B.—l

48

Matriculation Examination, and attendance at some at least of the courses at the University colleges is compulsory, even for those students who do not take the full course for a degree. Further, on each Board of Advice of a training college one member is a representative of the Professorial Board of the University College, and the Principal of the Training College is, in every case, the professor or lecturer in education at the University college. " Including the training colleges, and counting the professional schools as distinct from the affiliated institutions, we may say that there are in New Zealand fourteen public institutions for higher or professional education. " [In addition, there are certain other institutions for professional education which are endowed privately or otherwise, and are chiefly concerned with the training of theological students, many of whom also appear on the books of the affiliated institutions.] " In any modification of the degree courses of the University that it mayseem expedient to make, it will be necessary to bear in mind the various classes of undergraduate students at present enrolled in the University, namely:— (1.) Those who give up their whole time to university-work, including attendance at lectures, laboratory-work, and private study ; (2.) Those who are engaged in earning their livelihood during the day, and are able to do their academical work only in the evening ; (3.) Training-college students, who for a large part of their time are engaged in work preparing them for their special profession as teachers, but having no direct bearing upon recognized university courses ; with them, perhaps, may be classed a few students in private theological colleges, who are also enrolled on the books of the respective university colleges, and to a certain extent some of the law students whose professional work is closely related to their university-work; (4.) The exempted students, who for the most part attend no lectures, and are fully occupied in outside work, as teachers or otherwise, for the greater part of the day. The training-college students, and, presumably, also the theological students, who intend to take degree courses might be reasonably expected to complete those courses (at all events, up to the stage required for a bachelor's degree) before beginning their special professional training, it being understood that their choice of the subjects taken in the degree courses would be dominated, more or less, by their intention to enter their particular professions. In such a case, these students would come into the first class named, and we are left, in addition, to deal only with students classed under (2) and (4). It is evident that if the standard of the amount and quality of work expected to be accomplished by a university student before he attains his bachelor's degree is to be regulated by what may be reasonably expected from students of class (1), then the remaining students must either be allowed to present for the degree work lesser in amount, or lower in quality, or both, or they must be allowed an extension of the course from three years to, say, five years. With regard to students of the fourth class, it is evident that the possession of a degree may have an entirely different significance from that which it embodies in the case of the first three classes, inasmuch as the only function the University and the colleges perform for them is to examine them and to grant them diplomas on the results of the examinations. Their diligence as private students has probably been great, and they may have marked ability, but they can hardly be classed, in the strict sense, as university students. At the four colleges of the University there were in all 1,691 students attending lectures during the year 1909—namely, 1,054 men and 637 women; of these 1,305 (823 men and 482 women) were matriculated students, graduates or undergraduates, and the rest were unmatriculated. The full numbers at the several colleges are given in Table M, which also shows the number of exempted students —that is, students who are prevented by the necessity of earning their living or by distance from a college from attending lectures, and are allowed to keep terms, except in certain science and professional subjects, by passing the annual college examination.