UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 877, 19 September 1868, Page 3

UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS.

It will probably be considered very ungracious by most men to offer any opposition to so pleasing and patriotic a proposal as that for the foundation of University Scholarships. Few proposals indeed are mor© likely to carry away one's sympathies than that. To pick out the most brilliant boys in the colony every year, provide them with a handsome maintenance at the public expense, and tben send them to Oxford or Cambridge in order to earn distinction and reflect lustre on their native colony — such an idea seems at first sight eminently worthy of a statesman. Arguments in support of it flow in upon us by the dozen, while arguments against it appear inconceivably petty and ridiculous. And therefore we shall not be at all surprised to learn that Mr Dillon Bell's resolution has received the sanction of the Legislature. But should it be so, we much fear that the result will not equal Mr Dillon Bell's anticipations. It will probably be found, after a few years' experience, that in this question as in every other, it is not safe to trust to our sympathies. Much as we wish to see the standard ofeducationraisedthroughoutthecolony— to see individual merit rewarded — to see science and literature regarded as objects of ambition, we do not wish to see the Legislature make itself ridiculous inavery expensive and a very profitless manner. Taere is no class of questions in which Legislative bodies run a greater risk of making themselves ridiculous than in this. Thememoers of colonial Legislatures, as a rule, are scarcely competent to offer an opinion on matters relating to the higher branches of education. The greater number of our representatives are men whose lives have been passed in practical pursuits, and who have never paid any serious attention to any department of either science, literature, or art. The speeches reported in Hansard on this subject; are evidence in point. No one would suppose, from a perusal of those speeches, that the speakers were grave practical men who thoroughly understood the subject they discussed. Some of their arguments are positively childish, reminding us of the glowing and unsubstantial rhetoric we have all heard in the debating societies of our youth. Mr Dillon Bell, for instance, tells us that { the result of bis proposal would be to select young men who had shown conspicuous talent every year.' Now if Mr Dillon knew anything of educational lif e, and especially if he knew anything about the young men in the colonies who are supposed to thirst for University education, he would never dream of talking in so lavish a manner about/ conspicuous talent. ' A difficulty would have occurred to him at once, in that case, which has evidently not yet presented itself to his mind. Where j is the conspicuous talent to come j ! from ? How are we to be sure j I that even two young men of | conspicuous talent can be picked I out every year from the schools of New Zealand 1 Can Mr Bell tell us how many i of the hundreds or rather thousands of young men who go up to the Universities in the United Kingdom display conspicuous talent I Every one knows that a young man of conspicuous talent is a very rare article indeed even in the crowded j halls of Oxford and Cambridge ; that the greater number of them— ninety nine out of every hundred— are youths of merely average intellect ; and that a very large proportion are hardly worth educating at all, in a University sense. When we narrow the sphere to colonial life, the talk about conspicuous talent becomes ridiculous. Universities of some pretensions have been established for years past in Sydney and Melbourne. What conspicuous talent has been displayed in their lecture rooms ? Many ot the candidates for matriculation are yearly turned back as disgracefully unfit for college studies, and many of those who are allowed to matriculate are barely ' up to the mark.' Look over the calendars ot those Universities, and see what has been done in the hope of drawingforthconspicuous talent. Scholarships have been founded by the dozen, both by the State and by private individuals, while gpld medals and other honors are offered in profusion. Yet it is a melancholy fact" that many of these tempting prizes are annually uncLaimed and undistributed, Here we, too, will find the shoe, which Mr Dillon Bell assures us is an admirable fit, pinch us abominably. Our Board of Examiners will probably find a difficulty in selecting a couple of boys year after year, who could fairly be sent home under the proposed regulations without perpetrating a swindle on the colony. How is such a difficulty to be got over ? 'To award the. scholarships to boys of merely average abilitychat is, ability which is not worth talking about— would be simply throwing the money away. It would certainly be thrown away bo far as the State is concerned, and in ail probability it would be equally

thrown away on. the boys. And putting aside the question of ability, it mustbe^ remarked that there is absolutely in Bending a boy to the University, until he is thoroughly prepared by previous training for "University studies. has been found in Australia that a ; great obstacle in the path of the Universities is the absence of such previous training on the part of their students. Boys who have been kept at school from year to year, under the' impression that they were making great progress, have utterly failed to stand the test of matriculation. What reason have we to believe that the schools of New Zealand are better than the schools of Victoria or New South Wales? It is really laughable to observe how one absurdity trips up another in this whimsical debate. Mr Dillon Bell was followed by Mr Travebs ; and nonsense having been talked in one direction, nonsense was then talked in another. Mr Tkavers proceeded to dilate upon the enormous advantages the New Zealand boys would possess in the shape of the great libraries, the great museums, and the great men, whom the boys in question would have opportunities for consulting. Mr Tjravers takes it for granted that these boys— who, if they do their real work, will find their time fully occupied in working up the subjects for the day's lectures and the yearly examinations,— would spend day after day in the British Museum or the Bodleian Library, in leisure hours extracting information from Professor Owen or Sir Roderick Murchison. We are inclined to think that if Mr Travers had recollected for a moment how he spent hie time between the ages of 17 and 20, he would not have urged such, an argument as this. But the gradation of absurdity rises higher and higher, like the steps of a ladder. Mr Tancred gave expression to a diamal foreboding which must be stated in his own words : ' He believed that if one of these scholars did really distinguish himself, he would be tempted to remain at home, because he would have a much wider field than he could possibly find in New Zealand for the exercise of his abilities ; and probably if he gained influence and made his way in the world, it would be an inducement not only for him to remain in England, but for his family to remain there too.' Mr Tanceed's alarm reminds us of an opinion expressed by another honourable member, Mr Mete Kingi, when he said, with reference to the escape from the Chatham Islands ; 'So then just look at the thoughts of the Maori people. If you were to take prisoners to England, most probably they would get a steamer and make their escape to New Zealand.' The supposition, in both cases, is natural enough, but it overlooks a contingency. Mute Kingi forgot that prisoners in England would probably be unable to get outside their prison walls, and Mr Tancred forgets that boys in England would probably find the field a little too wide to be convenient. A New Zealand lad, supposing him, to have gained some honor at an English university, would not relish the idea of passing tea or fifteen years in obscurity, and perhaps in poverty, before he could earn his own bread ; while it is equally probable that his parents in the colony would not be disposed to provide him with the means of tiding over the interval. Mr Stafford also took part in the debate, and aoquitted himself much like the rest. Addressing himself to the objection that sending boys to England is merely throwing them in the way of temptation, he argued that when young men are inclined to be dissipated, they are not restrained by the fact that their parents reside in the same country. This is true enough, but Mr Stafford should have recollected that the objection is not grounded on the absence of the parents, but on the peculiarly dangerous ] position which a colonial lad would ocoupy at a great English University. He must make acquaintances, and among the acquaintances he would find, numbers of fast young gentlemen with incomes considerably larger than his own little stipend of £250 a year, half of which would probably be swallowed op in tutors' fees and I the purchase of books. An impression seems to prevail in the House that unless our young men are sent home at the expense of the State,, ! they will never he Bent home at all. We believe that most of those colonists who are in a position to maintain a son in an English University will do so at their own expense, if they think proper to do it ; and we also believe that for those colonists who are not in a position to do anything of the kind, the proposed scholarships are little more than a delusion. We do not know why the 4 Universities of Sydney and Melbourne should be ignored in such a discussion, unless it is^ that the advantages which those institutions offer are unknown to our legislators. They can hardly be aware, for instance, that a scholarahip has been founded by an Australian colonist for the purpose of send-

ing home to England, every year, a afcudgnt from one of those Universities alteTOjftely j the scholarship being awarded to, the student who has earned the^argest share of distinction during his career at Sydney or Melbourne, and being intended — not merely to give a college education to a raw youth, as we propose to do — but to give those who have already graduated the higher and more complete advantages of European Universities. There is common sense in such a plan, while there is merely thg shadow of it in purs. Again, if scholas 11 tic advantages are the object of these proposals, it ought to be known that the most accomplished classical scholar of the present day— one pronounced to be bo by all the scholars of England — is Pro* fessor of Classics in the University of Sydney. We may send our boys to Oxford if we will, but even there they will meet with no such master of the dead and living languages as may now Ire found in Sydney.