Evening Post. THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 1921. WORKERS' EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 17, 20 January 1921, Page 6

Evening Post. THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 1921. WORKERS' EDUCATION

Several issues of great interest and importance were raised by Sir Robert Stout's reference to the Workers' Educational Associatior in the annual report which, as Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, he submitted to the Senate yesterday. If, as Chief Justice, he had been summing up on. the matter to a jury, he would doubtless have disentangled these issues, and thus have saved the jury from the confusion futility which distinguished the proceedings of the Senate. The process would probably have resulted in the elimination of'two lor three questions of principle which presented no doubt to the mind of any reasonable man, and in the reduction of controversial matter to a narrow question of fact on which the ruling might well have been that further evidence 4 was needed before the prosecution could bo held to have established* its case. The composite character of the Chancellor's statement was well illustrated by the terms, of the motion by which Professor Benham proposed to combat it: " That the Senate disagree with the implications contained in the Chancellor's statement." It was not the express assertions but the assumptions involved in them that the Chancellor's critics desired to challenge, but the proposition made no attempt at an analysis which would separate these assumptions from the parts-of the statement that provided common ground. An amendment was moved by Professor Segar, which declared "that the Senate declines to express any opinion on an opinion expressed by the Chancellor in his address." But after a lively discussion, the motion and the amendment were respectively rejected and withdrawn. The Senate thus not only declined to express any opinion on the Chancellor's opinion, but declined to say that it did so decline. This may be said to have carried open-mindedness to its furthest limit, and on the face of the proceedings the Chancellor's statement stands unchallenged. >

We think, however, that both the statement and the debate have done good by helping to clear up a difficulty on which neither party was ready with a scientifically 'exact pronouncement. There are at least two of *Sir Robert Stout's propositions from which nobody could desire to dissent—viz., that the funds of the University should not be used for the propagation of any special economic theory, and that "the workers' educational classes should have as teachers the ablest men or women attainable." But both these indisputable propositions are accompanied by riders which are not equally clear, and the position is further complicated by an assumption of fact which, was hotly contested yesterday. To his declaration that the University should not use its funds for the propagation of any special economic theory, the Chancellor adds, " and especially should not lend its aid to a propaganda of revolution." He also makes it quite clear that, in order to obtain the best possible teachers for these classes, the University must, in his opinion, ■" insist upon the teachers having either University stafus or University diplomas in the subject of which they are teachers." The assumption of fact which lay at the root both of. the Chancellor's statement and of the controversy which it provoked was that both these canons had been violated by the appointment of a " revolutionary communist" without academical qualifications to lecture to the Workers' Educational Association.

That the University should not help in the endowment of an institution conducting a partisan economic propaganda is, as we have said, a. proposition beyond serious challenge. ' But is a body which is bound to hold the balance absolutely even entitled to add an especially emphatic declaration against " a propaganda of revolution" ?, If the presumption is in favour of things as they are—a presumption which is itself open to argument at a time wh«n everybody claims to be "progressive,'" more or less-s-is the University justified in setting its face against rsvolution any more than against reaction? or is a reactionary professor or teacher to be allowed any greater latitude in the dissemination of his views than one who varies from the mean in the opposite direction? So far as ordinary academical appointments are concerned, the question may not be of great practical importance; but in its relation to the special subject of yesterday's debate it cannot be so lightly dismissed. It ia .with, the working classes that the Workers' Educational Association is specially concerned, and its success would certainly be imperilled by any discrimination or apparent discrimination in favour of things as they are. The workers are naturally not disposed to regard the existing order as complacently as many do. An. organisation -which seeks to promote clear and accurate thinking among them would therefore tend to defeat its own ends by any rule or regulation which aroused the antagonism or suspicion of the workers by displaying a conservative bk». The Chancellor's pro-

position would be quite beyond cavil if it was limited to a general repudiation of responsibility for partisan propaganda of any kind.

A point of greater importance is raised by the Chancellor's assumption that the appointment of a " revolutionary communist" necessarily implies the ..promotion or condonation of revolutionary communism. If we do not assume that the appointment of a conservative professor implies approval of his conservatism, or a readiness t<j acquiesce in his propagation ex cathedra of conservative views, have we any right to make an analogous assumption regarding an appointment of the other colour? Whatever might be said on the general question, it is remarkable that in the present case strong testimony was submitted by witnesses who apparently spoke from first-hand knowledge against any such abuse as ha,ving resulted in the present case. " Far from teaching any of the doctrines* with which he was popularly believed to be associated," the teacher in question was said by Professor Hight to have rather gone to tho other extreme. As to the academical qualifications of candidates for these ; positions, such qualifications should doubtless be allowed much weight, but to narrow, the field of selection by making them indispensable is another matter. The "case is one not of preparation for a degree but of stimulating thought and discussion among' those who have had no university training, and for thi^i purpose a less rigid insistence upon {Academical distinction may well be wiser than in the appointment to a purely academical chair.