ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOLARSHIPS

Hokitika Guardian, 26 November 1929, Page 8

ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOLARSHIPS

FUNDS NEEDED

ADDRESS BY CHANCELLOR OF UNIVERSITY.

WELLINGTON, November 22

Appreciation oi' the action of the Government in restoring the statutory grant to the University of New Zealand was expressed by the Chancellor (Professor-). Macmillan Brown) in his address at the meeting of the council yesterday, when he referred to the ,noted for funds to establish scholarships. “Before this council dissolves I should like to congratulate the University on the generous and enliglitenepolicy of the new Government and its Minister of Education,” said the Chancellor. “ Those of us who in the new Senate will have to take up the bur deg of University work count it the greatest of good fortune that the subsidy that has been granted by statute since the beginning of this institution has been again restored; they will not need to abolish scholarships or economise over encouragements in learning. “ jif there is one thing more than another in the system of education that is stimulative of talent it is the granting of undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships.

“Of course, it is an essential of a civilised community that every man and woman should be educated up to their capacity. But no nation or race advances unless there is a method of drawing out its special talents and stimulating them to the utmost ■ lor the talented form the advanced guard who scout into the darkness and discover the best route for the nation to take. Scholarships to bring the capable young men and women from the primary system to the secondary, and again to the University are essential, though the system can be overdone. “ Teachers in the secondary schools and in the University Colleges have their task obstructed by the excess of average and under-average intellects that crowd their classes; this feature of out system prevents education advancing amongst us as it ought to do. I have heard teachers again and again complain that they cannot do full justice to the talent they feel it their duty to the country to develop because they have so many mere pass students to train, a proportion of whom never attain success and can never attain it. The most grievous complaint is that the secondary schools have so many who remain under their tuition too short a period to have much good from it.

“Almost as grievous is it that in the University College the professors who are eager not only to do research themselves but to stimulate talents for research in the best students have their hands too full of students who are just up to the level of a pass degree to fulfil their ambition. And this wastage will go on as long as there is so little selection by the entrance examination and too few scholarships, especially post-graduate, to tempt the talented to seek the best sphere for their talents. Of course, in all scholarships systems there is a certain amount of waste, but the higher we go the less there is, as the research student has found his true career; it is in the post-graduate system that tlve wastage reaches its mini-

mum. “ It would pay the country to take a proportion of what is spent on sending the youth of average or below average ability to secondary schools or in bringing them to the pass stage in University Colleges, and spend it on the development of talent, especially talent for research. It is true a percentage of those who gain post-gradu-ate scholarships and go abroad do not return, because of the wider field for talent in the more developed countries and the scarcity of well-paid posts in New Zealand; but the percentage is not very large and those that remain abroad are often so brilliant that they spread the name of the Dominion throughout the world and foQri the most striking of the advertisements that, we are told, she needs. “Tf there is one thing more than an other that a country like New Zealand, other that a country, especially a young country like New Zealand needs it is a system that would draw the most talented from all ranks and by scholarship stimulate their development so that its future may be in the hands of those who are bes't able to see beyond the present to make the most of its possibilities. Tt was a wise policy on the part of the Senate in its early days to save what it could (from the fees and the subsidy and lay it up for a time when scholarships would he more and more needed. Now it takes not only that little store but the subsidy and all wo can afford from the fees to keep the year more scholarships, especially to encourage research for our primary industries now that more severe competition in the markets of the world lowers the price of our commodities. Some of our citizens have generously come to our help. But this spirit of generosity based upon a realisation of the fact that the surest method of meeting the menace to our industries is resea roll will spread. let us lame not'only amongst our wealthy citizens hut amongst our politicians; for the problems before the country are many and their solution is becoming imperative; whilst the resources at the- command of the University for drawing mil and developing talent for their j solution by research are conspicuously 1 meagre, especially when compared with those of the other Dominions.”