The University
PriHE Christchurch "Press" last | week printed a photograph of the University Senate in which not one face was clearly recognisable. That was an accident. But it was not an accident that it printed some columns of discussion by the Senate in which the fear of an intellectual blackout was expressed very clearly. It is a fear that all universities feel in greater or smaller degree whoever controls them, and feel acutely when their sole source of revenue is a Parliamentary vote. It is, after all, not human to give everything and expect nothing, but in the field of higher education anything less than that is a threat to the independence of thought. Universities are compelled to ask those who maintain them not to attempt to control them-an unreasonable request in itself but justified by the necessities of the case. It is not therefore surprising or disturbing that the Chancellor should wish to see an independent authority in charge of University finance, and a full-time Minister expounding University policy in Cabinet. It is doubtful if either of those suggestions is practical politics in any democracy, but they at least emphasise the dangers of political control, and the weaknesses of the system under which our University is at present conducted. It is always a calamity when a University has to ask where its funds come from rather than how far they will go. But the best safeguard against that situation is the quality of the men who spend the money, and it is not quite true that this depends on how much we allow them for their own pockets. The honour bestowed the other day on Sir James Hight, for example, was in no sense at all compensation for his years of underpaid labour. It was recognition of the value of his labour-to his students first. the University next, but also to New Zealand as a whole. Bad as it is to pay such men inadequately, it is many times worse to believe that money means more to them qthan anything else, :
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 397, 31 January 1947, Page 5
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342The University New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 397, 31 January 1947, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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