N.Z. SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26524, 12 September 1951, Page 8

N.Z. SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE

ABOLITION MOVE,

DISCUSSION BY LINCOLN COLLEGE BOARD The recommendation that the New Zealand School of Agriculture should be abolished, contained in a report by a special sub-committee of the Senate of the University of New Zealand (which was adopted by the Senate recently), was received by the Board of Governors of Canterbury Agricultural College at its meeting yesterday. Two new bodies are now proposed: one to deal with the administrative work, and the other with the academic work.

Mr W. C. Colee, a member of the school, said that the Lincoln College case to the special committee had been defeated on the casting vote of the chairman of the school. The Lincoln representatives pressed for status equal to the four constituent colleges the two agricultural colleges. Full rights, not sub-rights as at present, were suggested on the grounds of the importance of agriculture to the life of the community; the very wide influence the staff of Lincoln College had all over the South Island and even in the North Island; and that the work being done by the agricultural colleges made them worthy of being placed on a par with the constituent colleges. That suggestion was also rejected. Mr Colee praised very highly the work of Mr J. E. Strachan at the meeting of the school.

Mr Strachan said that everybody at the meeting admitted the force of the final argument he put up—that the motion to abolish the School of Agriculture no longer expressed the mind of the school. Even the Massey College members were impressed, and one admitted later that he had voted against his convictions. His notice of motion to set up a council of agricultural education, on which the university, the colleges, farming and other interests would be represented, would be debated at the next meeting of the school.