PROFESSOR J. VON HAAST ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION, EVOLUTION, &c.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2620, 30 August 1882, Page 3

PROFESSOR J. VON HAAST ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION, EVOLUTION, &c.

The following address was delivered yesterday by Dr. Von Hasst in the hall of the Canterbury College s Mr Chancellor, Ladies, and Gentlemen,— Having been requested as a Fellow of the Senate to address a few words to yon, I wish to express my sincere gratification that we are efaabled to meet to-day in this beautiful Hall, creditable aline to the Governors of the Canterbury College land the architect. The conferring of the New Zealand University degrees is doubtless the most fitting occasion for opening it for the use of Canterbury College, where teachers as well a* students have long felt the want for such a room for various purposes. I can add very little to what our respected Chancellor has already saaid in addressing himself especially to the graduates, in honour of whom we are all assembled here to-day, but I wish to dwell a few words on the different effects the acquisition of the degree of Bachelor or Master of Arts may have on the student who ha* toiled and worked towards this coveted distinction. If the student, during his Univer sifcy course, has looked forward only upon obtaining the degree as a mere bread-giver, or as the means of raising himself in the social scale, which in some isolated cases may have been the main object in view, the recipient will n-»ver he a worthy son of the Alma Mater, for whom ho ought to retain the warmest affection during his whole life. In some other oases the present manner of obtaining the degree has doubtless the baneful effect that the student has lost heart, and turns away from hie studies with a feeling of relief that all is now over, and his mind is at rest, because he had to devote the moat precious part of the time to one or other of the two compulsory subjects, for which he had neither talent nor inoiina-

tion. With the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, instead of applying his whole energy to those subjects congenial to him and at least of equal value, he had to neglect them and toil at the former to the prejudice of his natural talents and predilections, and which would have been of more value to him in after life. And thus, instead of distinguishing himself by adding to our stock of knowledge, or, at least, developing his natural capacities in other directions, his intellect has been unduly sprained by being pressed into a normal grove. Instead of passing an examination of groat credit to himself and the University to which he belongs, in those subjects to which his talents would have conducted him, he just obtains his degree, and then turns away with great relief. I need scarcely observe that such a state of things at the present time, when human thought and knowledge are running in other, and often more important, channels, hrs to be remedied ; and, in fact, one of the great English Un'versitiea (Oxford) has so far improved upon the old state of things, which wo at the antipodes hare rigorously kept up, that a student can pass hia final examination for his B.A. degree without passing either classics or mathematics .However, from my own observations I am happy to say that by far the greater portion of onr graduates prove themselves true students, and though many of them are occupied with teaching or other intellectual pursuits, by which, in ordinary life, the whole daytime is usually claimed, they continue to study and to fill up those gaps in their knowledge, which under the present circumstances they would not approach before. In proof of this I may be allowed to mention that about one half of my students are Masters of Art. They doubtless find in this study of geology not only a healthy recreation from their arduous duties, but have felt the want of similar studies by coming constantly into contact with facts that can only bo explained and understood by a knowledge of that branch of physical science. Moreover, it has been proved beyond a doubt that the inductive method of reasoning, principally or almost exclusively used in the study of science, is a’so of the greatest value for all questions of daily life. And, certainly in that respect we have made a great step in advance of the thinkers of antiquity and the methods employed by them, though the advancement does not rest upon an increased power of thought, or that our senses have become finer and keener ; but we possess a far greater wealth of facta and experiences than the philosophers of ancient times could boast of. T>is most valuable possession of our own times is, of course, an enormous increase of material for the operations of the mind. I wish here to allude to one branch of human knowledge which in the last forty years has advanced more than from tho age of Aris totlo to the beginning of this century, and to which some of the master minds of our own time have devoted all their energy—to that important branch of biology usually called Evolution, There has always been a great and irrepressible impulse in tho human mind to render itself account of the cause or causes of its own existence, and of tho wonderful variety of things and phenomena surrounding us. All religious creeds, with their common ethical foundation, all philosophical sys'ems, from the crassest and most uncompromising materialism to the most sublime idealism, spring from this deop-aoated source, but in a great number of oases investigators have beeu kept back from ex» pressing their thoughts, or giving the results of their researches, from fear of coming into contact with the religious creed to which they happened to belong, or which, at the time, was the orthodox ruling power in the country they inhabited. I make these few remarks, became we have daily astounding proofs that this cause is still in full existence

despite the advance of toleration, and whilst Darwin, the great apostle of evolution, has been carried to his last resting place in Westminster Abbey ; whilst the highest dignitaries of State and Church stood at his grave and honored the great man who has just left us, and their names head the list of the Committee to collect subscriptions for erecting him a monument worthy of his scientific labors, we constantly corns across attacks of all kinds upon his theories, many of thorn containing perversions of the facts brought

together by him, and illogical conclusions drawn from them. The true student, taking Dar trin for his model, ought never to look at the consequences of his researches j ho ought fearlessly to advance step by step, never wondering for one moment if the results of his work will momentarily hurt some small portion of the community in clashing with their preconceived ideas, or if they might do him harm socially. In advancing truth he is sure to do his duty, and if he adds only one mite to the stock of human knowledge or human thought he has done more good than numbers of those men who look at all new discoveries with the fear that they might possibly damage their material interest or oppose their ethical ideas. The true student the more he follows the path leading to the elucidation of truth will find the rewards in the perfection of hie power of thought and in his moral and intellectual advancement. Ho resembles the

lonely wanderer toiling bravely up a rugged mountain through dense mist, jeered at by a number of hia acquaintances, who are satisfied to remain at its foot and in the cool shade the clouds above afford them for the time. Gradually the mist disappears, the thickly gathered clouds are left behind, and when at last ho reaches the summit, blue sky is gleaming above him, while at hia feat the cold mist is still moving to end fro as a restless sea. He looks up with a bright clear eye, and the eternal beauty of nature becomes more than ever manifest to him. Though as a finite being he cannot penetrate the infinite space surrounding him, ho is deeply impressed that the purposes of the Universe and the rules by which it is governed are as great as they are incomprehensible ; but he feels also joyfully that he is in communion with that wonderful power around him, which the most exalted idealism can neither reach nor conceive. [Loud applause.]