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19. Mr. Allen.] With regard to your evidence in connection with the Otago Medical School, does your £3,600 include the Dental School? —No. 20. Where did you get your figures from?— Page 56 of the Report of the Minister of Education for 1910 : it there states that the cost of the Medical School is £4,829 a year. Of that amount you will find, on referring to the Report of the Minister for 1909, that £600 is partly the cost of teaching the pure sciences, so I deducted that. The figures of the Medical School are referred to in a footnote on page 67 of " University Reform in New Zealand." The footnote (6) says, "The Otago University accounts, 1908, give the Medical School expenditure as £3,640; the smallness of this amount having been criticized, in 1909 it suddenly jumped to £4,830 by the inclusion of ' Fees paid over,' £1,570. The report of the Director mentions no corresponding increase in staff. .£6OO is deducted from the above amounts, as it is not a real expenditure. , ' You will find that in the accounts for the University a great deal of obscurity is due to the way the accounts are kept, and to get at the real conditions you have to deduct some of the items, otherwise the expenditure would be very much swollen. I think there is no doubt that the real expenditure on the Medical School is not more than £4,000 a year. 21. I do not want to argue for a moment that the Medical School in Otago has got anything like sufficient money to run it efficiently, but I do not think it wise to present to Parliament evidence with our indorsement which I do not think would stand examination. I will allow it to go on the understanding that the evidence which will be of real value to the Committee will be contained in some returns we are to get as to the cost of this Medical School? —That does not raise the question of the accuracy of the pamphlet. On page 55 we say, " The Board of Education in England required the State-aided universities to send in uniform returns on the whole subject of their administration, and until that is done here accurate and strictly comparable figures for our University will be impossible." The point is that we have specifically drawn attention to the fact in this pamphlet that there is a great deal of difficulty in ascertaining the facts, and we have done the best we could in elucidating the position of the colleges by calling attention to the difference in the figures of the Medical School for 1908 and 1909. The only remedj' is for the Otago University to give its returns in considerable detail. In investigating the position of the Medical School it is essential to eliminate the cost of preliminary study. In the 1908 account there was a statement that there was a certain expenditure on preliminary science subjects, and that amount was deducted by us from the expenditure of the Medical School. If you deduct £600 from the 1909 returns you get £4,200 as the cost of the Medical School. The statement in the pamphlet is £3,600. 22. What is the £600 deducted for?—As the cost of preliminary study, biology, &c. The cost of teaching of anatomy, physiology, and all the professional subjects are the proper charges on the Medical School, and the criticism is that the amount (£3,600) is inadequate to enable the Medical School to maintain its efficiency. 23. As regards the figures of the Medical School, what we have done in recent years is to allocate only a portion of the salary of the professor to the ratio of the number of students. With regard to students abroad, you gave it in evidence that one of the failures of the University was due to so many students going abroad :do you refer to the Medical School? —I refer to all students. It is not possible to make one's statement specific except in the case of medicine. But in the case of medicine we have these figures for one year. I have also the figures which appeared yesterday 24. Do you know there are many Australian medical students even that go abroad? —My impression is that there is a larger number of New-Zealanders abroad than Australians, which implies, to my mind, the comparative success of Australian universities as compared with that of New Zealand. 25. May it not be ascribed to the greater intelligence or desire on the part of the NewZealander to obtain a wider knowledge?—lt seems to me it is largely a matter of ability to pay the heavy expense involved in studying abroad. A New Zealand student has very good reason for supposing that the education to be obtained abroad is altogether different to what can be obtained locally, and he is therefore prepared to spend the other £50 or £100 a year required. 26. What influences a .father in New Zealand to send his son to a university? Is it not largely that he shall get another aspect of university life, and that his social life shall be of a wider quality? —Yes; I contend that New-Zealanders send their sons abroad and pay the extra cost in order to give them a good university training. I think they are quite justified in doing it, and act wisely. 27. I refer to the social aspect of the question —the living in the university itself : is not that an attraction and an inducement to many New-Zealanders now to send their sons to Cambridge or Oxford ? —Yes, I think it is one of the attractions. 28. You say things have changed in Australia : is it not a fact that in Australia they have built up institutions which board the students in the university itself? —Yes. 29. So that they have a social life? —Yes. 30. Have we in New Zealand? —No. 31. Do you think it is advisable that that should be cultivated? —Yes, it is a most valuable part of university life. 32. With regard to students going abroad, do not a good many English students also go abroad? —Yes, in the case of post-graduate students; but the fact of students going abroad is then not evidence of the non-success of their university. The reason is that the student goes to a particular teacher, and if a world-known specialist happens to be in a particular university, then many post-graduate students desire to go there. It is not a reflection on other universities. Only one university can have the most eminent teacher and investigator of a particular subject.

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