UNIVERSITY FREEDOM

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 72, 26 March 1934, Page 8

UNIVERSITY FREEDOM

■"/'■ab^heiEditdrij;'^?;';':";;:..'.^ Sir,—ln the discussion on academic freedom and the limits of tolerance at Victoria University vCollege,,you: have published the- following: edict by the chairman o£ the Professorial Board to tie^ students organisation:—"As the' method of' debate is- a clumsy; and inefficient method of arriving, at .truth, religious matters should in future be omitted from :the programmes of-debates, of the debating society." ,;:,•■.-.-■ -~ '■■-~. .;■ -.-■ • .. . -° This seenis toime to'call for most earnest and anxious attention. It raises issues r.that transcend in importance the merits and defects of student-debaters and the rights and .wrongs of their contentions. For myself; I find that.it so flagrantly violates- every /vital principle of tolerance I was fortunate enough to hear expounded with sincerity: at' Victoria College, by : the professors who now sit on the College Council, that I cannot believe it .will long be deferi'ded. -That instruction, and the self-respect of a university institution, cannot survive .:' together. ...-:. .. • . ........:-.• :..-■: For what are the implications of the .first part of that edict, "As the method ot debate is a clumsy and inefficient method of arriving at truth .:. .? May we not, indeed must' we not, complete the sentence by adding, "therefore parliamentary democracy should not continue," or that, not the procedure of the law court with its formal debating, but that of the Church with" its ex cathedra decree, is the sound method of sifting truth from falsehood;, or should \Ve not' say, in fine and sweeping terms, that "as the method of debate is a clumsy and inefficient method of arriving at truth, it should riot-be used in any matter where the discovery of truth is of importance"? The logical implications of the edict need only be thus stated to condemn it. There is one other general reason for deploring the edict and the intolerant spirit which it reflects. We are today, with the rest o£ the world, in the midst of economic difficulties that call for drastic adjustment. That-is common ground. What is widely and increasingly doubted is whether the necessary transition can be brought about by rational and peaceful methods. Those of us who believe that it can, whose faith is in the reason and common sense of men and women, must be grieved and perplexed to see that, in what ought to be the: very home o£ tolerance, powerful support is given to the contention that attempted change will be met and resisted by repression. Sir, is our vaunted tolerance to extend only to those dead issues on which we are lazily-indifferent, or does it cover also vital and controversial issues of today?—l am, etc., '■-FABIAX.-