INSIDE A UNIVERSITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 794, 8 October 1954, Page 26

INSIDE A UNIVERSITY

was always the liveliest, the most controversially-minded of the university student annuals. It was an exercise, often highly successful, in student thinking and writing. It displayed a hard approach to broad political and social issues that took it beyond the immediacies of intramural affairs with an ebullience carried over into Rostrum (published for some years by the New Zealand University Students’ Association). Victoria College seemed animated with a spirit of restless and energetic inquiry. Some of this necessarily vanished with the ambitious Jubilee number in 1949, impressive in the way it dealt with the history of the College in a detailed, well-edited, thoroughly prepared publication. And for better or for worse the old student characteristics are jacking in the 1954 Spike*, which breaks a silence of five years. | P to its Jubilee number Spike The new Spike sets out to show what has been achieved in this lustrum, and besides surveying the immediate’ past leads to considerations of the future of the College. These considerations are of serious public concern, and it is not surprising that the editorial committee has drawn heavily on the staff for its contributions. Spike has become more official, and speaks with the voice of authority. Of 12 articles closely concerned with the development of the College no fewer "than seven are by heads of departments or lecturers. It will come as a surprise to some that the science department at Victoria is the biggest in New Zealand. Professor Richardson sums up, with less heat than the congestion of his surroundings might well generate, the development of the department from 191 enrolments in 1930 to over 500 today-all carried out in buildings which, it would appear, have

not been added to, except for a biology block, and a couple of huts, since the original building of 1910. Science is no longer a matter of a blackboard and a few bunsen burners-today it calls for extensive laboratory space, room for graduate students, museums, stores, preparation, staff accommodation, technicians’ quarters, reading rooms and libraries and (for Wellington weather) cloakrooms. In the years 1940-52 there were 560 University M.Sc. graduates in the laboratory sciences, of which number 184 were from Victoria, as against 152 from Auckland, 127 from Canterbury and 97 from Otago, More than this, graduate studies, and development of work for Ph.D., are becoming increasingly important: "It is now as important and urgent to provide for graduate instruction and _ research at Victoria, as before it was important to provide for undergraduates." Those who doubt this may refresh their memories (and their spelling) in the fact that our science graduates are employed in administration and liaison, in general agriculture, in animal husbandry, bacteriology, wool genetics, soil chemistry and microbiology, general botany, inorganic and organic chemistry, biochemistry, entomological researches, forestry, geology, palaeontology, physics, meteorology, veterinary science, and other activities. "The demand for scientists exceeds: the present production from the University and the demand is increasing faster than this production." In 1927; we learn, the country employed 162 scientists. In 1947, there were 1040; and the estimates, provenylow, were for 2207 in 1952-3. If we cannot train our graduates adequately, more and more of ‘them will become a non-return export. Among the special schools of the University of New Zealand, the Schools of Social Science and Political Science and Public Administration are centred on Victoria. Mr. J. R. McCreary, modestly, makes no claim for Jlebenstraum in

Social Science, the newest department at Victoria and the first in New Zealand. Instead, he tells us what the department is doing, and how far it has succeeded. A great deal of research has been undertaken, much of it at the request of the Health and Social Security Departments. In the fields of psychology, economics, education and political science the new school can do @ great deal to make the general public realise that the university is an integral part of the whole community, working with and for it. Others deal in facts and figures. Professor H. A. Murray has set himself the unenviable task of pondering the imponderables. "Scholarship" is his subject; and what other term is there to describe those toughened concepts, not tangible like brick and mortar, on which the idea of the universities has been founded and handed down? "Scholarship," says the professor, "studies the thoughts of men in different ages and different countries, as a means of surveying the social, moral, intellectual, religious and related trends of mankind, of finding their place in the scheme of things and assessing their value for the present and of examining the possibilities of their future." In three words, cogito ergo sum. (If the proof-reader had been as clear-headed he would have spared the author the embarrassment of "Bracciolini was concerned with the discovery and usability of sauces," and indeed, he is much to be reproved in too many other places.) Concretely, Professor Murray can point to 120 published works, in books and specialised articles, which are the fruit of scholarship in the College. "The community has the right to present certain questions and problems on its life to the University, and the University is obviously discussing and examining constructively those questions and problems and frequently very cautiously suggesting answers." A guarded statement, but what more can be said? Victoria is but one of six constituent university colleges whose expanding needs clamour to the earth beside and

the heavens above for more and more facilities. It is therefore most satisfying to see an article by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. G. A. Curry, dealing with the University as a whole, and with the Grants Committee in particular. This body, first appointed in 1948, .collates and assesses detailed estimates from the constituent colleges for a_ fiveryear period. Co-ordinated planning has _ become possible. (In major building alone nothing has been done in Canterbury since 1923, and nothing at Victoria or Auckland since 1939.) The research fund has been increased to £15,000, and there is about £20,000 a year from the D.S.1.R. for special research, mainly agricultural. At Queen Victoria’s accession England’s total education vote was only £20,000, but if more knowledge calls for more and more public money wisely spent, the University is at least alive to the problem. It has been noted that Spike, though published by the Students’ Association,

leans rather heavily on the staff. But not in the literary contributions, though Mr. J. M. Bertram writes with a view perhaps beyond immediate student perspective of literary movements and periodicals centred on the College. There are only two "stories’-both ready-made affairs-and a great deal of poetry. It may be said at once that the poetry is very good. James K. Baxter takes pride of place with his "Lament for Barney Flanagan," a modern ballad that indeed sees congruity in an incongruous death, and is, of its kind, masterly. But he chucks in another, obviously dredged up from the bottom of the scran-bag, all about King James o’ Scotland and a fool; good, but five centuries out of place. More will be heard of Charles Doyle whose "Empirical History" is a very sure piece of work. Rilke’s Fifth Elegy is translated, with considerable power and. beauty, by E.

P. M. Dronke. Victoria is strong in verse, stronger than the other colleges. A longish article by J. Cody is devoted to the architectural "delights" of Wellington, nicely caught in non-com-ment line and wash by Jeanne Benseman. Queen Victoria, her statue and her echoes, must meet with resignation a little more judicious but not illhumoured recrimination. Elsewhere in Spike are full accounts of the sports which bind the College in public affec tion, and of the junketings which alienate it in the eyes of the vociferous few. It is the sad occasion of death which makes it necessary to record the services of Sir Thomas Hunter, Professor R. O. McGechan, Dr. Winston. Monk and Mr. George F. Dixon. Any. memorial is inadequate measured against

their enduring work,

D.

G.

*Spike, 1954, published by the Victoria University College Students’ Association, 5/-.