THE AUCKLAND COLLEGE AND GRAMMAR SCHOOL BILL, 1882, IN COMMITTEE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6424, 20 June 1882, Page 3

THE AUCKLAND COLLEGE AND GRAMMAR SCHOOL BILL, 1882, IN COMMITTEE.

.. TO THE EDITOB. Slit,—-Allow me to give public expression through your columns, to the feeling of amazement with which I read in yesterday's issue your special correspondent's account of the previous day's discussion in committee of the House on the Auckland College and Grammar School Bill, 1882. Mr. Peacock, the member in charge of the Bill, is reported—and doubtless correctly reported —to have said that the institution (tho Auckland College . and Grammar School) *' could not carry on college work," and "had never done college work, thatia, preparatory for university degrees." These statements are contrary to fact, and furnish a remarkable illustration of a mode of following St. Paul's practice of "forgetting the things which are behind," which would not it may be confidently said, meet with apostolic approval. According to the hon. member for Auckland North, the institution could not carry out, and had nerer done college work. What are the facts? Before the end of 1874 nine pupils had become matriculated students of the university. Of these, one has . since taken the degrees of E.A. and M.A.; a second those of B.A. and LL.B. ; a third those of E.A. and M.A., with first-class honours in ciassica ; and a fourth has - passed the first B.A. examination, and taken a senior scholarship in mathematics. Five pupils matriculated in 1877, of whom two have pa3sed the first B.A. examination; and three, undergraduates, matriculated since that time, have also passed the same examination, and are now preparing for the final examination for the degree to be held in November of this year. The rest of these students entered on the work, of life before completing the university course, but several of them will yet, there is reason to hope, find leisure to prepare themselves for a degree. The students of the Auckland College were the first in the colony to accept the new regulations of the university, which made the attainment of a degree a much more difficult~T2a£t"er~~than'it had previously been; they were the ouly candidates at the first examination in May, 1876, and the only successful dandidates at the November examination of the same year; and one of them was the: first graduate under these regulations. Two of themobtained the first senior soholarshipsgranted by the university. Of the first four students on the boeks of the affiliated institutions who obtained a degree bypassing the New Zealand: University examinations three belonged to the Auckland College.. Mr. Peacock can scarcely be pardoned for his forgetfulness of a fact which has been honourably mentioned in one of the leading English Quarterly Reviews. "To New Zealand University," I quote from the Westminster Eeview of January, 1878, " belongs the real.honour of having been tk? first throughout the .British Empire to admit a woman to it« degrees. On July 31, 1877, the degree ef Bachelor of Arts was conferred on Mies Edger, a student of the Auckland College and Grammar School.'" For my present purpose it- is. not necessary to enquire why. the promise of the early years of the school has not been fulfilled sinoe 1878. It need only be said that the gradual deterioration of hotb College and Grammar School work since that date was due to causes over which, it is recognised in Auckland, the late head-master had no control. " Although I cannot claim the honour, of being intimately acquainted with Mr. Peacock I yet know him sufficiently well, I think, to warrant the belief that he did. not intentionally give a false account of : th6 past work of the Grammar School, and the confident expectation that he will make haste to find a'euitable opportunity for frankly and fully correcting the misstate-, inenta of facts into which he has been iriadvert- • eutly betrayed.—l am, &c, ■.■■■■■.. '-■'...- ' Fabquhab Mackae. Epsom, 17th June, 18S2.