EDUCATIONAL ATMOSPHERE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 301, 13 May 1913, Page 6

EDUCATIONAL ATMOSPHERE

WHY HOME DEGREES ARE VALUED. Educational atmosphere was lightly touched upon hy Bishop Sprott at the Hadlield Hostel ilowcr show at Wellington last week, lie had introduced the Prime Minister (the Hon. W. ¥. Massey), wlio opened the show, and then pointed out the advantages accruing to the community from such an institution as the hostel —the only one in Wellington for male students. Degrees obtained at Oxford or Cambridge, lie said, were held in higher esteem in New- Zealand than those obtained in the Dominion. This was not due to scholastic snobbery, nor to the fact that the ordinary Oxford or Cambridge degree represented a larger amount of information or knowledge than the. New Zealand degree, but because to them was attached a broader culture and a wider outlook. When men entered one of these ancient halls he went into an atmosphere that was the growth of centuries. It was the outcome of high thinking and of wide and great ends. The architectural splendors that one saw at these ancient seats of learning, too, were in themselves a source of inspiration. Possibly, when a man from Oxford or Cambridge, returned to &w Zealand, he despised local efforts to impart such an atmosphere, but there was no doubt that these ancient universities had their humble beginnings. In New Zealand the foundations were being laid, it was hoped, of structures that would come into being with similar influences, and attain the high traditions of those

great English halls.