UNIVERSITY AIMS .

Evening Star, Issue 23882, 12 May 1941, Page 8

UNIVERSITY AIMS .

HON. J. A. HANAN'S VIEWS “ University aims ” were discussed by the Hon. J. A. Hanan, Chancellor of the .University of New Zealand, in an interview with a representative of ‘The Press ’ in Christchurch. The aims implied in university activities must stand or fall with the delicate structure of a civilisation that preserves toleration, intellectual liberty, and freedom of tha spirit,” he said. “ There is now an intolerant spirit in other lands, claiming for certain political dogmas, the status of final truth, and bent. on. compelling their acceptance by unsparing coercion, leading to totalitarian doctrines that enslave body and soul. This drift from democratic principle into an executive dictatorship with an attitude of servitude to it is not so easily discerned and promptly challenged when advances are made by benefits or concessions to pressure groups. Liberty is lost, step by step, with resistance weakening as a result of democratic people sitting supinely while sapping work is underming the foundations. 1 “ The pioneers, while zealously promoting material progress, did' notl neglect the setting dp of various educational institutions, and in so doing they showed that they realised that a nation's greatness, like that of an individual, is measured, as Lowell said, ‘ by the extent to which it has contributed to the best thought, moral energy, intellectual happiness, the spiritual enrichment and consolation of mankind.’ ” , No nation could survive if. it wera founded on mere materialism, Mr Hanan said. Human problems could hot be solved in terms of conscious material interest; other things bora upon people’s lives. He quoted Sir Isaac Isaacs, one who assisted to frame the Australian Federal constitution, and a former Governor-General appointed by a Labour Government: “ It must never be overlooked that unless democratic ideals are zealously guarded, the more we increase the range of governmental powers, the more our freedom is in danger from dictatorship. The survival of democracy, from collapse from within, will be brought about "by the processes of a well-planned, system of education, with the dissemination of knowledge and information, so as to make it available to all people, preceded and accompanied by the ethical and spiritual uplift of publio opinion,” Mr Hanan concluded..