ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNIVERSITIES

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 29, 3 August 1921, Page 4

ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNIVERSITIES

—-^— / DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. (wok ora own coRMMOiremT.) LONDON, 2nd June. "Universities of the Dominions and of the United States" form the subject of a series of lectures now being given by Professor A. F. Newton; Rhodes Professor of Colonial History in the University of London, who visited New Zealand last year in the course of a tour of the Empire and of the United States. In his first leqturo ho traced the development of the various universities in tho British Empire and the United States up to the present time, when most university colleges consist of a teaching and examining body ride by side^-a system brought to its highest perfection in the great University of London. The universities of India were examining bodies, he said, the same system was in operation in the Cape of Good Hope. The University of New Zealand was the only one which retained the principle of separating the examining body from the teaching staff. The system is oramping and crippling to the last degree. Each of the four university college* had appointed its own staff — men of very considerable ability and capable of doing some of the best university training; but they were crippled by the University of New Zealand, which had the power of grating degrees, and was a governing body of the narrowest kind. The members of tho staff of the different university colleges were not trusted, and the examination papers were sent Home to England to be corrected. In tho United States, in Illinois and those States towards the west, where the voters live and the real power of the English-speaking world is developing, he found not merely a, desire -to know something about the British Empire, but a great desire to know about the methods and principle* of the teaching universities of England. He found that the university system of Great Britain had been largely used as a help and guide in the foundation and development of the newer institutions in America. M»ny of the men he met had the- real desire and appreciation of learning for its own sake, and at many of tho colleges the work was being done thoroughly and well. But America had made one mistake. Unfortunately, she had incorporated some of tho German principles into her education system. One thing borrowed from Germany was tho system of " keeping in stop," by which was meant dealing with children in tho schools and students in the colleges in bodies. This was out of deference for their democratic ideas. They were moved forward at stated periods and stated ages, in contradistinction to the English system, which "sifted" the brighter children from the general body. The German method kept the brighter children back "in step" with the less intelligent. Another unforjtunate borrowing from Germany was the system of " electives," which permitted a student to take any subject ho choso in order to get his degree. Happily there was now a considerable revulsion of. feeling against this system of " options " or " snaps." Ho found a decided aversion from this principle amongst tho leading men ho had com© in contact with. Moreover, he found a great desire to discuss the "honours system" of the English universities. He formed the oonoluaion that the two parts of the English-speaking world were coming olosor together. Thoy were learning one from the other the best points of each other's systems. At one of the colleges beyondl the Alleffhany Range—a country which is in the oentre of gravity of the English-speaking world—he was asked to lecture to a class on "England in tho 17th Century." He. expected to see a hundred students or fewor. He was ushered into a great chemis-try-theatre, whore students orowded right up to the coiling. " Who are these students?" Professor Newton asked. "They are the English history class," he was told. "There are 200 absont, but 17*3 have answered the roll call."