THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4791, 31 July 1876, Page 2

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW ZEALAND.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sin,—“ J. G.” says; “Surely the authorities of every University should remember that the object of a college education is to fit a man to do efficiently the real work of life,” and thisyou cannot too frequently impress on the Senate of out colonial University. But that here at the Antipodes our Universities will differ, just as the great Universities do at Home, pannot for a moment be doubted, and that this will in some measure depend on the examiners, and their several standards of proficiency, your correspondents agree to infer. _ A writer in a late number of the Westminster Revieio has compared the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and, after reading his description of the learning which characterises both, I hope one or more of your cultivated correspondents may favor the public with his ideas of the knowledge most suited to. our colonial requirements, and what he thinks best adapted to make New Zealand the Britain of the South.—l am, &c., J. L. S. “The popular distinction between Oxford and Cambridge, which assigns supremacy in classics to the former, and supremacy in mathematics to the latter, has the charm of simplicity but not of truth. If thought necessary, the reply may be made that Cambridge too confers an honors degree in classics ; that the senior classic is esteemed quite as highly by these competent to form an opinion as the senior wrangler ; that to obtain a place in the first class in classics at Cambridge involves as much study as a similar distinction at Oxford ; and that Bentley and Person, who in times past represented the climax of Latin and Greek scholarships reached by Englishmen, were Cambridge men, as are Professor Munro and Mr. Jebb, who occupy the same position at the present day. The real distinction, which is something much more subtle than this, lies, we conceive, in the different character of classical pursuits at the two Universities. At Cambridge the chief stress has been laid on accuracy of scholarship ; at Oxford greater weight hasbeen allowed to knowledge of the subject matter of classical authofS; familiarity with Greek thought, especially in the case of Aristotle, is valued higher than an exact acquaintance with the niceties of the language in which the thought is expressed. We do not pretend that this course is adequate for the due study of philosophy. It is far inferior to the system of the Scotch and German Universities, where a certain portion of each student’s career must be devoted to attendance at the lectures on philosophy, and where an examination in philosophy forms an integral part of the proceedings for his degree. At Oxford, philosophy is recognised in only a left-handed fashion, but in the classical tripos at Cambridge it has not been recognised at all.”— IT cstminstcr Review.