PLEA TO PUBLIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23037, 14 May 1938, Page 16

PLEA TO PUBLIC

INTEREST AND HELP" ; UNIVERSITY COLLEGE VALUE OF SCHOLARSHIP THE PRESIDENT'S APPEAL An appeal to the publid of Auckland to measure the true worth to the community of the Auckland University College and to make it their own university formed part of the speech of the president, Mr. W. H. Cocker, at tho annual graduation ceremony of the college in the Town Hall last night. Only if the public realised its value and assisted it with its development, said Mr. Cocker, would the collego take its rightful place in tho community. Mr. Cocker said ho wished to address himself to the. wider public of Auckland. The university needed its help. With-, out doubt the college's financial necessities —hostels, playing fields, a more adequate site, more staff and a larger librnry—were serious enough, but it was not upon the college's material needs that he wished to dwell. He wanted rather to appeal to the public to take an interest in its university, to value the things for which a university stood, to take a pride in its achievements, and to appreciate the kind of contribution which it could make to civic life. Wrong Attitude Taken " University colleges in New Zealand," Mr. Cocker continued, "have suffered considerably because they have been regarded merely as part of a State system of education, as institutions which it is the duty of the State to provide so that lawyers, doctors, teachers and others may receive the necessary professional training. The public has tended to regard them as essentially the responsibility of the central Government. What is needed, and what I plead for to-night, is a greater feeling of local responsibility. "We want you to feel," said Mr. Cocker later, "that it is your univer-

sity, that the university is worth having, and that it is therefore worth supporting and worth working for." It was necessary, before they would take a proper pride in their university, for citizens to have a right attitude toward university education, Mi*. Cocker said. Above all, ho asked them not to judge the college hv tho standards and values of the market place, by material results which could be tabulated and exhibited in columns of statistics. Need for Thinkers Some material results, of course, could be shown, but it should never bf» forgotten, he continued, that the greatest contribution which the university could make to society was to produce men and women of independence of thought, of intellectual integrity and initiative, men who preferred principle to expediency, and whoso minds were so trained and developed as to make them proof against the shibboleths and catch-cries of a noisy world. It was the function of the university to produce men who were thinkers before they were doers and unless the public realised the need for such men, it would not fully appreciate the need for a university. Mr. Cocker asked if the community placed an equal value upon achievement in scholarship as it did upon ability in the professions. If it did, it would no£ allow its scholars to work under the conditions under which they worked at present. He dared not. say how far the college was from being able to provide the essential requirements. Professors and lecturers had to work long hours and the lecturing load left little opportunity for research. The classes were in many cases so large as to make education almost a matter of mass production. The wonder was that under such conditions so much good work had been accomplished. The solution depended ultimately upon what view the community took of tho value of learning and of university education.