ONE UNIVERSITY.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18141, 2 August 1924, Page 18

ONE UNIVERSITY.

VISCOUNT BRYCE'S ADVICE RECALLED. i.SVECUI. TO "'TEX JESSS.' ) WELLINGTON, August 1. Apropos of the movement for the splitting-up of the University of New Zealand into four separate Universities at Dunedin, Cliristchurch, Wellington, and Auckland, some extracts from a notable address delivered by the late Viscount Bryce (then the Eight Hon. .lames Bryce}, at tie Victoria College capping ceremony in 1912, will be read ■Frith more than ordinary interest. "Viscoimt Bryce was a noted educationist, a professor at Oxford, a historian, and an Ambassador from Britain, to llic United States. 'Vfter some introductory remarks übout the advisability of having in Parliament a large number of those who had graduated from the University, Viscount Bryce referred to local problems. !Ner?v Zealand, he said, had its own peculiar University problems. How conld they reconcile, for instance, lie claims of the four cities and their Colleges with the necessity for the highest and the beat kind of teaching in. every departmentf We had spread our work, efforts, and money over four University institutions, whereas in England there was proportionately a smaller number of Universities on which efforts could be concentrated. From liis experience in England, Canada, and the United States, it seemed to him that in New Zealand _ we would be obliged to try specialising work in each of the four Colleges. The difficulty of concentrating all efforts and the best teaching on one fullyequipped University of the highest order was obvious in a country of the shape of New Zealand, where there were four centres of population, each with independent interests. It would be difficult to create hero one great University out of its four constituent Colleges. If that could not be done, what wa3 the nest best course?

''l would suggest that each of these four Colleges form some special field of activity in which it Blight attain the highest excellence, so that instead of having four Universities, imperfectly equipped in all departments, you would have four Colleges, each of the highest equipment in some particular department, which might be cultivated to the finest possible efficiency. It is toot a necessity of University life that a man should continue from the beginning to the end of it in one place and at one University. In Germany it has long been the practice to begin a course in one University and to go on to another, and then to a third. This eould be easily done in New Zealand. Tou eould have, as you now have, your medical faculty, highly equipped, concentrated in Dunedin. In Auckland you might have your school of mines and engineering, of the highest efficiency; in ChristchuTch yottr facility of agriculture; and at Victoria College your school of law, practical economics, and finance,"

Importance of Agriculture. "Viscount Bryee mentioned how strongly it had been forced upon him in New Zealand how important it was to have an Agricultural College of the highest possible excellence. "You hare in New Zealand," ho said, "agricultural resources which are hardly equalled, and certainly not surpassed, in any part of the Empire. It is for you to use these resources to the utmost" There is no truth greater than the supremo importance of cultivating science for the purposes of agriculture. If there were a member of your Legislature present, I would tell him that there was 110 greater service that the Legislature could render New Zealand than to make the most liberal grants for an Agricultural College, on wise lines, of the highest efficiency." It is pointed out by a leading educationist here that, even with four "Universities in New Zealand, there will need to be some controlling body over the four, just as in Scotland, where, under the Scottish University Act of 1889, a committee of the Privy Council is the supervising body. So that, after all, each University would not be independent of the other. In the caso of Scotland, the separate Universities cannot pasa a single ordinance or start a new department without the sanction of the Privy Council Committee. Whatever may happen in the future, many past and present students alfe of the opinion that the country is no* yet big enough for separate Universities. They realise that a degree of a city University would not count in the world of learning as high as one obtained in the Kew Zealand University.