”VITAL NEED”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21923, 18 January 1946, Page 4

”VITAL NEED”

RESEARCH WORK

N.Z. UNIVERSITY

CHANCELLOR’S ADVOCACY

(P.A.) AUCKLAND. Jan. 17. Research work was stressed as a vital need in the University of New Zealand by the chancellor, Mr. Justice Smith, speaking at the opening in Auckland this morning of the annual meeting of the university senate. For the lack of it, said His Honour, teaching in the colleges had suffered in quality. Too many students had gone forth without the breadth of mind and capacity for disinterested inquiry Which university training was designed to develop.

The university had failed to achieve as yet any recognised standing among the universities of the Western World. He had been informed that it did not rank with those of Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark. Norway, or with the principal universities of the other Dominions.

“We have, or claim to have, the highest standard of living in the world. Why is our butter more favourably known abroad than our brains?’’ he asked.

“Many reasons are given for our lack of" attainment. The first is lack of public understanding and support. This is fundamental. It is due, I believe, largely to lack of knowledge because of the failure to appreciate the part which the true university should play in the life of the people.

University “Starved”

’This wealthy country has starved its university, yet we cannot make the public a scapegoat for our own deficiencies. Has the senate tried sufficiently to educate the public? I doubt it. We are cumbered about with details and as we are organised at present I can see no escape from it. We might inquire also whether our remedy is that the public, the senate, the academic board and the governing bodies of the constituent colleges must all be convinced? Research should be a vital element in the life of the constituent colleges. “If we lived nearer .the centre of world affairs there would be no reluctance, I imagine, to make such provision in accommodation, staff, and equipment as would permit a professor or full-time lecturer to devote a substantial part of his working year to research. ‘That’s what the British universities have done and that’s the standard of the leading universities in other Dominions. Narrowly viewed, they have made that provision for the purpose of ensuring in a complex and changing world the adaption and survival of a community which supports the university.

“Broadly viewed, they have made it the contribution to the extension of knowledge, which knows no boundaries. The fact is that research has made the modern world. It will assuredly make the world of the future. Without scientific and social research statesmen will be lost.”

Adequate Salaries Necessary

Assuming public support or prescience on the part of the Government, the next point was that chairs in the colleges should be filled as they fell vacant with the most able men attainable. The salaries and superannuation had to be adequate. Salaries averaging £IOOO a year were, after deductions, too low to give any confidence in their attractive power.

The next matter of the moment was the finding of some-method of ascertaining and meeting th e financial requirements of the university and colleges. Some method was needed which would enable the State and university to discharge their joint responsibility. The University of Otago had proposed that a body similar to the University Grants Committee ol Great Britain should be set up, and the speaker thought the proposal should receive careful consideration. The committee might be attached to the Prime Minister’s Department. Failing the setting up of such a committee, Mr. Justice Smith thought they should press for substaatial regular appropriations from the State to enable the university and colleges to budget for periods of more than one year.

Another important matter was the provision of satisfactory positions in New Zealand for the country’s ablest graduates. At present these went abroad and too frequently stayed there. It would be to the great advantage of the country if the university authorities could offer them scope for their abilities.