NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 28, 5 August 1871, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

Our readers will have seen among recent advertisements a sketch of the programme, which the Council of the infant University has laid out for its operation. Examinations will be held in classics, modern languages, and English, as well as physical science, and mathematics. Scholarships of considerable value are to be awarded to a large number of the most successful candidates. Besides this, a large sum of money is set apart to aid such places of education as may satisfy the conditions of affiliation. These conditions appear to be merely that instruction in certain branches Bhould be given in the affiliated institutions. The suras [granted annually to them would probably have to be expended in enlarging the curriculum, by means of a paid lecturer on some subject insufficiently represented under existing circumotances. If Nelson College, for instance, were affiliated, it would possibly be deemed advisable to obtain the services of a gentleman qualified to teach some branch of physical science. It is needless to point out how great a boon the presence of such a person would confer upon the city and the province. His operations need by no means be restricted to the College, where his duties would not occupy more than a part of his time. We hope that a Ladies' College is not a mere chimera; that it is not destined to end in the infinite and indefinite talk of matrons, with a vague idea that they would like their daughters educated cheaply, and on principles somewhat above mere rule-of-thumb and learning by rote, but who do not the least know, beyond this, what they want. If ever a Ladies' College be seriously contemplated, no small part of the difficulties attendant on founding it will be done away with, by our College Governors having at their disposal the services of a qualified instructor in natural science. His teaching will be invaluable to the young ladies, and during his hours at the College some members of the present staff would be free to lend their assistance elsewhere. Besides this, as the teaching of natural science is practically found at Kugby, Cheltenham, and elsewhere, to require but a comparatively short part of the school-hours, it might well be a condition of engagement, that the instructor in natural science should deliver annually a course of evening lectures, which could not fail to be advantageous to young people whose avocations give no time for intellectual culture during "the day. The system adopted in the award of scholarships, will have a vast influence for good or evil on the direction of the studies in the higher schools throughout the colony. The subjects enumerated in the advertisement, including" modern languages and physical science, no less than classics and mathematics, forbid us to fear that pedantic conservatism will be permitted to narrow the curricu- v lum of the higher schools within the old mill-horse round of the public schools of twenty years since. We have but one fault to find with the programme. Ifc is however stated, that special knowledge, in any one subject, will outweigh proficiency in. several. While we are fully alive to the mischief done to young persons by permitting mere dilletante dabbling in many things, we think that the Council in laying down this principle thus broadly, are making a mistake which can scarcely be other than injurious to the higher education of the colony. The schools will, for self-preservation sake, be obliged to conform to the principles of the ex-

amining body, and will be worked so as to obtain the greatest possible number of scholarships. If this principle is adhered to, a master as soon aa he has ascertained that a pupil has a decided turn for language, or for classics, or for physical science, will find himself obliged to " push " him in his favourite branch at the expense of all beside. We submit, that the production of merely one-sided men is the very thing to | be avoided. A mere mathematician, untinctured by letters, is not ' a high ideal ; while a classical scholar innocent of rule-of-three, and not knowing a " hawk from a hernshaw," is an absurdity which we should not wish to see reproduced on our side of the equator. We do not argue that marked proficiency in any branch — whether literature, mathematics, or natural science, should not be highly valued ; but we submit that a respectable minimum standard should be reached in at least one other. Thus, the highest honours in mathematics should not be accessible without a fair knowledge of English, and a thorough if not exhaustive acquaintance with at least Latin. The Senior Classic should be at least able to work a rule-of-three sum, as well as to unravel a chorus of iEschylus. In the present state of education in the colony it would, we fear, be impossible to insist upon a minimum standard of physical knowledge, but better times may come. Beyond this, however, exceptionally gifted individuals are known to exist, whose aptitude for literary and linguistic training is not inferior to their mathematical ability. ' There are Double Firsts at Oxford, and the same individual has more than once attained the honours of Senior Classic and Senior Wrangler at Cambridge. These are the very 1 men whom it is the interest of the State to cultivate. At sixteen, such a mind would inevitably appear at a disadvantage in classics with a contemporary who had devoted himself solely to that study, no less than to the mere mathematician on his peculiar ground. These students, if we should be happy enough to possess them, would slip through the fingers of the New Zealand Examiners. But apart from exceptionally gifted individuals, the mass would suffer by their education being exclusively directed into those channels to which their natural inclinations most readily conducted them. A worse school could not be well imagined, than one in which one set of boys was trained in nothing but physics, another in nothing but classics, a third exclusively in mathematics. Yet the principle of the New Zealand "University Senate may lead up to this, if they are not carefully guarded. Let them take Mr. Sale's advice to heart, and encourage breadth no less than profundity ; and discourage sciolistic dabbling by all the means in their power. Plato meant something of this sort, when he forbade any ignorant of geometry to enter his school of moral and metaphysical philosophy.