THE UNIVERSITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 363, 7 June 1946, Page 28

THE UNIVERSITY

Sir,-Articles and correspondence appearing in The Listener have provoked this layman to give what he considers the community angle on the matter. In the spirit of the age I ask, "What do we get for our money-niggardly as the supply may be?" A number of correspondents with a prolific display of University degrees appear to be at variance as to what the functions of a University should be. One contributor says that the community owes bigger and better equipped Universities to our youth. A pertinent question might be: What does our University-educated youth owe to the community? Where are all our past Rhodes Scholars to-day? One page of correspondents is preceded by another, all bemoaning the fact that a University graduate has decided to export his brain to England. Personally I am shedding no tears. He is getting a big boy now and I expect more for my money than a peevish complaint about a beastly World War that interrupted his studies. After he has been out in the world a bit and barked his vanity on a few jagged bits of Anno Domini he will probably look back and laugh at his present lament. And what of the harvest? Certainly there is a small coterie of Smart Alecs who know all the answers. Quite incapable of turning out anything approaching the cultural contributions of the Old Masters in Art (painting to me), music, or literature they produce an array of crudities and attribute our lack of appreciation to our lack of brains, of which of course they have a monopoly. But taken by and large, the thousands of professional people who qualify at our Universities-our doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, etc., are a good bunch of citizens, much worthier, surely, than the average citizen who has not the intestinal fortitude (guts to them) (continued on next page)

{continued ftom previous page) to discipline himself to several years of study. Nor do I think their monetary reward much greater, on the average, than some other jobs carried on by men who have never spent an hour’s study in their lives, omitting of course the "study" of Racing Form for next Saturday’s meeting. Take a look at the pay sheets of the Waterfront Control Commission and see for yourselves. One writer points to the inadequate salaries paid to lecturers. Another thinks the Universities should proclaim a deeper philosophy of life than merely qualifying students for better paid jobs. What do these correspondents want — more money or more soul? And how deep is the soul of humanity to-day? I can tell them. It is no deeper than their tummies. If they don’t believe me, let them do the rounds of the pubs on a Saturday morning. Ninety per cent. of humanity doesn’t want a deeper philosophy of life-all. they want is a deeper handle of beer. Surely the influence of our hundreds of students from even "third-grade" Universities should produce a higher philosophy than that. Another correspondent wants a University to be a place where a selected few come together, etc. Selected by whom-by themselves as being superior to the common herd? The philosophy of a hermit isn’t much use to humanity, however humanitarian it may be. He doesn’t do much good for humanity unless he can and does put it across. And this about gets us to Jesus Christ.

LAYMAN

(Wellington).