UNIVERSITY SPECIALISATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13834, 22 February 1907, Page 4

UNIVERSITY SPECIALISATION.

It is not very clear why the proposed establishment of a. Veterinary College in connection with the University of Otago should be regarded as another injustice to Auckland. One of our Northern contemporaries finds itself, however, unable to repress its astonishment when it learns that—to use its own words—" in addition to the School of Mines and "the School of Medicine and Dentistry, Duuedin is to have yet another special study accumulated upon her curriculum, and presumably subsidised at the public expense." How a Veterinary College could be satisfactorily maintained anywhere else than alongside the Medical School in Dunedin is a question upon which this critic does not enlighten us. But we should have supposed that to the ordinary instructed mind it would be apparent that the location of. the Veterinary College was determined by the fact that the Medical School was already in existence in Dunedin and that it would be absurd to suggest that the function of training veterinary surgeons in the colony could be undertaken, except at wholly unnecessary expense, by any of the University colleges other than that in Dunedin, The commonsense view of tho matter undoubtedly is that the Veterinary College will, like the Dental School, be an appendage of tho Medical School, and that its establishment here does not in any true sense represent the addition of a specialised department to the branches of study which are a feature of the work of the University of Otago. As n matter of fact, it was at the request of the Government that, the local University Council entered into the arrangements for the provision of instruction in veterinary science in Dunedin, and when the Minister of Lands said at Auckland a few days ago that it was only last week that the University nad finally decided that the Veterinary College should be established in Otago he was certainly under a misapprehension. That the design is of no recent date is shown by the fact that the appropriations on the Estimates of 1004 to meet the cost of the specialisation of subjects at the various University colleges expressly enumerated mining, medicine, and veterinary science as the specialised of study, iu Piwedin. It srojjltl ;

be affectation on our part, however, to pretend that our Auckland contemporary was as much concerned about the establishment of a Veterinary College here as it is about the maintenance of the Otago School of Mines. Tliafc institution is, it would seem, again to be the object of attack. 'Consequently Mr M'Nab is reminded of what is described as "the long controversy over the rival Schools of Mines," and he is also assured that "Mr Seddon strongly supported the establishment of a School of Mines in the northern district." The introduction of Mr Soddon's name by our contemporary is certainly indiscreet. It is undoubtedly the case that Mr Seddon harboured tho notion that it might be advisable to close the School of Mines in Dunedin in order that a wellequipped school might be established in connection with the University College at Auckland—in a district where, it may bo remarked, thero aro already two or three Mining Schools in existence. But it is also true that, for good and sufficient reasons, Mr Seddon definitely abandoned this idea and that, when tho specialisation vote was before.the House in 15)04, he publicly proclaimed his renunciation of'it. We quoted, less than three weeks ago, the. remark Hint was made by the late Premier on that occasion, but as there is manifestly a disposition at the present time to reopen tho controversy which was closed in 1904 it may be desirable that we should again placo on record Mr Seddou's wordsreported in Hansard, volume 131, page 1029—conveying the intimation that " the present vote indicated the decision of the Government not to remove the Mining School from Dunedin." Why it should be- deemed advisable at the.prcsent time to revive an agitation against the Otago School of Mines we cannot conceive: The whole question was threshed out very thoroughly in' 1903 and 1904, and the evidence that was placed before the Government was so conclusive respecting the admirable service the School of Minos in Dunedin had performed for many years, the excellent reputation it had acquired, not only in Australia, but in distant mining countries, and the. advantageousness of its situation for the efficient working of an institution of the kind, that even Mr Seddon, opposed as he had been to the continuance of the school in Dunedin, was convinced that it would be a mistake to remove it. In the circumstances our Auckland evening contemporary would have been better advised if it had refrained from introducing Mr Seddou's name into the discussion, which apparently it proposes to revive and which certainly wo have no cause to fear.