THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, MARGE 7, l934. THE UNIVERSITY YEAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22205, 7 March 1934, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, MARGE 7, 1934. THE UNIVERSITY YEAR

The University of Otago may bo fairly congratulated on its inaugural ceremony and address. The latter in particular received very favourable comment on. all sides. The leading thesis of the speaker, Dr Findlay, was that in the main, the traditional concept of a liberal education is due to Plato, who first gathered men together for the purpose of endeavouring to find out what was true—if such could be found. The search was always for basic principles. Hence both teacher and taught must always be researchers, never content with mere facts as such, but always.groping for an enlightening interpretation. It may be wondered how far any modern university achieves this ideal. There are now, as there have always been, men who love to know, rather than to have great possessions, or to hold power. These men, if given opportunity, will naturally gravitate towards universities, and there hope to find the equipment and the peace that the world of bustling business does not afford. But the modern university has become a great and complicated business itself. Originated in the first place as an asylum or retreat where the truth-seeker might escape for a while from the dust and conflict of political and economic life to meditate and debate on things abstract, or on things whose marrow was non-financial, it has inevitably been involved in a complex of developments necessitating many activities besides those of dialectic and research. Too often it happens that among the personnel of the academic staff there are a few especially competent at administrative work, and on these necessarily falls a great deal of responsibility over and above the actual teaching, research, and examining. Indeed, research in the University j of New Zealand, of which Otago University is a constituent, is well-nigh an impossibility. A university teacher who gives three hours to lecturing in the forenoon, and then sits as representative on the Council or other body for three more hours in the afternoon, and then retires to prepare his work for next day, or who amid preparation and examining has the internal management of a highly specialised department, is in danger of losing his health or of becoming inefficient through sheer weariness. There is another aspect also to be considered. The university has deserted Plato's academic bowers by cool Ilissus and has mingled to some extent in the turmoil of everyday life. It is quite a common thing nowadays for members of university staffs to give public lectures or broadcast talks on all kinds of subjects. Indeed it is now regarded as a definite part of a professor's work in the dominions that he should keep up contacts with the public. The main function that Dr Findlay emphasised, that of teaching people to think, is thus often submerged by a dozen pressing cares of the moment. Canterbury College has had a Rector for some time in tiic person of Dr J. Hight, and Victoria College is reported to be meditating the same course of action. Sydney appointed a principal a few years ago. This appears to be a question which should be considered in Otago with as little delay as possible. If such a course should necessitate some addition to the assistant staff, this would surely be money well spent, as it would make for greater efficiency both academic and administrative. Plato was a man

of wealth and had no great organisation; but his successors, Aristotle and Theophrastus, must have found the burden immense when the students increased from a small band to several thousands. With Professor Findlay's prayer that our University may bo preserved from all partisan propaganda and cast-iron dogmatism all liberal thinkers will agree. This country does not want Sovietism or Fascism or Hitlerism. It looks to its university teachers to turn out calm reasoners, not rabid uprooters. If the perpetuation of the spirit of Plato in the university can assist in produce ing sweet reasonableness, it will render a boon to the practical man as well as to the philosopher. It must not be forgotten that knowledge and virtue of the purely cloistral species forfeit most of their influence and become a kind of selfish spiritual, or intellectual pride. It would be well to keep in mind tha? Plato's aspiration was for philosophers who should be kings and kings who should be philosophers.