DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSITY

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26410, 2 May 1951, Page 8

DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSITY

CANTERBURY COLLEGE DIFFICULTIES

MR A. H. TOCKER SPEAKS ON ROLL GROWTH During centennial commemorations it was natural to devote most attention to beginnings; but it was desirable also to review recent developments, said Mr A. H. Tocker president of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce and former rector and professor of economics at Canterbury University College, in his degree day address yesterday. Mr Tocker was substituting at short notice for Sir James Shelley In the time he had known Canterbury College—from 1920 to 1950 there had been many significant developments which should be appreciated by the public in thinking of the future needs of the university, he said. The college sprang from the buildings near the present hall. The Boys’ High School then occupied the block now used for “economics and some other departments." After the First World War the roil doubled to about 800. Permanent accommodation round the quadrangles was extended with such major blocks as the chemistry department and numbers were handled fairly comfortably until 1939 when the roll was about 1100. After the Second World War a peak of 2500 was reached: but there was not the post-war building extension which had occurred after the first war. Now. with numbers fairly steady at about 2200, students and staff were up against appalling accommodation difficulties which would be eased only by tbe present new building programme. “Army huts" were being used by universities all over the world: but nowhere had he seen one “so cluttered up” as Canterbury College. Mr Tocker said. Mr Tocker then reviewed the notable contributions of the college in university education. In New Zealand the people looked to the university to provide higher education, of which it had the virtuefl monopoly above the post-primary school staee. That privilege involved responsibilities which the peptic should share The universify wag not onlv a nlace for studv examination, and oualifiration for the professions. It was a place in which 1 young people should grow up and i from each other. The test of I its success in this was that it should!

throw up its own leaders In all fields When the older members of the staff began to see tbe children of former students entering *he college, thev realised that although it had changed to meet new demands there was something which did not change and kepi the college much the same from year to year. That could be called the t T adition or the self-imposed discipline of the university. “The purpose of the university is not just to train students for examinations but for living in their most formative years.” Mr Tocker said Many institutions were judged by their output. Canterbury College had sent men and women into the world who were doing good work in man* daces. Many who had taught there were happy to be judged by that test