UNIVERSITY REFORM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19255, 18 February 1926, Page 10

UNIVERSITY REFORM.

REPORT OF COMMISSION. THE CHANCELLOR'S REVIEW. QUESTION OF SPECIAL SCHOOLS. [BY TELEGRAPH. —PIffiSSI ASSOCIATION.] DUKEDIN. "Wednesday. The annual session of the New Zealand University Senate opened this morning, the Chancellor, Professor Macmillan Brown (Canterbury), presiding. In his address, the Chancellor's main referenco was to the report of the University Commission, which, he said, had shown sane restraint, rejecting what was pressed upon it by many witnesses as only a panacea —the immediate establishment of four universities—holding that the country was not populous or wealthy enough to bear the enormous expense of quadrupling the special, sicliools. They heartily agreed that the four colleges formed the only alternative, each specialising in one of the professional- schools, and all bound together a;s a federal university. It must be realised that if university education were too ambitious in projects it would mean the impoverishment of each institution and poor salaries. Whatever was done the staffs must not suffer. He was pleased to see tlmt the commission emphasised the weakest spot in university life, the poverty of the college libraries. A vote of £2OOO annually to each college for the library was by no means too much. The Chancellor entered a protest against the idea that the senate had been the arena of provincial jealousies regarding special schools. He quite sure the senate ever had in its mind the same views that led the commission to recommend the rigid limitation of special professional schools, namely, the basis of finance. Passing next to the question of schools of agriculture, he thought it would be well worth while to ace whether there could not be three schools of agriculture each turning its attention especially to one branch. One of the best forms that gifts and bequests for agriculture could take would bo research scholarships such as he tried to found last year. He was delighted that the result of the conference between Auckland and Victoria colleges was an ajyeement for one agricultural teaching institution of university standard in the North Island. He hoped the Government would help the institution financially, equipping it as liberally as if there had been two such institutions in the North Island. - He was pleased at the commission's recommendation as to a higher standard for degrees, .and as a conseqaenco a higher entrance standard. The commission's recommendation practically; amounted to his own idea of matriculation, divided into higher and lower. , ' Most, of the business of the morning session was confined, to the setting up of committees which are to submit reports to later sessions. It was decided "that the examination papers of: candidates who sit at the four centres shall be forwarded by the supervisors direct ito the examiners." t 1 The afternoon : session was ■ dovoted to committee work. > ' ' ' - The {seriated is expected teV&ifc: for ten "days. •I >'■ ' ): !|: -. '■ - r '.:' ,