UNIVERSITY TERMS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8634, 25 October 1889, Page 4

UNIVERSITY TERMS.

TO THE EDITOB.

Sir, —A while ago you invited suggestions as to the causes of the confessed failures of Otago university students in the examinations of our national university. My old friend Dr Stuart seemed to hint at one of these causes, when he lately spoke about reconsidering the question of terms and vacations. It seems to me that now the professors have to try to crowd into six months the work of nine. The students have to prepare for their various lectures, attend them, and then rewrite and study their notes. Some students work excessively in order to do this, and thereby injure their health. Some, perhaps the many, fail to keep pace with the lectures, and do not get a proper grasp of the details of their subject—they have not time; and this of course tells upon their success in examinations. I suppose that the six moDths' term and six months' vacation were intended for the beHefit of students, who have to do other work for their support. The number of such students is, I think, very small, and are the interests of the many, and the whole system of the university to be subordinated to the wants of a very few? Oxford and Cambridge have their so-called long vacation—long in comparison with their other two vacations. Bat yart of their " long" is spent by many students in reading with tutors either at the university or other places; and the authorities of those universities find it more and more necessary to encroach on the long vacation for examinations and other educational purposes. If our local university is to take its due place in New Zealand education, we must, I think, alter our system, and allow our students to go on in the lines which they have been following in the secondary school—that is, three terras and vacations of, say, two, four, and. seven weeks respectively for rest and recreation; or at least two terms, with vacations of five and eight weeks.— I am, &c, Oamaru, October 23. J. A. Fenton.