IN LOCO PARENTIS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9221, 28 April 1908, Page 2

IN LOCO PARENTIS.

_» : CANTERBURY COLLEGE NEEDS A HEAD. Mr G. W. Russell, in his annual report to the Board of Governors, stated that Canterbury College needed a head, an officer who would take, in the educational side of the work, a position similar to that he himself occupied in the financial. At present, he said, there was not any professor who stood at the head of the institution, or "in loco parentis" to the beginner. There should be someone there whose business it would be to meet intending students, to advise them as to the lines of study most suitable to be followed, and to exercise a watchful care over the collegiate careers of all. The present head of the .College was the chairman of the Professorial Board, but that office rotated from year to year, and there was no continuity of office. Moreover, it would not be possible for any one of the professors to devote the necessary, time to the work. The result of such an appointment as he suggested would be to secure a greater amount of individuality than at present in the work of the students. It was deplorable that, with all the money being spent in New Zealand upon higher education, the number of men and women who stood head and shoulders above their fellows as scientists and educationalists was comparatively small. A few illustrious men had gone from the College, but it appeared that the system did not sufficiently develop the individuality of the men and women who worked under it. Even in English, the number of men who had risen above the ruck by special ability aa authors, writers, or oratore after a College training was comparatively small. On that point he quoted the remarks of Professor W. Macneile Dixon, of Glasgow, examiner in English, who, in response to an invitation for criticism upon the performances of candidates whose papers were sent to him from New Zealand, expressed the opinion that a less expenditure of careful and intricate work j by tlie tutors, compelling the students to do more thinking for themsejyes, would develop a greater degree of the individuality that was as strikingly lacking in New Zealand as elsewhere. Taking this examiner's criticism as a standard, he thought that some plan could be devised to encourage greater individuality of work, not only in English classes, but in the other branches to which no doubt the same remarks would apply, and the appointment of some supervising authority would result in nothing but good."