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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7340, 29 May 1885, Page 4

The appointment recently made to the chair of classics in the Melbourne University has drawn forth some ill-advised comments, which force ua to the supposition that the writers have been influenced by considerations of person rather than of principle. For oar part, we fail to see anything remarkable in the conduct of either party to the transaction, recognising as we do the perfect right and prudence of the one side in offering the appointment to the man beet fitted for the post, and of the other in taking advantage of the offer if it holds out sufficient inducement;. " The statement that the appointment was made secretly and without fair consideration of the claims of others is entirely an unwarranted assumption. .We find, from the report in the Argus, that months ago a letter, among others, was sent to the first classics! coach in the University of Cambridge," asking him to recommend a man most fit to be sent out from England to fill the vacant chair. His reply was : " The best man is in your hemisphere— i of : Auckland.- He cannot live here, or he would soon take the shine' out- of moat of us." It is therefore somewhat grotesque to urge a claim upon Professor Tucker's allegiance on the score that our nascent college brought him out "from the obscurity of untried merit." > Belying upon ' much x information of a like nature with this, and upon the Professor's unsurpassable academical degree, the electors came to the conclusion that" they had every security which open competition could give," and that it would be " mocking other men who . had no chance" to advertise ; and »they were, therefore, perfectly justified in their choice. And, looking at the matter from the other side, everyone will admit that our University Colleges should have the highest teaching they can obtain; but it is absurd to suppose that the best men will be obtained if they are t to understand that, even under the moat exceptional circumstances, they cannot take advantage of an offer ol advancement.' We can neither understand the jealousy fell; at the Professor's natural preference for Melbourne University, m™ all its superior arrangements, nor can we do anything but congratulate the community on any of its; members who m»y w chosen for other colonies. "All hope abandon ye who enter here" was never contemplated, we should hope, m *" agreement, either by the Professors when appointed, or by the authorities engaging them. ~ The object of • formu-lating-an agreement at all was not, ana could not f be, to bind a member or* high profession to the position of an eaucational adsoriptus glebae ; ' but it,was ; intended to prevent a dead P e c un "f y ..£" or serious interruption of work. S : we,, of .these I losses is ; likely , to occur in the ; present - case. Primary and **?W schoolmasters may leave and go weir.way to Bomethine better: and are toe men ww>

jhare spent large suras of money and years ;of time upon preparation for a by no ■ means lucrative profession to be debarred . from that which every other class of people . enjoye—a prospect of better things? It is in vain to expect that a struggling colonial College will secure men at the top of their profession to do the work of comparative drudgery, if it is known that after they have done that work cheerfully and well, the reward they get is abuse and detraction at the hands of those who are spending their own lives entirely in self-advancement. And because a particular Professor has such wide renown that a greater University seeks his services for higher work, it is unmanly to make him the object of vituperation which he would have escaped by remaining insignificant. If our Professors are of mediocre standing, they may remain among us for ever, and be accredited with a sublime contempt for filthy lucre, and with highgouled views of duty to Auckland. But if they are of the standing we would fain bave them.be, we must expect and. even be unselfishly glad, to see them offered nobler spheres of work, without necessarily assuming that they are more mercenary than it is salutary for a man to be. It is the most utter foolishness to ask of any man what it is noc in human nature to give— a contempt for superior mundane advantages. This new theory of morale is too transcendental for us. Provided a man does his duty faithfully so long as he occupies a post, the community has no right to ask Kim to immolate himself upon the altar of abstract dnty.