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TWO POINTS OF VIEW

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

THE CONSERVATIVE SIDE

(By Telegraph) (Special to 'the "Evening Post.") AUCKLAND, May 11. "What he termed the conservative side of tho controversy over academic freedom was stated by Professor Maxwell Walker, chairman of the Professorial Board of Auckland University! College, in an address at tho annual graduation ceremony in the Town Hall tonight. I

"In recent years a number of members of teaching staffs have expressed opinions not exactly in accord with the average feeling of the community," .said Professor Walker. "This they have a perfect right to do, so long as they keep within the law, but the result has been that a certain amount of irritation has been caused, and the public has identified the opinions of a few with those of the whole teaching body. It is naturally difficult to dissociate the individual from the institution to which he belongs." Few could cavil at-most of tho claims that had been put forward by the association of university teachers in its statement of the case for academic freedom, he continued. A university professor could not bo put in a class by himself as against other learned professions, or outside the rights of citizenship. Still, it might have been well if the association had given tho same force to the ideas of responsibility to the university and tho prevention of misunderstanding by the public as to the right of free speech. FREEDOM FOR BOTH. He did not say that there had been an over-emphasis on the question of rights, but there had been an undcremphasis on the question of responsibility. One would think that wo were continually being told by Government officials that we must not say what we thought unless what we thought agreed with what they thought. This was far from being the'ease. A. great deal was heard about professors' rights to free utterance, but on the other hand there existed a slackness in the universities on the part of professors of different points of view which, allowed a radical and aggressive member to shout from the .housetops without contrary expression from those who disagreed. If a university was tho place of free thought and expression, the conservative should.be heard as well as the radical, and the public should realise that both points of view existed, otherwise the university was misunderstood and- misjudged. "I know that the very word 'Conservative' is like a red rag to a bull in the eyes of some of my more radical colleagues," Professor Walker continued, "but I would remind them that 'the Conservatives of today are radicals by comparison with the days of our fathers, arid I trust that they will not refuse me that freedom of speech which they claim for themselves.". "ORDERED LIBERTY." Ho did not believe- that' the extreme views which had been expressed by some university men represented the considered opinion of any large percentage of teachers, or that graduates of the .New Zealand University were in any way represented by those few who demanded the resignation of the men who had stood firm in the interests of decency and good taste. He did not believe that students as a body were represented by those so-called advanced individuals who had violated tho canons of good taste and refinement, and gloried in the publicity they had achieved. There was little cause for criticism of the general student body. The trouble was that the moderate man as a rule • was non-vocal, while the extremist shrieked aloud to illustrate his argument.

Professor Walker cited the freedom existing . under tho British . Constitution, and quoted the dictum of : John Drinkwater that constitutional monarchy was nearer to the same expression of national character than any other conceivable form of government. ■ He also quoted Stanley Baldwin's words, '' Ordered . liberty, not disordered liberty, nor what invariably follows it,, tyranny, but ordered liberty— Km c of ; the rarest things in, the'world. Let us hold on to what wo have; let us not try to be like anybody else." ,

Concluding, Professor Walker said that he had spoken with a due sense of responsibility, and without any desire to hurt the feelings of those who differed from him. Ho would plead for co-operation and mutual tolerance.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19340512.2.106

Bibliographic details

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 111, 12 May 1934, Page 14

Word Count
704

TWO POINTS OF VIEW Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 111, 12 May 1934, Page 14

TWO POINTS OF VIEW Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 111, 12 May 1934, Page 14

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