NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

Evening Star, Issue 3305, 23 September 1873, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

On the 10th instant a return was laid upon the table of the House of Kc-prescntatives, to a resolution agreed to on the 20th August, on the motion of Mr Bradshaw, “That with ft view' of ascertaining without (joufit thp exact status? of the Npw Zealand University, the Government be requested to lay on the table of this House the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral on the following point : whether the requirements of the New Zealand University Act, 1570, are complied with, while the University is without professors, officers, servants, students, &c.” The following is the Attorney-General’s opinion noon this point : —“The New Zealand University Act empowers the Council of the University to appoint professors, officers, ami servants, but docs not expressly require that such appointments shall be made. The endowment from the Consolidated Bund is applicable, not only to the payment of salaries of professors, officers, and servants of the University, but also to the establishment of lectures in affiliated colleges and defraying the expenses of fellowships, scholarships, and prizes for the encouragement of students in the'Uni varsity, t think that it is to he inferred from the Idth section that tlm Legislature contemplated that there would be professors, officers, and servants, but it cannot, I think, be said that the appointment; of professors is required, or that the application of the whole of the funds to objects authorised by the Act, exclusive of stipends of professors, is a breach of trust. It cannot be said that the having students in the University is a requirement of the Act. No doubt the object of the Act is that there should be students in the University.— (Signed) Jam its Prkn hkiuiast.” it would appear to be clear from the foregoing that although the Council of the University have not absolutely broken tlm letter of the Act of 1870, their proceedings have been strongly opposed to the spiric and intention of the law. The Attorney-General states, in fact, that “itis to be inferred that the Lcgislaconteraplatcd ” that the University should be essentially a teaching body as well as an examining body, and that it should be established in some fixed domicile ; and that the University as at present constituted does not fulfil the intentions of the Legislature when it voted money for its support. Killemen, —Pickpockets.