CORRESPONDENCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 3, 4 July 1910, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

UNIVERSITY REFORM. A REPLY TO SIR ROBERT STOUT. XO THE EDITOR. Sir, — Sir Robert Stout stated on Thursday : "What was the other subject (besides the abolition of the external examination) in which it was said we needed reform ? He had not yet been able to discover any subject in all the discussion that had taken place." The Chancellor's diligence in these matters is well known. To confound the reformers he goes so far afield as to enguge in the profitless task of reading the charter of the University of Wales, and fails to read any of the three Wellington newspapers of last Tuesday. . In The Post of that day we find the platform of the University Reform Association to be— (1) To increase the efficiency of the university education in New Zealand. (2) To improve and co-ordinate the Government of the New Zealand University and colleges, and to obtain for the colleges a larger measure of self-govern-ment. (3) To obtain for the university and for the colleges assured finance. (4) To secure the abolition of external examinations. _ (5) To endeavour to improve the libraries and other equipment of the university. It has been at least stated a dozen times in print that we ask for enquiry; so the siith plank of the platform is — (6) To urge the appointment in due course of a .Royal Commission to enquire into and propose constructive changes in our university. The planks 2, 3, and 5 above are definite and explicit "subjects in which .... we need reform." It would appear then, that Sir Robert Stout's inability to discover them by no means implies that they are not perfectly well known to everyone elss who takes the slightest interest in the subject. Our Chancellor devoted most of the 'rest of his speech to the quite unnecessary task of proving the absurdity of the statement "that in the universities of the world the teachers are always the examiners." lam not aware that anyone ever said the teachers are always the examiners. Those who wish to see the external examination abolished, merely contend that only in about three universities of any importance to us in the whole civilised world is the university teacher entirely debarred from taking any part whatever in the real examination of students for degrees, as is the case in New Zealand. Sir Robert Stout ctuoted the Universities of Cambridge and Wales against the professors in New Zealand being allowed to examine their own students. Tho only comment I would make is that I was amazed in common with others to hear Wales quoted as an example in university matters — it certainly might be instanced as what to avoid in the "encouragement of learning. Welshmen of ability usually attend Liverpool or some other English University. As a graduate of Cambridge, and as one who has spent four years there (alter having been a university teacher in Sydney), I believe the spirit of that university to be the antithesis of Sir Robert's description of it. Professor Easterfield in this is in agreement with me. No doubt our Chancellor has the advantage in this over us that a tourist on landing in New Zealand has over those who have lived here— in perceiving the spirit of the Dominion — the newcomer is not bKnded by familiarity. It would be profitless for us to dispute about Cambridge. I would suggest that if anyone wants to settle the matter a letter be written to Sir J. J. Thomson, M.A. (Cantab.), LL.D., FJt.S., Professor Rutherford, M.A, (Cantab, and N.Z.), LL.D., F.R.S., and Erincipal M'Laurin, M.A. (Cantab, and N.Z.), LL.D:, -asking them:— "ls it ' desirable' for New Zealand professors to be allowed to examine their own students?" As a matter of fact, this quoting of authorities about the advisability or otherwise of the external examination is to a large extent mere humbug. The real point is not the educational merits or demerits of, teachers examining their own students. " Most of the members of the Senate, who wish to retain the external examination, believe the.New Zealand professors to be an incompetent body of men. [It is noticeable that practically all of the Senators who can afford to do so send their sons to English universities ; that action expresses their true opinion of what manner of education can be obtained in New Zealand. The University, however, is good enough for the poor man's son.] I think that Senators, as the administrators of a high trust of national importance, are called upon to express their views on this matter candidly and sincerely, to free their minds from cant, and if they believe it, to honestly state that while Canada and Australia have professors competent to examine their own students, in New Zealand, all the waste of time and cumbersomeness of the external examination is preferable to allowing professors to examine* here. J should state at. once that I believe many graduates honestly believe the external examination is educationally preferable to any possible alternative. Among the Senators and some professors, however, in other centres I have found in private conversation that it was finally admitted, they really thought the university teachers were unfit to examine. If this be the real view of the Senate, then clearly they are under a moral obligation to do all in their power to get better university teachers in the future, and take some genuine steps in that direction at once. I have urged above I that tho professors should examine their own students. I believe the four University teachers in any subject should constitute the board of examiners in that subject, each professor marking one quarter of the questions returned by any candidate. This board should meet to set the paper and to examine the answers. Strictly this means a professor would only take a quarter share in examining his- own students, — I am, . etc., THOS. H. LABY. Wellington Club, Ist July, 1910.