FOUR UNIVERSITIES.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18122, 11 July 1924, Page 8

FOUR UNIVERSITIES.

CHANCELLOR CONDEMNS

PROPOSAL.

"A WRONG THING TO DO."

(OIHAI TO "THK PS«SS.")

WELLINGTON", July 10.

Recently, Sir Eobert Stont, who is Chancellor of the New Zealand University, was asked by Victoria College for his opinion of the proposal to abolish the University and to create each of the present Colleges separate Universities. He has replied in the following letter:—

I am opposed to the abolition o£ the New Zealand University. That would be in my opinion a wrong thing to do. There was an attempt made some years ago to abolish the University of Wales, and a Boyal Commission was appointed to consider the whole question of university education in the Principality. The Commission upheld the existing federal system, and did not propose the creation of the several colleges in Wales into universities. And who ever heard suggested that the Colleges of Oxford or Cambridge should be created into separate universities? There are two separate colleges in Aberdeen, and everyone acquainted with University education in that northern city will tell you that it would bo midsummer madness to create these two colleges, now happily united, into separate universities. Further, would it be considered'wise to create the many colleges associated with the London University into separate universities?

What the world needs is union and co-operation, not separation. New Zealand needs institutions that will help to keep us together, and not those that will sever us. I hope the day is long distant when we will have any institutions that will keep us apart. Standard Would Suffer. The loss to New Zealand by creating separate universities would be great. The large number of small universities in North America has led to tho lowering of the standard of education. You may have seen some articles in the Hibbert Journal during the past year, and this year, showing what has happened. Would a degree of "Victoria College be valued out of New Zealand as a degree of New Zealand? It would not, any more than a degree granted by some Hall or College of Oxford would be deemed equal to a degree by the venerable University of Oxford. What would New Zealand gain by separate universities? I fail to see any possible gain. I know what it would lose. The expenses of management would be greater; its degrees would be of less repute; the disunion of our people would be promoted, and cooperation in higher education discouraged. I deeply regret that somo misguided professors are at the bottom of this agitation. Do they want more power? Do they think that a representative body like .the New Zealand Senate is not likely to be a better guido in preparing regulations for University purposes than separate tribunals? Further, consider the future of University education. Are thero to be no more University Colleges in New Zealand? What of the claims of Nelson, Wanganui, Napier, and New Plymouth? The time may come when these places will have colleges, perhaps dealing in specified subjects, and would they not ask for University status, and cite tho destruction of the New Zealand University as an argument for such a demand?

I appeal to what has happened in many parts of tho great continent of North America as an illustration of the evil done by small colleges; many of them ruled by men without vision. What our civilisation needs is union, not separation. The brotherhood of humanity is not helped by creating divisions among us.