THE NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4854, 12 October 1876, Page 2

THE NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —I confess I am somewhat surprised that you have taken no notice of Mr. FitzGerald’s letter respecting the University. That letter was the manifesto of a partisan, perhaps of a clique. It has the appearance of coming from the draftsman of the Act you condemn. The amending Act has passed the second reading, but good may yet be done in committee. Mi - . Fitz Gerald lays stress on the distinction between the University of Melbourne, a teaching body, and the University of New Zealand, an examining body. Now, in the first place, the Meboume University is an examining as well as a teaching body. In the next place, will Mr. Fitz Gerald be good enough to point out how this distinction in any way affects, or can affect, the essential point of your criticism on the Act, which is the powers of control given to the Convocation ? Unless he can do this, he has said nothing to the point; and assuredly he cannot do so, for a proper control is equally necessary whether the academic body be a teaching or an examining body, or both united. You properly showed that while the power of the Convocation is next fdoor to nothing it matters little what its constitution may be. But touching this constitution of the Convocation, there is another point you have not noticed. It is this : by the new constitution of the Convocation under section 2 of the Amending Act there will immediately be a rush of graduates ad eundem into the Oonvocatiojb most of them ecclesiastics. This will only be the first step to getting into the Senate, and I do not see in the Act of 1874 any restriction on the number of clerical members in that body. The Act of Incorporation of the Melbourne University restricts the number of clerical members of the Council to one-fifth its whole number. This is a serious point to be attended to in an institution professing to be secular. Already by the affiliation of denominational grammar schools an injury has been done in more than one way to the University. To say nothing of the extent to which, as you have shown, the affiliation of mere schools must tend to degrade its character, what are we to think when we find the sectarian religious examination paper of these schools appearing in the calendar of a secular university ? It is to be hoped this part will not be overlooked in committee ; there is far too much of the clerical character about the institution already, and that too mostly of one denomination. I fear there is no present possibility of our getting anything here analogous to the Melbourne Professorial Board ; but of that you evidently did not make a point—it was only an incidental appendix of the article. I do, however, think that while these grammar schools and colleges are affiliated the masters of them ought not to be allowed, as Mr. Fitz Gerald wishes, to become members of the Senate, —I am, &c., Acadkmicds. Wellington, October U. [Our correspondent will notice by the leader in this day’s issue that we have not neglected to keep in mind the subject on which he writes.— Ed. N.Z.T.]