shall not be examined except by the professor or the coach that has instructed him; it means that ho shall be examined by a board of examiners, all'of whom still arc or quite recently have been teachers of University students, and all of whom are actually present at the same time and place as the candidate. This is the practice of tlie British Universities, at all events, of the older ones. Hero in New Zealand we .have, it is true, only; four colleges to draw from, while Oxford and Cambridge liavo a score or so apiece. But we.have the Australian universities Within easy distance, not to mention those in more distant. British possessions. There could be no sort of difficulty in collecting an eminently fit and capable team, to sit in New Zealand for tho purpose of oxamining New Zealand students. Tho examinations would then be internal, whether the examiners were all New Zealanders or not. _ This is not .the place to express an opinion on tho question of the advisableness of having always a leaven from other universities, my object being merely to elucidate an expression to ivhich different peoplo have been attaching different meanings, with the usual result in recrimination and loss of temper. _So far is the internal system involving _ the examination of a candidate by his own teacher that at Oxford and Cambridge an examiner never puts any question to a candidate who lias been one of his own pupils, or who is a member of his own college. It should be understood that there are usually examiners at the table, not necessarily all of them graduates of the University in which they happen to be examining, and certainly no two of them members of any ono college-in that University. The external system, on tho other hand, means tho omission of tho oral tests, and the relegation of the paper Mappings of the examination to some well-advertised figurehead at the Antipodes—him and his ghosts. If we seriously and honestly feel that as a University we still require such a figure? head, by all means let us have it. But. then lot us have it here; lot us import the golden image, and send it touring round the four University citics. _ I believe the rates charged by tho Union Steam Ship Company for theatrical companies' luggage are very reasonable. For the rest, with our humbersy what they are now, quite a trifling increase of the examination fees would meet tho enhanced expense. —I am, etc., „ , | BASIL STOOKER. February 2, 1916.