The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and The Morning News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1875

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1751, 24 September 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and The Morning News.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1875

??«tho tarase that lacks asairtanca For the wrung tlir.t in-nV ro-.icij.tr tha faturo in the distance Aad tia 2»od thai sj ci.-i <:.-.

The blundering of the authorities of the New Zealand University is now fairly before the public. The wrong is admitted, but not the slightest public expression of regret made, nor any attempt to publicly withdraw the slur cast on the young students, whose interests have .been so wantonly played with by the incapable conductors of this most anomalous and ridiculous institution. We have already referred to the circumstances of this affair, and the statement is entirely borne out by the admissions of the secretary of the University. As will be recollected, there have bsen two classes of examination : one for students attending affiliated Colleges, the other for persons not enjoying such advantages, for whose convenience there is an examination conducted in connection with the University in May. Certain Auckland students had been attending the classes of our local affiliated College, and had creditably passed the prescribed examination in December. They neither were expected nor did they intend, to go forward to the University examination in May, which, as we have said, was for '' outside " students alone. However, after that examination was over, it was announced by the University—even Gazetted we believe —and spread by publication in every paper in the colony, that these Auckland students, mentioned by name, had failed in the May examinations, and consequently lost the year. If a University had " a body to be kicked or a soul to be blessed," the father or relative of any one of these young aspirants to literary fame might be excused for a private ejaculation with reference to the latter, or—could he get at the University in the incarnate form of some specimen of humanity—for an irrepressible impulse to do the former. The only reparation now is that somebody blundered." A lengthy correspondence has passed on the the subject, and the result summed up was presented yesterday to our Board of Education.

1. The Chancellor admits the correctness of the opinion expressed by the Board in the second paragraph of their reporb —that the students of this College completed the terms of 1874 in December last. Rattray, therefore, completed the second year, and the rest of our students the first year of the University Course at that date. 2. The Chancellor's admission implies the correctness of the conclusion stated in the third paragraph of the report of the Board—that the students of this college acted in accordance with the University Regulations in not presenting themselves at the examination of undergraduates in May, 1875. Their attendance was not required at an examination which was held for the sole purpose of affording such students as had not already kept the terms of 1874 an opportunity of completing them. 3. No reference is made by Mr Maskell to the fourth paragraph—the most important portion of the Board's report —which characterises *' the publication of the names of our students as having failed to pass an examination for which they did not present themselves,' and at which they were not required to present themselves, as a ' very serious injustice to these students, which urgently demands redress.' -

But the sequel at the meeting of the Board of Education is worth recording.

On the motion of Colonel Haulbain it was resolved— " That the Board thank the Chancellor for his courtesy in entering into an explanation with reference to the points raised in their letter of the 28 th August, confirming the view they had takes that the matriculated students of the Auckland College and Grammar School who passed the annual College examination at Christmas, 1874, were

entitled to reckon the University terms of* that year. They regret, however, th?t the Chancellor has not seen his way to remove the discredit "which has been unjustly put upon these students, by formally notifying that their names ought not to have been published in the Government Gazette ifa.having ' failed to pass an examination for which they did not present themselves.' "

After this we shall say that Colonel Haultain is the politest man alive, and the foregoing expression of the Board of Education will be generally regarded as courtesy in fits. But it is really time that this farce of the University had been played oufc. Although its manufacture of shoddy degrees will tend to bring the genuine article into contempt and ridicule, still the cause of education might have been advanced if the conduct of affairs had been placed in the hands of persons with University experience, who could form some idea of the working of such an institution. As we have before said, we understand that not one connected with the conduct of the New Zealand University is himself the possessor of a University degree, saving the shoddy article of their own manufacture, which we are told they have conferred on one another. Indeed it is said that only one of them has ever had connection with University life, and that; he was either plucked or expelled, or in some way departed by the back door, leaving his degree behind him. From such a state of things, what can be expected but blundering, such as that which has occurred. Keally until the colony can afford to sen<) for, and pay for, and bring out from home, men whose one business is learning, w hose lives have been devoted to study exclusively, and to the cultivation and promotion of human knowledge, and who, from personal experience know what is a University, wo should be content with systems of intermediate education. Surely this were better than making the name of " University" a laughing stock, through picking up among the scrubs and swamps of colonial life, men whose cool impudence and brazen pretensions have imposed on a simple-minded, illiterate an d primitive generation, and accepting them on their own representations, and making them the fountain head of learning in New Zealand.