THE PUCE OF STUDY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24855, 3 March 1942, Page 4

THE PUCE OF STUDY

OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE NEW UNIVERSITY YEAR S 1 ■ An assurance that in a full application to their studies there was an opportunity to give valuable service to their country even in time of war was impressed upon students of the University of Otago by Dr F. H. Smifk, professor of medicine, at the general inaugural meeting of staff and students yesterday. The attendance at the meeting, which included an unusually large proportion of women students and over which the chairman of the Professorial Board (Dr R. Lawson) presided, taxed the accommodation of , the Allen Hall. Dr Smirk’s address embodied a welcome to new undergraduates. ■ Already, Dr Smirk .said, many graduates and undergraduates were serving with the armed forces. Some had been decorated: some had lost their lives. Compared with these greater things, the. minor inconveniences of the war were negligible. That fact was realised by students as it was by the public generally, but there 'were, inevitably, many students disturbed by the thought that in these days university study was an inadequate contribution to the common “Some of us,” he said, “must feel that the quality of our service is of a poorer order than that of the men who risk their lives and interrupt their careers. But it must; be realised, also, that something well done, whether it helps now or in the reconstruction that must follow, is a service, even if it is not a sacrifice. There are many outlets for public service, and your studies' will fit you to give greater help in the bringing of this war,., to a victorious end.”

The function of a university. Dr Smirk said, was not, by working like a machine, to turn out products according to a pattern. It was not designed to develop the mere capacity to reiterate facts, although it was impossible for a mind to be trained unless command of facts was obtained. The acquisition of knowledge entailed other things—training in honest, accurate thinking, in sifting the apparent from the real, the plausible from the true, the evanescent from the permanent. “Many things are advocated as desirable in university life—hard work in one’s province, wide reading, and the cultivation of a general education,” Dr Smirk concluded. “ Physical fitness and the team spirit engendered by games are of great value, not only for their own sake, but also because those who are physically fit and take part in the many social activities of student life are more likely to have influence with their fellows both inside and outside the university.”