REVIEW.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5091, 18 July 1877, Page 3

REVIEW.

THE “NEW ZEALAND MAGAZINE” FOR JULY, 1877. When the “ New Zealand Magazine” waa started a year and a half ago many peopte were glad, for they wished to have a good magazine which should be a means whereby the active minds in the colony could make known their views in articles, which, however good, are either unsuited to the pages of a daily newspaper or perhaps are not sufficiently numerous to form a whole book. It was hoped that the magazine would be like the “ Revue des Deux Mondes,” or its compeers the “ Contemporary,” the “ Fortnightly,” or “ Fraser’s.” These high hopes have been disappointed. The magazine, though professing great liberality and avowing itself open to all shades of opinion, and to all branches of thought, appears not to be so in reality. In its opening number it offers a welcome to any one who will send it something new, and loudly declares that it is a New Zealand magazine and that the fact that it is published in Dunedin has nothing to do with its contents. But readers cannot help feeling that it is after all a Dunedin magazine, and moreover that it is exclusively guided by Scotch ministers and University professors. We are confident that if the readers of the magazine were asked their opinions, the verdict of most would be—“ The magazine is intolerably dreary.” It makes pretention to great learning but does not exhibit much. The number of topics is most limited, and the frequent repetition of the same themes is very wearying. In theseven numbers of themagazine we find no less than eleven articles treating of “ Evolution,” which may one and all be dismissed without notice, for they are merely dreary repetitions of what has been said in pleasanter language and ampler form by Spencer, Darwin, and Haeckel. Six papers treat of religion strictly, and of several others religion is the chief feature. Ten are avowedly reviews of books, and several others are based on books just read by the essayists. Professor Macgregor contributed three longwinded, mystical, aimless articles on the “ Problem of Poverty.” The remaining articles consist chiefly of feeble “ Translations from Latin,” or hashingsup of forgotten worthies, and several articles on politics of no particular interest, The magazine would have been far more readable, far more interesting, vastly more useful, and would have obtained a far wider circulation, had it contained more articles by thoughtful men, who happen to be outside the charmed circle of Scotch ministers and University professors. There are in the colony many men eminent in science, or possessing a large amount of general and particular knowledge, which though unsuitable for papers for the “ Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,” would be read with great interest and profit by thoughtful men throughout the colony. Men like Messrs. John White, Colenso, Carruthers, Heale, and Travers; men like Drs. Hector, Buller, and Haast, and numbers of others could each and all write papers which would be vastly better than feeble criticisms of Darwinism, or futile attempts to reconcile theology and science.

The present number is as dull as its predecessors. Mr. Fox and Mr. Stout quarrel with Mr. Mackenzie for his temperate article on intemperance in the previous number. The papers read like so many pastes of that delightful paper the Reformer. The Rev. W.. .T. Habens contributes a paper full of ponderous attempts at wit. It is merely a dry essay on “ The Pronoun and Article,” and reads like a chaptar copied from a work on English grammar. The Rev. D. Bruce furnishes a paper on the Eastern question, its history and bearing on civil and religious liberty. Both the remaining papers discuss the New Zealand University. The first is by Mr. J. E. Fitz Gerald, the second by Professor Shand. Mr. Fitz Gerald discusses a Bill which last year passed through the Legislative Council, but was rejected in the House of Representatives by the powerful Scotch element. Mr. Fitz Gerald justly asserts that no graduate of any University in Great Britain or Ireland gains any honor from the New Zealand University; on the contrary, he confers an honor. He further argues that these men, educated in, and therefore having a practical knowledge of, the work done by different Universities, should have some share in the government of the University which they have joined. Under the present Act the Government fills up all vacancies in the Senate ; but when thirty students shall have been converted into graduates, these thirty will have the right of filling up vacancies in the Senate, a’ternately with the Government. By this foolish and unjust measure, the ad eundem graduates have no share in the management of the University, all their practical and varied experience is wasted. The University will be ruled by a Senate composed, half of Government nominees ; the other half of graduates of the New Zealand University, who know no more of University; life or of what a University should be, than do the boys and girls who pass the Oxford and Cambridge local examinations. Mr. Fitz Gerald thinks the Senate should be composed of men like Professors Sale, Macgregor, Cook, and Brown, and other teachers. We think that nothing could be more detrimental to the welfare of the University. Anyone who knows anything personally of the British Universities and has read of others, must recognise the evil that would follow such a proceeding. No one on earth is more conservative than a University professor snugly esconsed in a lucrative chair. The one thing he hates is change. If the senate of the New Zealand University were composed entirely of professors, very many of the old world errors would be introduced and perpetuated. University professors lead peculiar isolated lives ; they live far from the “sturm and drang”_ of life ; they know but little of the education needed by men outside the University walls ; they forget that “ the old order changeth, giving place to new.” They disagree with the words— Not In vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward, let us range; Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. A strong infusion into the senate of men who belong to no University, and the business of whose lives is far removed from the University walls, would tend to make the University in harmony with the age, and would prevent its falling back into old well-worn habits, which, though suitable enough in the dark or middle ages, are now antique and utterly at variance with surrounding conditions. Professor Shand thinks that the University should be a University in fact, and net merely in name. He thinks a teaching body should be established, and that the University should not be merely a dispenser of useless certificates of degrees. His well-written paper should be read by all. If people would only road these papers, and act in accordance with their suggestions, the New Zealand University would become not only a University in name, but a living, real, useful power in the land.—(Communicated.)