The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 9, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3446, 9 March 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 9, 1874

A deputation from the governing hoard of the Canterbury College will this evening wait upon the Council of the Otago University, with the view of endeavoring to induce that body to join the authorities of the Canterbury College in making an application for affiliation to the New Zealand University. The question whether it is desirable that our Provincial University should be affiliated to the Colonial one is not an altogether easy one to answer. Per se it is not difficult, but there are many surrounding circumstances which would tend seriously to modify the strongly affirmative answer which would at first sight seem to be the only one which could rationally be given. We shall endeavor to lay the whole matter before our readers, stating both sides of the question, as far as we understand it, without undertaking to pronounce for or against the proposed affiliation. In the first place, then, Otago has not been well used by the K ew Zealand University. The feelings and proclivities of the people of Otago have not been considered at all. Jf is no use to disguise the fact that an educational system, to be palatable to the people in this Province, must have at all events a strong Scotch flavour, to say the least. The fact is that the Scotch people have no reason whatever to be dissatisfied with the results of the system to which they have been accustomed j on the contrary, they have every reason to be proud of them, as they may compare very favorably with those obtained by any country in the world. Is it to be wondered at, then, that the examinations, regulations, &c,, of the New Zealand University, which have systematically ignored those subjects in which the Scottish Universities have always taken a warm interest, and have placed candidates from Otago at an unfair disadvantage, should fail to satisfy the people of this Province I Then there is the old and real but somewhat unimportant grievance that the University of New Zealand owes its existence in no small degree to the petty jealousy of some of the northern members, who were afraid that Dunedin might become (as undoubtedly it will), the educational capital of New Zealand. To this we may add the fact that the Council of that University have never displayed such an amount of wisdom as could induce any body whatsoever to desire to put itself under the shelter of its wing. Its rules would indeed convey the impression to an unprejudiced mind that, though the wing may be there, the shelter that it could afford would be of a somewhat precarious character. On the other hand, our Otago University, representing as it does the higher education of only some 80,000 people, has perhaps the smallest constituency** of any University in the world. Its degrees and certificates can therefore have no great value outside of the Province. If it were amalgamated with or affiliated to j theJSW Zealand University, this dig-1

ability would be taken away. Again, our University has the same fault as the New Zealand one. Many of its bye-laws and regulations appear to us to have been framed in too narrow a spirit. While it is perfectly right and just that it should be in the main founded on the Scottish model, it might well be modified more or less by Eng-' lish, and more especially by Colonial ideas and experience. Then, as we pointed out a few days ago, there is a great deal of outside work —middleclass examinations, teachers’ examinations, etc. which might be most effectively done by a united body, but which cannot seemingly be overtaken by our local body. The absurd objection often raised against the New Zealand University, that it has no local habitation, is founded, we believe, on a misconception. If it were a teaching body, it would certainly bean anomaly, but as a mere examining body there is no reason whatever why one New Zealand town more than another should be considered its peculiar abode. Whatever other decision our local Council may come to, we hope that they will determine not to enter into any sort of connection with the New Zealand University unless it shad be made clearly to appear either that the members of the latter body intend to mend their ways, or that the infusion of new blood into the Council of the University, to be brought about by an amalgamation, shall make it a very different sort of a body from what it is at present.