INDEPENDENCE MEANS MUCH MORE MONEY FOR COLLEGES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18546, 21 August 1928, Page 10

INDEPENDENCE MEANS MUCH MORE MONEY FOR COLLEGES.

PROFESSOR CONWAY TELLS OF EXPERIENCE OF ENGLISH SCHOOLS. Some interesting observations on university independence were made this morning by Professor R. S. Conway, Professor of Latin at the University of Manchester, who this year delivered the Wilding Memorial Lecture at Canterbury College. Professor Conway said he was much struck with the differences in the chief centres. Each seemed obviously fit for a university programme of its own. He stressed, however, the advantages of the federal system in the younger days of a university. Professor Conway spent ten years at the University of Wales, and had considerable responsibility in drafting its first status. “I know from that experience, and also from my experience in Manchester,” he said, “that in the younger days of a university the federal system is a very useful stage. Manchester has been through the federal system.” Professor Conway pointed out that there were many stages of independence. For the purposes of examinations the schools in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Birmingham were allied. They had one common board which conducted the whole of the examinations in the north of England and the Midlands. The board awards some £IO,OOO worth of scholarships every July. For the purposes of examinations the universities were still allied, and were bound by Act of Parliament. To have competing examination bodies would be quite disastrous. “For the purposes of examinations I hope the colleges in New Zealand will always be united,” said Professor Conway, “for it would be disastrous to have competition in such a narrow area. As to when the different universities will be ripe for complete independence I do not know. The moment they get complete independence you will find the money will roll in in a way it has never done before. That has been the experience of every one of the English universities.” lie instanced in this connection the experience of Manchester University, which raised £IO,OOO one year, and a quarter of a million the next. “We would not have got it if we had only been a college,” he said. “Everybody felt that the reputation of Manchester was at stake. If you get independence you get the monev.”

This morning Professor Conway addressed the classic students at Canterbury College on early Italic dialectics.