THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JULY 9, 1906. THE GRADUATION CEREMONY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13640, 9 July 1906, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JULY 9, 1906. THE GRADUATION CEREMONY.

It may be permitted to us to congratulate the University of Ota ff o upon the extensive list of diplomas and honours secured by its students last year. If we do so it is without any desire to compare the results of the local college with those of the other teaching branches of the University of New Zealand. We view the results, as expressed by the long list of distinctions that were enumerated at the graduation ceremony on Friday last, quite independently of those achieved by the corresponding institutions in the three northern University centres of the colony, and it is impossible for anyone who so regards them to feel that they do not represent a distinctly successful issue of the year's work. Nor, if we are to accept the authority of Dr Salmond upon the point, is our satisfaction to be tempered with tho fear that tho price of these results has been overpressure in the class-room. Dr Salmond seems, indeed, disposed to ridicule the suggestion that the evil of over-pressure' exists to any extent. We should, however, have less cause for gratification over the fact that more than fifty diplomas were gained last year by students of Otago University if the instruction which these graduates have received were to be looked upon in no light other than that of a training for a professional life. As the president of the Students' Association well said in the speech for which provision was made in the arrangements for the afternoon's proceedings, any such conception as that would place a University course upon a level with an apprenticeship to a trade. It would be tantamount to an admission of the failure of our University life. Necessarily a University course is, like a term of apprenticeship, a period of preparation for the future career of the students. Dr Hocken impressed it upon the graduates that the receipt by them of the honours which constitute the reward for the conscientious work they have done marks more than the attainment by them of a goal: the true view is that-they have reached a startingplace from which they are to be despatched in quest of fresh victories. But, however successful and however eminent they may become in the practice of their respective professions, the graduates have not discharged their responsibility to the University, and to the public which expends large sums of money upon the maintenance of the educational institutions of the colony, if the culture they take with them from their alma mater does not react upon and influence the community. While he admits the extreme value and, in fact, the necessity of a general culture such as.is the product of the University life iu older countries, the president of the Students' Association suggests that in a colony, of which the whole tone, as he puts it, is intensely democratic, special attention should be devoted by the University to the requirements arising out of the formation of a new colonial type. The argument is that a University course should be determined by the special character and needs of the people so that the University may become an expression of the special life of the country. No doubt, the University does not fulfil its proper function in the community if it neglects to make provision for such training as has a direct bearing on the life, industrial and social, of tho community. The fact is that, as the vice-chancellor of the New Zealand University said on Friday, there is no branch of human knowledge which should not be taught in a University institution. A University ought to be the home of all learning. Such is the modern conception. But human knowledge is expanding mightily and day by day it is becoming more diversified. Such is its growth that it has been pointed out that no man, however vast his abilities, or however unwearying his labours, can hope to do more than to master some small nook of the immense field displayed before him and to acquire some general notions of the chief systems used and of the principal results harvested in other parts of that wide and fertile domain. The adoption of the pyramidoidal system of education, which Dr Salmond explained last week, whoreby the students are encouraged to cultivate specialisation upon tho broad basis of a general culture involves a recognition of human limitations. The principle by which the Senate is guided in extending the pyramidoidal system is claimed ••-and no doubt justly claimed— by Dr .Salmond to be the sound one. If that be so, it may be justifiably hoped that the effect will be that the functions of a University, as defined by tho president of the Students' Association— namely, to guide the higher intellectual life of the community, to raise the average of education, to foster and encourage original research, and to equip those who receive a University course for tho special duties that await them— may be so fully realised as to strengthen appreciably the influence of the University on the public. We are fold that the relation between the University and the public is not at present very vital: And it is probably quite true that there is a considerable section of the community which does not adequately appreciate the importance and value of the University. But it may be questioned whether, if that is the case, the phenomenon is peculiar to the colony or peculiar to Dunedin. Certainly the general community in Olago has not in the past shown itself altogether unmindful of the claims the University has upon it for support: and the greater the provision that is made for imparting the highest education and for increasing the efficiency of the University as a centre of intellectual life the stronger

will bo the impression upon Ihe public mind of the usefulness of t.ho institution and the closer will be the approximation to the ideal relationship between the University and the community. The University life itself would unquestionably be benefited materially if ihe suggestion, thrown out by the vice-chancellor, that some effort should be made to establish hospices for the students who come to the colleges were acted upon and if, in that way, some modification of the residential system, which is so prominent a feature of the life at tho ancient seats of learning in the Old Country, were introduced. The Presbyterian Church, as we know, is taking steps to provide a residential institution in Dimedin for its students, but the erection of this establishment will not go far to meet the requirements of the case. Of the advantages that would accrue to the students themselves if suitable hospices were opened for their accommodation it is unnecessary to add a word to what Mr Bowen said, and we hope that it may yet be found possible to accomplish the establishment of residential halls at which the wholesome influence of social intercourse among the students would be exerted. Wo do not, however, ignore the fact that the provision of hospices involves a problem of some difficulty.