VICTORIA COLLEGE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7831, 25 June 1909, Page 4

VICTORIA COLLEGE.

THE ANNUAL CAPPING.

Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, June 24 The Hon. 0. C. Boweii, Vice-C'nu-cellor of the University Senate of New Zealand, presided at the Victoria Oollege capping ceremony this afternoon. The concert chamber of the Town litll ivas crowded, Mr Bowon remarked that this was the centenary of the birth of Da/win, and fiftieth anniversary of the p i.'j.l)--cation of the "Origin of Species." Mr J. W. Joynt, registrar of the college, read apologies from the AttorneyGeneral, the Minister of Education, and Dr Anderson (Education Department). He said the number of'M.A. degrees to be conferred —seventeen— was a record for any college of the New Zealand University. The degree of Master of Laws would be conferred on one student. Twelve students had qualified for the B.A- degree. The college had also won four senior scholarships connected with the Bachelor's Degree. A student of the college had also won the prize for modern languages, presented by the London 'representative of the University of New Zealand, and the college had annexed the Ithodcs Scholarship for 1909, through Allan MacDougall. The various degrees were then conferred. Professor Picken said that perhaps their most fundamental need was growth of public appreciation of the services rendered by the University to the nation. The universities were the nurseries of national ideas, and the future of tho nation depended on the maintenance in the universities of a high moral and spiritual level. Examinations and degrees were beginning to be looked on as of much more importance than they really were, and were liable to bo misused. Many of tho professors believed that tho only solution of the present problems of the University was the establishment of independent universities in each of the four centres. Such independence had been foreshadowed by the Chancellor, Sir Robert Stout, in a recent official pronouncement. Whether this were near or far must depend on the ability of the provinces to provide for their universities adequate endowments from private benefactions. Tins was the national spirit that was wanted. Mr Thompson, vice-president of tho Students' Association, presented Allan MtioDougall, the Rhodes scholar, With a purge of sovereigns, on behalf of the students. The proceedings throughout were characterised by the usual hilarity, the various speakers being subjected to considerable interruption of a more or less humorous nature,