APPOINTING PROFESSORS

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1931, Page 15

APPOINTING PROFESSORS

THE, VERY BEST MEN NEEDED. “A MOST INSIDIOUS DANGER.” The following is an extract from the address delivered at the recent graduation ceremony in Dunedin by Professor Arnold Wall: With regard to the appointments to professorial chairs, I would say that a time will come when such appointments will be made without any question of the candidates’ country of origin; when there is a vacancy the very best man that can be Induced to apply in the world, will be appointed. \A. e shall hear no more of “New Zealand for the New Zealanders.” That time has not yet come. Of the present professors, quite a number have been appointed without any competition at all, and there have been other appointments that I will not criticise. One instance must suffice. A few years ago, when a vacancy occurred in one of the four colleges (not in Qtago], a man of world-wide reputation, a New Zealander born and bred, resident in England, was asked to assist in the selection. He recommended an applicant of great distinction and promise, a man who was certain, in his opinion, to go far and to do brilliant original work. The other two candidates in his short list were not more than very competent teachers; neither was likely to make a great name or to do important original work (the subject was scientific). The appointing body at this end, however, passed over the brilliant candidate, whose appointment would have been of inestimable value to the University-as a whole, and to the Dominion, and selected the th -d of the three offering,: this man being a New Zealander. Admitting, of course, that, other things being equal, it is most right and fitting that the New Zealander should be chosen in such a case, it must be obvious that so great an insistence upon mere nationality, to the exclusion of all other considerations, must react unfavourably upon the whole status of the particular subject concerned, and that the standard of efficiency both in the teaching and in the examinations, must inevitably suffer in the long run. The case does not by any means stand alone. I may add that I have the very best authority for. the details here given. The whole question is a delicate one, and the general principle involved is far wider than the confines of the University. I have dealt with it, I think, honestly and impartially, though I am not' a New Zeajander myself. I regard it as a most insidious danger, partly because the motive at its back is so often unacknowledged by those who act upon it, and is even,-perhaps, sometimes not quite clear to their own minds.