"IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE EVERYONE AT ONCE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 386, 15 November 1946, Page 30

"IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE EVERYONE AT ONCE"

Australian Visitor Discusses Problems of Universities and Radio

‘M interested in three things where you have this problem of trying to please all the ‘people all the time, with the usual results-the university, broadcasting, and the art gallery," said J. D. G. Medley, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, member of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and Vice-Chairman of the Trustees of the Melbourne Art Gallery, when The Listener interviewed him in Wellington during his short visit. We had asked him about the new programme plan of the ABC, which is modelled on the BBC’s plan of separate "Light" and "Serious" programmes, and how it was working out. (The BBC has three separate programmes, the Home Service, the Light Programme, and now the Third Programme; the ABC has in the last few weeks also split up its service, into National and Interstate Networks.) The new plan, Mr. Medley told us, is an attempt, in part, to avoid the mistake of "trying to please everyone at once-with the usual results." Travelling Scholarships Mr. Medley’s visit to New Zealand is made on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation; he presides over a small committee which makes recommendations for the award in Australia and New Zealand of Rockefeller Travelling Fellowships in social science. (The Fellowships are now being revived after a wartime lapse). Sir Thomas Hunter, ViceChancellor of the University of New Zealand, is also on that committee, and Mr. Medley had talks with him in Well- . ington. But he also called on the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, and when we saw him he was hoping to find out something about New Zealand paintings. The Melbourne Gallery, he said, has the largest bequest for the purchase of pictures in the Southern Hemisphere (the Felton Bequest). "Rockefeller are concentrating on really good people," Mr. Medley said. "They don’t want people who’re just going to use the Fellowship to get a doctorate. They don’t necessarily want people in the immediate post-graduate stage; they want people who've proved themselves for a few years in some job, perhaps a university job, .perhaps not. But I doubt if there will be more than two fellowships a year from this whole area." University Problems "And you're here chiefly on that business?" "Chiefly. But I’m also interested in general university business. I want to look at the New Zealand University Colleges. We’re all full of problems at the moment and the more light that can be thrown on them from comparative experience, the better. Principally in rehabilitation questions of course, and also the future of university administrationwhich is growing more and more complex as the pressures on the university increase. There are pressures from all sides, and the universities are expected to do everything at once, and do it without any more money.

"We're trying a new experimerit next year you know-I don’t know if you’ve heard. We're sending seven or eight hundred first-year students (all first-year medical, dental, architecture and. engineering) into a camp more than 300 miles from Melbourne (so there will be no possibility of commuting). It’s an old RAAF training camp, and we’re spending about £150,000 to knock it into shape. I think it will prove three things-first, that you can do good work in buildings which are not of Gothic construction. (I’m afraid we’ve all been led up the garden path a bit, particularly by the Americans, about bricks and mortar. If you can’t afford to put up bricks and mortar and pay good salaries, then the bricks and mortar are quite useless). Second, I think we’ll prove the value of close communal life at that stage of development; the army showed us something about this. And third, we'll bring them into close contact with a set of rural problems-the place is Mildura, an irrigation area-and I think this will be a sociological experiment of particular value to city students." Radio and Propaganda "And broadcasting"Broadcasting? Well, I’ve been a member of the Commission for five years now, but that’s only a very part-time job for me. I’m mainly interested in the cultural side, naturally. I firmly believe that the main contribution radio can make is its impact on our cultural life. I think the propaganda side is vastly exaggerated, and I think the politician is deluding himself if he thinks that getting on the air will do the trick. Because people’s listening habits are so embryonic; I don’t know how it is over here with you, but in Australia, I know, most people simply turn the thing on in the morning and leave it on, and only an infinitesimal amount of the effort which goes into producing the programmes goes into listening to it. And only that proportion of the effort gets over. It seems to me to be a thing the broadcasting people can’t (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) do anything about. They may deplore it, but there’s nothing much they can do immediately. "In Australia, our work in-musi¢ has been our most important achievement. It has revolutionised the public tasteI don’t think there’s any doubt about that. It was noticeable in the Army that surprisingly high proportions of men would go to concerts, even when there were movies as an alternative, and I think that is all attributable to the influence of radio. It is expensive to do what we have done, but it pays handsome dividends. "Then I’m interested in the direct education side too. Radio in schools is becoming more valuable, as more teachers realise that it is not just a thing which will make their job easier and give them a slack half-hour. This direct education is becoming more closely linked with our so-called Children’s Sessions too. I don’t know what sort of children’s sessions you have here. My view is that you have to have absolutely the very best, if only for the sake of getting the future adult into the habit of decent listening."