The Evening Star. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2692, 3 October 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1871.

We are glad to see that there is at last reasonable ground for hoping that the misunderstanding between the Council of the University of New Zealand and that of the University of Otago will be brought to a satisfactory termination. If the arrangement proposed can be carried out, there is no doubt that each of those institutions will be in a suitable position for carrying on the work for which it is peculiarly fitted, and that there will not be the deplorable loss of power which must have resulted if each of them had undertaken to do both teaching and examining work at the same time. From its very nature as a University of all New Zealand, it would bo quite impossible that the former of these bodies should, without enormous expense, provide a permanent staff of teachers capable of, doing effective work in all the large towns, while any attempt to provide merely itinerant lecturers must have proved a ridiculous failure. The University of Otago, on the other hand, while it is able to do good service as the highest institution for teaching in Otago, would, from its necessarily limited sphere of action and the small-

ess of the number of graduates which t could be expected to produce, have but small prestige for many years to come. In fact its degrees, whatever amount of mental culture they might represent, would be well nigh worthless anywhere out of Otago. For these reasons it, gives us great pleasure to observe that the proposal to make the Otago University a college of the University of New Zealand, and to place its powers as an examining body in the bands of the Council of the latter is meeting with general acceptance, It is to be hoped that the necessary arrangements will be made at once, as it would be a very serious thing if the students at present attending the Otago University were to lose their present year’s attendance and be compelled to go through a curriculum of four years’ duration instead of the ordinary one of tln;ee years in order to get their B.A. degree. Some time ago the Council of the New Zealand University announced that scholarship examinations would be held at the beginning of the year 1872. A sort of schedule was also published /of the subjects in which candidates would be examined ; but this schedule was of the vaguest kind, and it was generally expected that a detailed pro gramme of the examination would be immediately given forth to enable students to prepare themselves. Nothing of the kind, however, has appeared ; we suppose, therefore, that the thing is to be allowed to lapse for this year. Some intimation of this would, however, appear to be necessary. At any rate intending candidates are loft in a very uncomfortable state of uncertainty, which should immediately be put an end to.

One very important part of the duties of the University ought to be the examining of those candidates for degrees, who are unable to attend any lectures. In all countries, and more especially in the Australian Colonies and New Zealand, there are many men who have attained to a considerable degree *of mental culture in spite of their having been unable to obtain more than the barest elements of education, otherwise than by their own unaided exertions. Such men are by no means to be despised, one would think. If they are not quite such polished scholars as those who have gone in at one end of the educational mill and come out the other, double-milled and glazed, as it were, they at least have shown that they have no mean intellectual powers, besides any amount of pluck, and stern determination to accomplish what they have undertaken; and it is not unfrequently found that men who have, in spite of the up-hill work to be gone through, fairly mastered any subject, have obtained such a grasp of it as is seldom attained to by those who have ascended to the height through more flowery paths. On the whole, we think that it is only fair that those who are able to pass the prescribed examinations for any degree, should have that degree, whether they have been educated in the halls of a University or have educated themselves while holding the plough. Pcdmam qui meruit feral. There can be no doubt that a great deal of the usefulness of the more modern Universities, such as those of London, Melbourne, and Sydney, depends on the fact that they are ready to acknowledged merit, and to stamp it with their approval, wherever it is to be found. The University of Melbourne, for instance, allows any person whatever to attend its lectures, or to go up for examination in any of the subjects recognised by it, and grants certificates to such as pass the examination for the subjects in which they pass. The consequence is that this University is what such an institution ought to be—an immense educational power. Every boy in the Colony who has any ability at all is naturally led to look to the University as the place that will reward him for his toils, and acknowledge in the most gratifying way possible any excellence that he may attain to in any branch of learning. It has been often said, however, that a University is not valued so much for the instruction which it affords, as for the tone and polish which it gives to the mind and manners of a young man. There is, no doubt, some truth in this. A young man must indeed be a “ hopeless case ” who does not become more refined in the intellectual atmosphere of a University ; but this we hold to be quite a secondary consideration. It ought never to be forgotten that the main object to be aimed at by .a University ought to be the encouragement pf learning. If the University can make i its alumni gentlemen as well as scho-' lare, so much the better.