UNIVERSITY'S BLESSINGS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18920, 23 January 1936, Page 14

UNIVERSITY'S BLESSINGS

SYDNEY ENVIED

COMPARISON WITH N.Z. )

~, After a holiday trip to Sydney, Professor H. B. Kirk, of the chair of • biology at Victoria University College, Wellington, ire turned on Monday toy the Makura.

Professor Kirk said his visit had made hint very envious of the state of university" aflaivs in Sydney. There the students numbered about 31>06, and the professorial staff was equal in strength of numbers to the staffs of all the uni versify colleges in the Dominion. Sydney university was more liberally endowed and had better Government grants than/all :the New Zealand university colleges put together. There was at tfyd ney University a big medical school and a veterinary school*..,'.j;< ;! , f Professor Kirk said the schools of commerce and law were more highly specialised than in the Dominion. He considered that education at Sydney University should •prove more exact than here and shoulcf enable students to carry their studies farther on specialised subjects. The aptitude of the students, of course, wa3 no different from that of New undergraduates The attitude of the Australian public was more helpful than that of the lie in New Zealand; there was generally keener support for and greater interest in. university .education, land in the Sydney institution itself. Although the New Zealand colleges had endowments from wealthy men, they could not com pare with those received by Sydney Uni versity. Speaking of his own subject, l'rofes sor Kirk said that in Sydney then were separate chairs for botany and biology. Each of the sister subjects had its own professor, assistant professors, and lecturers. This bore out his previous remarks regarding the scope for specialisation. In general, concluded the professor. Australian students had the benefit of moving and studying in » much larger community'