The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3501, 13 May 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1874

M r Reid’s motion, « That the Council concurs in the proposal to erect a suitable building for the Otago University upon the land known as the Cemetery Reserve, and that it approves of an area of not exceeding eight acres, upon such reserve being appropriated accordingly” is ono of no little importance as regards the future success or non-success of the Otago University. We do not mean to imply that the University would not be able to maintain its ground amongst the kindred institutions of the Colony, and accomplish the work which it was originally intended to do, even if it had to be carried on where it is at present: there can be no doubt that the position of the University as the leading educational institution of the Province is thoroughly established, and that nothing now will be able to endanger its existence or prevent it from doing its work successfully. One ot the best and wisest things that the Provincial Council ever did for the cause of education, was to liberally endow the University at the very outset—to make it thoroughly independent' of politics, in short. Had the existence of the University been made to depend on an

annual vote of the Council, there can be no doubt that long ere this it -would have been placed in a more or less unsatisfactoiy position, through the efforts, well meant or otherwise, of political agitators. There are no matters about which politicians can busy themselves, which will as a rule so readily enlist the sympathies of the public, as those which affect the public purse. Let them show that a thing is expensive, and people are naturally prone to suppose that it ought to be done away with. This is more especially the case when the results flowing from a liberal expenditure are not immediate but remote. The public may be made to see that a few millions expended on railways may possibly prove to be a paying investment, though even in this case there is often no small difficulty in gaining their assent to a proposal involving such expenditure. The Public Works Policy of Mr Vogel was not accepted by the people of New Zealand till many a hard battle had been fought and won, though everybody now looks upon its success as a certainty. But when the good which is to result from a liberal annual expenditure of large sums of money is of such a nature that it must be for many years quite inappreciable, the people are easily misled by plausible statements about great expense, class institutions, and so forth. It is therefore not difficult to believe that if the University had not been placed in an unassailable position, we should ere this have been favored with numberless calculations as to the average cost per head of educating its students; we should have been told that the parents of the students were well able to pay for the education of their sons ; that much of the work which is done by the University could be equally well done by the High School, and at a cheaper rate, and so on, ad infinitum. It cannot be doubted that the effect of such statements would have been to mar the efficiency of the University very considerably. But fortunately the University is endowed, and is beyond the reach of the effects of party cries and election fights. There is therefore every reason to believe that it will be allowed to keep the “ noiseless tenor of its way,” and do its noble and useful work without let or hindrance. But though the future prosperity of this Institution has thus been secured, there are many circumstances which may tend to render its success more, or less complete. There can be no doubt that much of the reverential attachment which the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge feel for their Universities is due to purely eesthetic causes. Men who have spent three years of their life in the noble halls of those great Universities, and have been surrounded with all those circumstances which are likely to exalt the tastes and, generally, to take a powerful hold of the imagination, cannot fail to feel profoundly attached to their Alma Mater, and thus to become, • after leaving her shelter, her ardent supporters and wellwishers. Now it can hardly be expected that a young man, even one with a very poetical temperament, will ever feel much attached to the building in Princes street, or to any of its surroundings ; he may look upon it as his intellectual birthplace, but he will assuredly never fail to remember it as an altogether commonplace edifice with which nothing in the shape of sentiment could ever be associated. We are, therefore, very glad that Mr Reid’s motion has been carried, and that there is now good reason to hope that the University will be housed in suitable buildings in a proper locality. j