UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18896, 23 June 1923, Page 17

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

AUCKLAND'S GRIEVANCES. REPLY TO DR CAMERON. (Feoji, Och Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND. June 22. The comments made by the Rev. Dr Cameron (Chancellor of the Otago University) upon a letter sent by the Hon. George Fowlds to the Prime Minister in connection with Auckland's request for the establishment of a Dental School were referred to hy Mr Kenneth Mackenzie, a member of the College Council, and Mr M. R. O’Shea, Registrar of the Auckland University College. "Wo will accept that. Wo are quite pro-, pared to accept the figures quoted by Dr Cameron,” said Mr O’Shea, "but in Mr Fowld’s defence we may say that he was misiod by the figures given in the calendar. He qualified these, however, by stating that this list was the registration of students, and might be subject to some modification if an exact return of the places of residence of students were/supplied iby the school itself.”

“’What we particularly wish to draw attention to.” said Mr Mackenzie, "is the fact that Mr Fowlds's letter and my report dealt with dental education only. No question of the establishment of a. medical school arises at this juncture. The letter and report dealt solely with the need for a dental school in Auckland, and this contention is fully suported by the statement from Dunedin that, only 12 out of 103 students in residence at the University at present come from Auckland. On a population basis the number should be 32, and Otago should have 16 instead of 28. Even taking the figures supplied by Dr Cameron the effect of locolity is still most strongly marked. In the figures given for the Medical School, out of a total of 357 students 140 belong to Otago and 61 to Auckland. They should be 57 for Otago and 114 for Auckland.”

Otago bad not taken up the main points of the report and letter, continued Mr Mackenzie. At present Auckland contributed three students a year to the Dunedin Dental School from a district population of 382,000. ‘‘We believe that if local facilities were given there would be from 15 to 20 students annually, and we know we can provide teachers —medical and dental—who would be perfectly competent to teach all the subjects required for the courses. The facilities for clinical study in Auckland are far in advance of those in Dunedin, and are probably better than those in any other city in the dominion. The deficiency of hospital facilities in Dunedin is one of 1 the great drawbacks to its monopoly of the dominion’s medical and dental schools. We strongly deny Dr Cameron’s charge that we are poisoned with jealousy. It would be much more correct to say that we are fired with ambition. Dunedin has surely reaped the reward of the initiative shown 50 years ago, and it is hardly right that that initiative, like special schools, should be claimed as a monopoly for all time. A city progressing as rapidly in population, industry, and commerce as Auckland is doing cannot long be held back in any department of human activity.”