SERVING SOCIETY

Evening Star, Issue 22277, 2 March 1936, Page 12

SERVING SOCIETY

MOULDING NEW GENERATION’S MINDS STUDENTS' RELATIONSHIP TO UNIVERSITY “ It has long been recognised that a university is something more than and different from a mere training school, subserving the immediate conscious needs of oncoming generations. It is one of the living organs of evolving civilisation. It is no mere luxury, but an essential to the continued growth of a country.”: These thoughts were uttered to-day in the inaugural address to Otago University students before beginning another year’s scholastic research by the newly-appointed professor of economics, Dr R. W. Souter, who was introduced by Dr W. D. Carmalt Jones (chairman of the Professorial Board). He proceeded to say that while the life of society was long that of the individual scholar was short, so that there was no alternative but for each generation of scholars to pass on to the next the living body of knowledge they had in part inherited and in part transformed. “ It is literally a primitive urge, a primary instinct of the healthy human animal to give to society the results of his labours,” .Dr Souter added. “ His personal well-being ultimately depends not merely on performing these labours, but also on his ability effectively to transmit their results to society at large. And there is no more exciting or effective way of making this gift than through the minds of the oncoming generation. “ The greatest Teacher in history taught entirely by word of mouth, and in old English and great American universities scientific advances of the first importance have been directly stimulated by the oral teaching of men who found this method of transmission most easy and natural, ar.d wrote only with great difficulty. To the question how the student may best equip himself for this endeavour, Lord Haldane answered: ‘ Get ideas which not only transform that' on which they are brought to bear, but in doing so expand themselves and their meaning.’ ” The topic of the true and precise relationship of the student to the university was in itself appropriate to an inaugural address, the speaker contended. The type of logic used to disclose the real inner nature of this relationship was also of importance to the second part of the discussion of offering students an inkling of where they might expect to end up if they succeeded in their studies. Dr Souter gave an illustration from economics of the meaning of a truth, whose applications, he said, far transcended economics, and concluded: “If you are wise, then, whatever your own field may be, you will profoundlv distrust the thinker, spurious however brilliant, who delights to display in so-called logical dilemmas with a view to discomforting others; Put your trust in reason, and you will untiringly seek ever more and more fruitful applications of the truth expressed in homely fashion by the versifier who wrote : God locks his secrets in a box Whose key is paradox. Dr Carmalt .lones thanked the speaker for the address, this being carried by acclamation.