A CHALLENGE

Evening Star, Issue 21721, 16 May 1934, Page 6

A CHALLENGE

SOCIAL WORLD IN DIRE CONFUSION

DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SPIRIT URGED PROFESSOR HUNTER'S GRADUATION ADDRESS The address of the day at the annual ceremony of the conferring of degrees gained at Otago University in tho Concert Chamber of the Town Hall yesterday afternoon was prepared by Professor _ T. Hunter, Vice-chancellor of the University of New Zealand, and read by Professor T. Adams, as Professor Hunter was unable to be present •through illness. The Chancellor (Mr W. J. Morrell) said the purpose of the meeting h'as to celebrate in a fitting manner the award of degrees and diplomas to those entitled to receive them. In the name of the University of Otago he extended a warm welcome to all present. Professor Hunter, Vice-chancellor of tho University of New Zealand, had been invited as a distinguished graduate of this University and as a senior professor of a sister college to deliver the graduation address. It was a matter for regret that Professor Hunter had beeii-prevented from attending because of a severe attack of He had, however, sent the manuscript* of his address, and Professor _ Adams had kindly consented to read it.

Professor Adams read the address as follows; I wish to thank the Chancellor of tho University of Otago and tho_ members of the council for their invitation to speak on this occasion. It is not without some trepidation that one comes back to his Alma Mater after the lapse of a long period of time. It is just forty years since I enrolled as a student at Otago University and began attendance at lectures here. In this centre of theological learning the period of forty years may appear suggestive. If so, I can only say that the academic wilderness of the north is not without its means of subsistence, material and spiritual, and I rejoice that the University authorities here have been kind enough to permit mo to enter this southern Promised Land if only for a few short hours. When I compare the University of Otago as I entered it in 1894 with what to-day it appears I cannot withhold the expression of my admiration for those who, within the University, as councillors, professors, administrators, students, and, within and without the University, as benefactors, have contributed to this noble achievement under conditions at all times difficult and on occasion almost overwhelming; •Such eyesores as the old tin shed and the uncompleted end of the arts building are gone. New accommodation for the rise of the. faculties of medicine, mining, dentistry, and home science has appeared, a Students’ Union replaces tho dreary common room of my day, and the Oliver classrooms have completed the arts building. All has been done in a manner that reflects great credit on the business acumen of those responsible and also on their artistic sense. I am aware that stone and mortar do not constitute a university. In earlier times its spirit could be more clearly symbolised,by “ Mark Hopkins on one end* of ' a log and a student on the other,” But that day is past. Not that great and inspiring teachers are unnecessary ; the need for them was never greater. Biit students now appear not singly, but in battalions, and adequate ana properly equipped, accommodation is .an essential condition of the best type of work in the many fields that are opening out to the wondering gaze of this generation of students.

We may pay our homage to Professor Ulrich and his old tin shed and to Professor Jeffrey Parker and his limited accommodation. These men and others did much in spite of unfavourable conditions. We live in other times. It is true that buildings will not avail us if the spirit is Tost, but without the necessary material conditions the best fruits of the spirit cannot be expected In the case of'Otago University it is easy enough for me to see that during the past, forty years there has been not only addition to the buildings, but also increased power in ; the staff. At the time of which l speak there was in the medical: faculty but one member of professorial rank; : now there are nine, and the junior•staffs have been similarly strengthened. It is an achievement of which I am sure there is every reason to, be proud, but with, which you must .not :'rest satisfied. As a graduate I offer you my congratulations- on '■ the outstanding success achieved’ and my' sincere good wishes for the future. STANDING OF GRADUATES ABROAD. • It-is perhaps unnecessary to justify the work -of the University, but it is as well that the public should know how Highly the men and women trained in the New Zealand University are regarded when they go abroad—to Britain and other parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations. ; When I was in Britain in 1931 it was very pleasing to hear on all sides the

reputation established by our men and women when they came to work side by side with English graduates and under the most distinguished men. Sir G. Elliott Smith told me of the very noteworthy research done by one of our medical graduates and the late Professor Graham Wallas was equally complimentary in regard to some of our men who had worked under bis direction. At ono of the meetings of the University Conference held in Edinburgh Sir Thomas Holland, vice-chan-cellor and principal of the university, said ho was convinced that it was now m the best interests of the students in the dominions that they should finish their undergraduate courses in their local universities, and, when possible, como to the centres of tho Old World for post-graduate work. Tho careers of those who have been awarded post-graduate or travelling scholarships have shown the calibre of the men and women who are going out from the University. It is true that these form a select body of graduates, but we must remember that they are working side by side with an equally select group from tho universities of Britain and tho other dominions.

That the judgment based on tho careers of this selected group is sound is confirmed by the reports of tho examiners in England. Naturally reports are not always favourable. As university teachers know, fat years are followed by lean. Outstanding ability in any subject seems to come in waves. On the whole, however, the reports are very complimentary, and indicate that the University in this dominion, isolated though it is from tho great centres of learning, is making a vigorous, and on the whole a successful, attempt to maintain worthy university standards. I trust this effort will be continued, and that our watchword in University study will be quality rather than quantity, ASPECTS OF UNIVERSITY WORK. Iti New Zealand the opportunities that the University has of coming before the public arc few, if we omit those occasions, rather numerous of late, in which trivial aspects of the work and life of the University have assumed in the Press a space and importance that Lave never been given to the solid and often brilliant achievement that is to be found within its portals. In these circumstances it soemed to me that the opportunity afforded by this ceremony could not be’ put to better use than to direct attention to one or two aspects of University work and administration that should be of interest not only to graduates but also to the legislators of the dominion, to University authorities, and to tho great mass of thinking people in whom the real power of a democracy ultimately resides. With your permission I propose to refer briefly to two of these problems; one relating to University finance, and the other to a branch of academic studies. For better or worse—it is not a question that can be profitably discussed today—New Zealand has adopted what everyone will admit is a very costly system of University organisation. At the moment there are six teaching institutions of University rank in the dominion. The reasons why a population of about 1,500,000 finds itself responsible for so many university institutions aro partly political and partly geographical. Tlmi provincial system of government of the early days and the configuration of New Zealand both worked in favour of a decentralised University with institutions in different towns. This policy is fixed, but tho University institutions are bound to feel the financial repercussions of the division of effort, for it is clear enough that the attempt to carry facilities for university education to the student is bound to cost a great deal more than one in which the student is made to seek the facilities provided in a central institution. It may be that the extra cost is worth while, hut no one ought to expect that the widespread facilities will not cost a great deal more than those that are localised.

When, however, we investigate the finances of the teaching institutions we find that instead of greater financial provision being provided to meet the peculiar needs of the decentralised system much- less provision has been made than is common in other countries.

Some six years ago I investigated the condition of the finances and staffs of the State Universities of Canada and of the University of Wales, and compared them with the conditions found to exist in the four constituent colleges of the University of New Zealand. These overseas universities were chosen because they are relatively poor institutions, not having the resources of the great universities of America and Great Britain. If then it can be shown that in regard to both finance and staffing our local University does not compare favourably with the Canadian and Welsh universities, it is surely a just cause for concern. FINANCIAL COMPARISON. This is not the occasion for presenting a mass of financial figures; nor is Dunedin the place. But I want you to carry the main fact in your mind. Generally speaking we may say that, in these overseas universities I have referred to, the University is provided with about £IOO of revenue for every student in attendance; in New Zealand it is only about £36 per head. This financial difference is important, because it shows itself clearly in the numbers on the University staffs. Let me give you one clear-cut instance. At the time these figures were taken out there were in the University of Wales 2,902 students. Dor these a staff of 283 was provided (seventy-six professors, eighty-six lecturers, and 121 others). At the same time there were 4,362 students in the four constituent colleges of the New Zealand University, and for these was provided a staff of 205 (seventy-one professors, ninetyeight lecturers, and thirty-six other teachers). If we compare the University of Wales and the university teaching institutions of New Zealand for the year 1930-31 we find: —

Wales. N.Z. Number of students 3,000 4,300 Staff t 313 *230 Annual expenditure £340,000 £200,000 Government grants £139,000 £68,000 IFull time. *Full and part times.

Thus it is manifest that our local institutions lack both the finance and staff that are deemed reasonable even in the poorer universities abroad. Those who have inside knowledge of our University will realise how true this is. In New Zealand fifty years ago there were very largo classes in the primary schools and small ones in the high schools and University. To-day we notice a great improvement in the primary schools, but the conditions in the University have gone from bad to worse. To-day neither in the primary nor secondary schools would classes of 100 be tolerated, but such classes occasion little surprise, and no protest, in the University, where, however, indi vidual treatment is necessary for successful work and mass production is destructive of university ideals. But as the University is organised at the moment not only are the funds provided not nearly sufficient for the proper discharge of its functions but they are given in a form that is not in accord with either the traditions or the ideals of British universities. Apart from benefactions and the revenue from endowments, the university colleges in New Zealand are dependent on annual appropriations by Parliament, Some

twenty years ago, as the result of evidence given before the Education Committee of the House of Representatives, the vicious system of grants by annual appropriations was replaced by a system of statutory grants. The present reversion to annual appropriations is, of course, a direct result of the depression. But, however necessary this method may be in dealing with much of the expenditure of the State, to adopt it in the case of the University is to neglect some essential elements of the situation. No university authority can look ahead and make the appointments and frame the policy essential to success it it must depend from year to year on appropriations made ad hoc. No university can maintain its independence, its self-respect, and the respect of other university institutions if it is made to feel that the very oxstence of vital aspects of its work may depend on -the political temper or the mass emotion of the moment. The right attitude to this difficult question was stated by the Earl of Balfour in 1926, and it is interesting to note that the allocation of grants from the British Treasury ever since—under all political parties—has been in accordance with this principle. The Earl said: “Undoubtedly the growth of learning has brought with it characteristic dangers. One, I think, is associated with this very question of money to which I have referred. If the State be asked to subscribe great funds, either in this country or in any of the dominions, or indeed in any country, there will always be a natural and pardonable instinct on the part of the State to control and supervise the working of an institution which it is doing so much to support. It is perfectly natural, but it is ertremely dangerous. I do not think in the older universities of this country, for various reasons, that there is any probability of the danger becoming a menacing one to any serious extent. Cambridge, Oxford, and the old universities are receiving assistance from the State, but our university traditions arc so deeply rooted that I do not think there is any symptom, as far as my judgment goes, of any Government attempting to interfere with the university autonomy which, whether it be well exercised or ill exercised, is at all events at the worst better than State control.” That, I trust 1 am not too optimistic in hoping, will be the attitude adopted by the State in this country. STUDY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. Let me now turn for a few minutes to the question of study and research in social science within the University. The present condition of the world has shown that the times are out of joint. During the nineteenth century man made astonishing advances in his knowledge of physical forces, and in his capacity to harness them to his purposes. In this great work of discovery the universities played no small part. But now man finds that he has not obtained the comfort, security, and power that he anticipated would be bis. He finds himself in a world of contradictions. On the one hand people starving, on the other people destroying food; on the one hand masses of capital and great human tasks to be done, on the other millions of mankind unemployed, denied the use of the powers they possess. ... . There are good reasons tor believing that these and other contradictions of our social life to-day can be traced to the fact that during the past century man’s outstanding material progress lias not been paralleled by a similar development in social organisation. In many respects man finds his institutions not an aid but too often a hindrance when he comes to deal with the great problems of his time. Advance in material development has outrun social evolution; man is _attempting to organise control and direct the tremendous forces his powers have released by the old social machinery suited to simpler and slower conditions. Man has produced highpowered machines that ho cannot at the moment bring under social control. The result is the contradiction in social life that has become so striking. No ono who sees the Himalayas of wealth at one end of the social scale and the Saharas of poverty at the other; no one who realises that under the present system a certain amount of unemployment, more or less according to circumstances, is Inevitable; no one who has been struck by the fact that it is only in time of war that unemployment disappears and men and women become assets and not liabilities; no one who is cognisant of the fact that a necessary feature of the present system is the limitation of output and the destruction of large quantities of goods already produced; ;no one who has had a glimpse of the truth that some of tho great discoveries that might have raised the general level of social life have been diverted to ends that are in great part anti-social; no one who has impartially surveyed these facts can doubt that man has achieved an amazing success in the physical domain and an equally sorry failure in that of social organisation. People are beginning to inquire what part the university has played, is playing, and will play in the solution of these tremendous problems. “ At a time,” writes Tawny, “ when mankind is staggering under the misuse of its own material triumphs, it is not surprising that alike in England, America, Germany, and France an increasing volume of opinion should be asking whether the possibility of building a tolerable civilisation does not depend, at least in part, on the deliberate cultivation of human faculties of which the proper name is education.”

The American universities have paid much more attention to study and research in social science than we have, but in 1932 the condition of affairs in the United States called forth a gesture from the New York University. It convened a conference 'of representatives of universities the world over to discuss these problems under the general title ‘ The Obligation of Universities to the Social Order.’ The central problem was well stated by a number of leaders in education and business. President J. R. Angell, Yale University, said: “The university must constantly face, and honestly deal with, the changing obligations which arise from shifting circumstance, and it must be particularly sensitive to those requirements of a given era which are especially urgent, as is_ in our day a more thorough and _ scientific understanding of the social and economic fundaments of civilisation. Society has a right to look to the university for intellectual leadership in all that affects a basic knowledge of man and the universe in which he dwells.”

President Coffman, University of Minnesota, told the conference that “ all social engineering must rest eventually upon some education. It is infinitely better that social change should he guided by trained and informed intelligence rather than by untutored emotion and uninformed polities. And therein lies the challenge of the new day for the universities.”

Sir Arthur Salter—the great British authority on world economics— was convinced that “ ordered progress, in other words, depends upon an equal development of man’s specialised activities on the one hand, and on the other on the framework of society which is needed to control them if they are not to be mutually destructive. If we cannot adapt the latter quickly it would be better that the progress of the former had been less rapid.

Better that the aeroplane had never I been invented if a failure of world government allows it to be used as an t instrument of destructive war; better s that the international financial system i were less efficient if through defects of t policy it serves, only more rapidly and widely, to spread disaster rather than i prosperity; better that the amazing . progress in the mechanism for the 1 transmission of news had never been s achieved if what it transmits is folly rather than wisdom. • • . • . The task before us comprises no less 1 than the transformation of * he “ ' under which we now live. It will be a i continuous one for many years to come. A role will certainly remain for those f w!ir> are now being educated after they i hTve reached the age, when they will * be taking part in directing affairs But i if the completion of the task_ must take < long its commencement is already urgent, and the contribution of the universities must be immediate if it is to be effective. , CHALLENGE TO INDUSTRY. This is a challenge to the University < of New Zealand no less than to those of Europe and America, hour hundred i years ago a great man-Copernicus- ■ found an astronomical world in confusion and gave man a pnnciplethatre- . duced the chaos to order. Not yet a century ago another outstanding dis- i coverer-Darwin-found f biological : world in confusion and left it with an idea that has progressively produced system within it. To-day our aocia world is in dire confusion; who will supply us with a method..,and a spirit

by which an ordered civilisation may appear ? This is the problem of the twentieth century. Surely the university should play a leading part in solving this problem as it bid in the spheres of'physics and biology last century. I urge not that less should be done in the'fields in which the university is already working, but that it should extend its horizon to include research and study of those social sciences whereby may bo discovered principles that will lead to an ordered, harmonious social life. It has been truly said that a nation that thinks in terms of to-mor-row moves on; a nation that thinks in terms of yesterday perishes. What is true of the nation is true of the university. The development in the social sciences during the past half centuryanthropology, sociology, ethnology, and kindred subjects must occupy _ a more prominent place in , university study and research if mankind is not to crucify itself upon the cross of its own achievements in the material sphere. . , . May I.then direct attention to these two specific needs of our university today? . , 1. To develop its financial resources so that it may be able to play the part that in a rapidly changing civilisation naturally devolves upon it—in teaching, in research, and in the development of character —and to do this in such a way that the powers of the governing bodies of the university will be exercised free from any external interference whatsoever. , 2. To develop within the university social studies, especially in the form o: research, so that, the university mai

r play its part in producing a social sysa tem within which the powers or man - that are becoming increasingly ettec- - tive in the physical universe may be 3 directed to the upbuilding and not_ the destruction of human life—physical, 3 social, and moral . s To these great tasks university authorities should be stimulated to dediI cate their efforts in the years that lie f immediately before us, 1 Obviously, these two problems m 1 New Zealand are closely connected, i Success will be possible only by the - closest co-operation- among _ university i administrators. Neither in this generas tion or the next is it reasonable to - hope'that the Lancia! resources of this I country will permit the full deielop- - Sent hi all faculties of the university , institutions already in existence. They a will be compelled to specialise, so thaty within the university, somewhere the t Genius of the future, in whatever field s his talents He, may find the stimulus il and nurture that are -necessary foi the fruition of his powers, e In the past there has been far too much of the parochial spirit, each institution clamouring for the greatest s portion of the limited amount of money t available. In the interests not only of n the public, but of the university itself, i- this conflict must cease. Is it too much i- to ask that the university authorities n should work out a plan tor higher eduo cation and research in this country—-a II plan that will be dominated not by the il interests of any institution, but bv the welfare of the dominion? hvery instiv tution will then endeavour to fit into if tho scheme that will give to this couny try the fullest and freest university

system possible in the financial an 4 social circumstances of the day. In the first place, it is to university people—members -of councils and of teaching staffs, graduates, and undergraduates—that we must appeal for. the development of the ■ new spirit. ' I hope that' as a. graduate of Otago University I am right in making tho appeal for co-operation, in the first place, in this city where over half £ century ago tho pioneers were not afraid to be the first in New Zealand to demonstrate their faith in higher education. GRADUATES CONGRATULATED, Mr Morrell referred to the. “able,thoughtful, and thought-provoking address ” to which they had listened.Professor Hunter had shown his loyal interest in his alma mater, and they deeply appreciated-his address, though they regretted his absence. They thanked Professor Adams for reading the address. • In conclusion, Mr Morrell congratulated the new, graduates, on the status to which they had attained, and urged them to do all in their power to further the cause of learning and. the advancement of knowldege.