University Colleges.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4509, 29 August 1893, Page 2

University Colleges.

' [To the Editor W.D. Times.] Sir, -Are you not taking rather a narrow yiew of the agitation in Wellington for a University College ? You contrast the three colleges in New Zealand, with their small numbers, with the large Universities of the oH countries. But you limit the contrast to the numbers attending lectures. Is it not a fact, that thequality of the work heroically equal to tbut'of the older intJjpis? It must be so,' for elsoWew Zealand degioes would not be recognised as' they ore, by the Home Universities, and because the quantity of the work is limited—is not our population limited also ? Are we to have it stilt further limited? Such doubtless would be the result, if tho whole scheme were centralized in one college. Do liot those desirou3 Df advancing themselves in the scholastic scale already have buflioient difficulties to contend with? New Zealand is by nature debarnd from all schomes of centralization. To live twenty milps from a University is, in this land of hills and seas, to' be unaWe, as far as a student who is earning his own livelihood is concerned, to be unable to atvend lectures, It is not possible for but a small quota of students from these central districts to be able to remove to Auckland, Christchurcli, or Dunedin, A niuoli larger proportion could manage to. reach Wellington, Why should this proposition be denied ? IfvjMireei colleges now at work alive, it is only fair th"t Wellington, as the most central should 'oe served as the others, If the syßtem is to ba centralised—which I hold to be iut* possible in a country of the geo* graphical position of New Zealand —it should bo done at once, But as things are, Wellington should certainly be allowed its share, denying this one college will most certainly not assist to the consummation you desire -one large institution. I must apologise for troubling you at length, but think you perhaps wrote the artiole without due consideration of the predicament in which,students of tlieset parts are placed. I am, eto., Geo. W. Chaxwin. Taueru, August 23rd.