UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1410, 26 June 1923, Page 4

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

INJUSTICE TO NORTH ISLAND. (By Telegraph. Press Association.) OAMARU, Monday. The Otago University Council had a field day discussing the Hon. George Fowlds’ letter to the Prime Minister, which was recently fully reported in the press. The points most appreciated and applauded in the Chancellor’s speech were the repeated assertions that Mr Fowlds did lot know what he was talking about, and the declaration by the Dean of the Medical Faculty that. Mr Fowlds was an ass.

“When cultured men talk like that.” said Mr Fowlds to a press representative,” and begin calling names, it proves their poor case. I made no fraction of mistake in my figures in my letter to Mr Massey. I toid the Prime Minister what they were, namely, registrations taken from the university calendar, and warned him that they were subject to modification by an exact return from the schools, which I urged him to procure. These facts were wholly ignored by the speakers, if they knew what they were talking about. Their conduct is worse than a mistake. Assuming that Dr Cameron’s figures are correct, they show that Otago, on a population basis, has more than four students receiving medical education compared with one student from the Auckland university district. Possibly Dr Cameron sees no injustice to the Auckland youths in such a disproportion. a nd, tike his colleague, Dr Undo Ferguson, thinks anyone suggesting an alteration is an ass. Possibly the North Island tax-paying “asses ’ may soon take a different view. Had I suggested that the medical schools 'were inefficient, as the Council speakers did. they would have called me worse than an ass. I believe both are efficient, and that without delay dental education should be provided for the North Island people, and before long medical education should also be provided.”