UNIVERSITY REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 825, 25 May 1910, Page 3

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

« (Br Pkofessob Picicen.) At a timo when university affairs aro before the public to an unusual extent, I take the opportunity to emphasise what seems to mo ono of the most fundamental aspects of the case for reform. I beliove that we have reached a stage at which it is necessary to faco the question of whether we are to have in .Now ' Zealand a. real university or to merit tiio s oll'ensivo epithet "night school" that has ;, more than ouce been cast at Victoria j College. The essential .distinction between the two eases resolves itself into s a distinction between two kinds of mou '- that may bo chosen to do the teaching l. work. n If real university work is wanted, tho e teachers must be specialists, independent i, thinkers each in his own department, and r men with some claim to power of creative o originality in their work. If that is not t what is wanted the names "university" g and "professor" ought in sincerity to bo dropped; and those who are at present striving—under most disheartening conditions—to uphold the dignity of these titles ought to bo superseded in favour p of men who, instead of training as specialists, have ssi'vod their time in the | secondary schools. (Let me make it quite a plain that disparagement of the training [.. of tho schoolmaster is tho furthest thing " from my thought's. I am not equipped P to do his splendid work, but neither is j ho trained to do my work as I conceivo h that it ought to be done.) e In a country so far from the Old 0 ' World as New Zealand is, the professors a must uecossarily constitute tho chief 0 authority both on their several special--6 tics and on general university questions; 0 and they ought, for the good of the young country, to be chosen carefully with that tt fact in view. That such.men should be 0 entirely subordinate, in matters that most j e vitally affect all the conditions of their 1 work, to a heterogeneous body on which v they are most inadequately represented, ■> is a most incongruous state of things. s Each professor ought certainly lo liaro j an authoritative voice on the question of what he is to teach and how he is to teach, since, in actual fact, these are matters on which no one in the community can question his authority. The 1 more the personality of tho teacher has 3 freo play in his teaching tho better will " Hie work be that he does; and the capa--1 city of tho student ■ will be estimated ." much more adequately by his response 1 to such teaching than by the haphazard s test of an external examination. It 3 ought to be realised much more than I • think it is that external examination 3 puts a premium on preparation that is 5 commonplace, stereotyped, and without 3 character; it would be well also to rea- , liso tho bewilderment of an external examiner as ho contemplates tho great variety of possibility in, tho teaching to J which, without any knowledge of it, his examining is supposed to have reference. ' 1 believe that there is a great responsibility to the public in the making of j appointments to professorial chairs, but t that once this has been faced in an earnest and uncompromising spirit the men cliosen should bo given much more adequato recognition in both university ' and college government. If the men who " at present occupy the chairs do not int spiro sufficient confidence it must bo bep oauso tho selection has not in the past ' been made with adequato care or because " tho conditions are such as to deter the 3 best typo of applicant. In any case steps < cannot too soon bo taken to mako tho I character of these posts more honourable fc and to make them more attractive to tho beit university men. ' Tho University Senate is itself too intimately concerned for ono to expect that - tho work of reform may bo carried out a by it. Henco our desire to stir tho nubs lie and the Government towards a review e of the .situation by an unbiased and imo partial body of men. g ' r—■, ■ * ° . THE COMET. 0 $ :— 1 'were calculations correct? 1 (By Telegraph—Press Association.). Chi'istchurch, May 21.. A farmer in tho Amuri district writes f to a Christchurch journal to say thattlie > reason why astronomers missed the trani sit of Faliey's comet was that, they wero , out in their calculations. About 73 a.m. s on Thursday, he says, he and others saw 1 peculiar rays projected from tho sun. i Five minutes later something appeared i in fr,ont of the sun which flickered and i blazed with a blinding light, then settled 3 over the sun iu tho form of a white t opaque shade, so that for nearly an hour > they could look direct at tho sun .with - the naked eye. Tho air grew cold, a;td there wero peculiar rainbow lights on . tho hills. -