PROFESSORIAL APPOINTMENTS.

Evening Star, Issue 18051, 19 August 1922, Page 4

PROFESSORIAL APPOINTMENTS.

The recommendation of the Professorial Board on the subject of appointments to tho University staff, in regard to which the Dean of the Faculty of Law writes to us to-day, seems to have been misunderstood in more than one quarter. It would be wrong to blame tho hoard on that account, because its letter to the council was couched in tho best professorial language —simple and unambiguous. Its language was deferential also in the fullest degree, and it was a reasonable recommendation which tho letter submitted, Tim point in question was a simple one. When tho council receives applications for a professorship from the United Kingdom it asks expert advisers in Great, Britain to assist it in assessing tho qualifications of rival candidates. The board merely requested that this natural system should be extended to applications that may be received from Australia or New Zealand. It was not suggested that these advisors should be limited to tho members of the staff of Otago University. There was no question of professors of geology or chemistry (as the proposal lias been misinterpreted from outside the council) giving an opinion on tho merits of, say, a professor of political economy. But it was recommended that applications for a professorship in any subject should bo reported on by experts in that subject, whoso functions would be limited to an advisory rolo. So there was no question, also, of the council “ abrogating its right ” to any outside body, which was an interpretation placed on tho suggestion in the council.

A disposition in the council seems to have been to view the staff’s suggestion as a piece of presumption on the board’s part—an attempt to “ teach eternal wisdom how to rule,” with the threat of an encroachment on the council’s prerogatives. One member expressed the opinion that “ they were on dangerous ground when they allowed employees to think that they had a chance of recommending appointments.” The description of the staff was not well chosen. Professors may be employees, hut they make the whole standard of a university. If a professor of, say, political economy required to bo appointed for Dunedin, it would not be other local professors, but the masters of the subject in other New Zealand colleges, with possibly an Australian expert, who would naturally be asked to say whether Jones’s thesis on ‘The Theory of Bimetallism’ gave more evidence of sound judgment and knowledge than Smith’s ‘ Treatise on Probability.’ The members of the University Council capable of deciding would be seldom likely to amount to a majority. It is not employees’ advice, but that of experts, on purely expert matters which was recommended, and if the case were otherwise it is wisdom to consult trusted employees. A “ good conceit of ourselves ” may seem the most natural thing to some members of governing bodies, but as such bodies can seldom include all knowledge and all talents in an equal degree a due sense of their inevitable limitations may be still more desirable. The policy suggested in the board’s report has-not often been a matter of tho greatest importance up to this stage, because comparatively few applications for professorships have been received from New Zealand or Australia. It is natural to expect, however, that the number will be larger when appointments in the future have to be made. The governing body’s worst trouble may be too much advice when applicants, not too remote to have personal friends, compete for positions; but tho more counsel it receives from those with no claim to advise tho more that of experts will be needed. Examples in tho council's normal management of the sensible principle being followed which the Professorial Board sought to have extended to all appointments have not been limited to the consulting of British advisers. If the council's dignity is more sensitive than that of Falstaff’ who refused to give reasons “on compulsion,” it might have been injured in some shadowy way if that body had been willing to bind itself in advance to follow even the most excellent principle at the suggestion, reasonably and courteously made, of mere “employees.” It will act very foolishly, however, if the principle is not observed by it.