CANTERBURY COLLEGE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2212, 29 March 1881, Page 3

CANTERBURY COLLEGE.

The opening address of the session was delivered by Professor Bickerton in the English Literature Lecture Boom last evening at eight o'clock. The hall was crowded, there being an unusually large number of ladies and gentlemen present, and the members of tho professorial staff were also in attendance.

Professor Bickerton began his address punctually, his subject being University reform, with particular reference to the development of genius. A university, he pointed out, had two distinot functions—the first being the conservation of knowledge, and the second the development of the arts and sciences. In treating this branch of his subject he quoted largely from nuoh eminent authors as Pattison, Spencer, Seeley, Huxley and others, with a view of showing "what were the t unotions of universities, and that a degenerate tendenoy was disoernable in the control of these elevated institutions established for the cultivation cf the highest branches of oduoation and culture. The English Universities had in faot entirely departed frem their true functions, and had become mere adult boarding schools. The conservation and development of knowledge was, it appeared to him, the problem whioh formed the starting point of all university reform. In this connection (quoting literally from the professor's address),hesaid: To conserve knowledge a university should be in possession of the sum of knowledge stored in libraries and museums, the lectures presenting tho essence so clearly that the whole would be available—that every conclusion might be tested and every important thought expanded. The corpß of a university should be organised as an army, with rank and file of working students superintended by specialist professors, who themselves would be in direct communication with professors of goneral science and art, and, at the head of all, a professor of general knowledge; but it should differ so far from an ordinary army that obedience would be founded only on reason, respect only on merit, and the object of all work would be to save and make perfect rather than to maim and destroy. It should be the duty of all lecturers, whether specialists or otherwise, to plaoe before the students as clear and full a picture of the knowledge of their own subject as is possible in the time allotted to the oourse, giving an impartial account of all knowledge in proportion to its worth, without regard to the time or the place of its production, neither favouring nor negleoting his compatriots nor his contemporaries, and rendering into the current mother tongue all foreign words and obsolete nomenclature. As, in suoh an institution, all would be original investigators, the work of each would form subjects for special courses. This direct intercourse with original minds must often give rise to fertile germs, which, in the genial atmosphere of suoh a college, would be likely to develcpe and bear many a noble fruit of genius. The object of this two-fold method, the combination of general with special, is to correct the faults of the two orders of minds. Close parallelism of subjects induced stagnation in the old Universities, and I believe many scientific men of the present day are suffering from the opposite extreme of specialisation, isolated and vicious, by reason of absence of organic connection with correlated lines of work. Professor Biokerton discussed very fully the importance of " individuality " being allowed, so that each might follow the bent of his own mind, and thus develop the different types of genius, in support of whioh argument he quoted from several eminent authors. In conclusion, he said : The practioal suggestions that flow from my remarks are—that we must as far as possible do away with compulsion and give scope to all orders of minds. If, however, there is to be compulsion let those subjects whioh are considered thus essential be taken up at school, and let all compulsory examinations have oeased with the commencement of the university oourse. If we have compulsion at matriculation, other than in the use of our native tongue, let it be balanced, not all on the side of the older studies ; and let the value of the subjeot be balanced also. So little does soience count now in the Junior University Scholarship that although in Language alone a competitor may obtain 5000 marks, yet in the whole range of the sciences he can only obtain 1000; and this in the face of the fact I have spoken of, that a knowledge of science has entirely revolutionised our material life; has developed our logical faculty to such an extent as to have given an entirely new direotion to our methods of the study of language itself, of history, sociology, political economy, and philosophy, and even promises to give suoh a basis to morality as it has never had* before. Surely it would not be expeoting too muoh to think that the whole range of the sciences should count equal to language. In our University course Latin and Mathematics are compulsory subjects, and I believe they are so to their own disadvantage. Beal progress in both would be greater were it not so. Oar own experience shows that it is seldom that men are great at Latin and Mathematics. How can a student make his mark in his favorite study when he frequently has during his whole oourse the weight of the uncongenial one hanging about his neck. Is it well for either claesios or mathematics that the mathematician shall be largely engaged in mastering difficult idioms of an author he cares nothing about, or the classicist in learning the most elegant method of the transformation of formula: ? Common sense emphatically answers no. If it be thus better for the compulsory subjects themselves to do away with compulsion, who can measure the advantages to the voluntary subjects, whilst for the student it would often mean absolute emancipation ? With regard to our higher degrees, I think they should only be granted to those who have added to the sum of knowledge, and, in order to render this possible, I would certainly not make it neoessary that the candidate should come up the year following the one in which he graduates. With regard to the question of the endowment of reeearoh, I look with a oertain amount of distrust on the idea of supporting students engaged solely in original reeearoh. I fear they would tend to degenerate, like the fellowship holders, into youthful sineourists. I thoroughly endorse the opinion now held by many discoverers, ' that the best investigators are usually those who have also the responsibilities of instruction, gaining thus the incitement of colleagues, the encouragement of pupiie, and the observation of the public' I think that as the number and importance of the professors' now discoveries increased, if they desired it, they should be relieved of their ordinary lecture work. This would make room for assistant professors, who would, in this way, qualify for the post of professors by their success in the double work of teaohing and researoh. This seems to me to be the best mode of escaping the stigma of the academic saying that " A fellowship is the grave of learning," being applicable to the band of investigators we would establish. A University has, in the past, been generally the special privilege of a leisured class. The general mass could not have taken advantage of it if they would, while the leisured class itself was usually supported by the general mass in squalid misery. Sir Thomas Moore in his "Utopia" makes all so frugal that each one has leisure to cultivate his mind if he wished it, and his Utopian idea was that so few as nine hours a day shocld be spent in labour —we with our eight hours system have gone beyond Utopia, bat not oy rigid frugality. Any arlizan in full work can have a home which for real comfort would compare favorably with a nobleman in Sir Thomas Moore's <'ay. This has been rendered possible by the inventor • he hss used the material provided by science. But it is to him we directly owe our wealth. The fact that tho indulgence in the highest culture is not now associated with millions of actual slaves, or of fellow creatures in the virtual slavery of continual toil, is due to lam. All honor, then, to the inventor, his intellectual work may not be the highest, but he Hub rendered the highest possible. Although now a new scientific discovery often carries a whole train of arts after it, and gives tbem their rules, we must not forget that the inventor, and the arts he originated, preceded soienoe ; nor do we. We sincerely hope the creator of our wealth will take advantage of hie leif.ure and share our larger life. Our University ib open to all who ohooso to avail themselves of it. The hours of many lectures suit all, and the fees need deter none. I hope soon to see many seeking the higher pleasures that wide culture carries with them. The average adult artizan bos not received suoh an education as enables him fully to appreciate our advanced leoturcs, but I trust that a soience and art department will soon be established in New Zealand. To enable him to do so, I c:. n vouch for the eagerness with which men took advantage of those classos in England, and for the marked eucoess that attended their study, and yet most of these worked ten

hours a day. I gee no reason why the colo nial artizan with his extra two hours of Joisure, Bhould fall behind his fellows in England, nor do I believe ho will. If he uses those classes, and the more thoughtful to follow on to the University, if the political and sooial sciences keep paoe with the powers of production and learn how to distribute fairly, then for the first time in the history of tho world we shall have a people all free, all in comfort and plenty, all with leisure, and all who oaro about it in the enjoyment of that higher life which cultivated senses, mind and soul alone render possible.