The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1879.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1579, 12 March 1879, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1879.

Professor Cook’s opening address at the Canterbury College on Monday would, if considerably curtailed, be interestig reading. Before passing to the subject of discourse, namely, “ The state of Higher Education in New Zealand, and the position of the Canterbury College in regard to it,” he very naturally congratulated the members of the College on the position it had attained during the last four years. Last year there were here nineteen undergraduates of the University of New Zealand in attendance upon lectures, besides a very large number of non*matriculated students. The College was properly housed, and more room still would shortly become available, when the girl’s school was removed and its rooms placed at the disposal of the College authorities. A new professor was to bo added to the professorial staff — all things were going merrily as marriage bells. The Professor then passed on to consider the special difficulties which New Zealand lias had to contend with in forming a satisfactory university system. The manner in which New Zealand has been colonized, and is now populated, has precluded any attempt to establish a central University such as those existing in Melbourne, Sydney, or Adelaide. For

this reason the University was formed as a purely examining body, with the power to affiliate to itself other institutions which possessed thrt which it had not, namely, teaching power. And then the Professor expends an enormous amount of superfluous energy in examining a question which has been thoroughly washed out, hung up to dry, and packed away in the clothes chest of the past, for a period, reckoned colonially, almost illimitable. Nobody for many years has doubted the fact that the affiliation of schools to the Now Zealand University was, from the beginning, a great mistake. It needs no elaborate argument to show that such affiliation is an utter absurdity. The only reason it was over done in the case of the Now Zealand University was, wo imagine, by reason of the peculiar circumstances under which the institution came into being. The difficulties it had at first to contend with were very great. The conformation of the country prevented a central University, and consequently, in its early days, the University was, like Noah’s raven, hovering over a chaos, uncertain whore to gain a foothold on the dry land. How, taking Canterbury as an example, was the University to enter into practical work ? Canterbury College did not then exist. There were only Christ’s College, and its satellite Chrst’s College Grammar School, that stood out at all prominently as educational institutions. Christ’s College was then, what it is at present, more or loss of a visionary body. It stood “ the shadow of a name,” and its Professors, like the Grand Dukes of Hesse-Grubenshagen-Sigraa-ringen, and other high German potentates, held titles considerably in excess of their general utility. Christ’s College Grammar School, however, was then, as it is now, fulfilling its mission solidly and satisfactorily. The New Zealand University then, hovering, as we have said, over a chaos, and longing for a foothold, lighted with one claw on the visionary College, and the other on the practical Grammar School. It was an ill-judged swoop. The grand duties and high functionaries belonging to the College were in far too exstatic a state to be of any real assistance to the stranger, while the Grammar School, very useful as it was and is, was never intended in any way to subserve such ends as the Now Zealand University proposed. The consequence was that no firm foothold was gained, and that the splashing and general floundering of the three institutions was something pitiable. Canterbury College luckily afterwards came to the rescue, and something practical was the result, but the effect of being incongruously bound to the Grammar School, an institution never intended for the proposed purpose, was felt long after it had become a platitude to say that the University had made a mistake. Professor Cook, therefore, we think, was quite needlessly diffuse when he elaborately argued that the affiliation of schools to Universities was not desirable.

However, the Professor improves as he proceeds, and his remarks in the latter portion of his address are well worthy of attention. His views on the relationship which should exist between the University and the professions are sound, but it is when he treats of the age at which students should be admitted into the University that he becomes particularly interesting, seeing that this question is one of special difficulty in all colonies. Young men here go out into life at so early an ago, that the insertion of throe years of University training into the limited period before they are launched into active business, is no easy matter. If a boy, however forward, starts too early, he is generally not capable of much independent effort, and had much bettor remain at school. On the other hand, if he delays too long, ho will probable not be allowed to finish the course, but will be pushed into a satisfactory opening in a bank, lawyer’s office, or mercantile firm. The present lowest prescribed limit of age at which students can enter is fifteen, the same as in the Australian Universities ; the average in England is nineteen years. Professor Cook’s opinion is that the limit in New Zealand should be raised to sixteen years, and wo arc inclined to agree with him, although such an arrangement would somewhat heighten the difficulty of inserting the necessary University course, so as not to clash with the ordinary requirements of a young man’s life. The matter is, in reality, an affair of compromise. On the ono hand the University authorities must recognise, as indeed they do, the peculiar conditions of life in the colonies, hut, on tho other hand, parents must not too eagerly seek the material welfare of their children to the exclusion of the cultivation of the finer parts of thoir nature. They will do well to ponder over Euskin’s words—that they only are truly advancing in life whoso hearts are becoming more humanized and whoso brains are becoming quicker. The accumulation of pounds shillings and ponce is not the all-in-all of life. It is difficult to draw a line in such matters, but in the colonies, at all events, there is no danger of material interests going to the wall, and a word or two in favour of the fact that other interests exist are seldom ill-placed.