A NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXV, Issue 3041, 3 September 1870, Page 9

A NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

. _ j\ A. j'Ktitiox has been presented from the Warden and Fellows of Christchurch College, praying that the House proceed no further in the matter of the New Zealand University Bill, until a Commission has reported to the House on the whole question. This petition, although signed by gentlemen affixing to their names high academical degrees, is singularly vague audjinconclusive. From it we gather thattheir objections to the University Bill are that the establishment of a university is premature, and that the proposed university would not (whatever that may mean) be a university "in the highest sense." It asserts also, parenthetically, that Otago is in some respects an " undesirable " scat, but advances nothing in proof of the assertion. The first objection that it is premature to establish a colonial university, has been already disposed of by the ITousp, and lands in both islands have been sot apart for its endowment. Such an objection, indeed, is utterly untenable. The histories of the great universities in England and Scotland alike contradict it. Had such ideas prevailed, where would have been tho universities of Oxford or St. Andrews? With regard to the establishment of tho latter, there is no doubt it was founded when the population of the country was neither so numerous nor so wealthy us tho population of New Zealand, and when its means of communication, its resources, its trade and commerce could not bear the most distant comparison. Such objectors seem to forget that the universities now so " famous, so excellent in art, and still so rising," were established in sparsely populated countries, without any means of communication to be compared with ours, in the very midst of desolating wars, and when no provision for elementary education had yet been made by the church or the nation. The second objection, that the university would not be a university "in the highest sense," is simply ludicrous. The Fellows of Christ College, Christchurch, must bo facetious fellows indeed. They must have recently been relieving the grave duties and respon-

sibilities of their Fellowship by reading Hiorocles. Their objection is a simple reproduction of his story of the simpleton, who tried to cross a river and was nearly drowned. What did he then do? Why, he made a vow never to touch water till he had learned to swim, So these learned dignitaries would have us not establish a university at all until we can establish one "in the highest sense." Yet, some of them, wo believe, are graduates of Oxford University, which began with the " trivium" and "quadrivium" of the dark ages, and some of Cambridge, which did noble service to the Church and to the world long before it had a Professor of Greek ! The University of Paris was a university "in the highest sense '' but that was considered no reason why the establishment of a university should be del ayeel at Aberdeen , which though at first not entitled tobeso designated would closely resemblo it, so far as necessity required, and altered circumstances would permit. That university began on <i very humble scale, and though still retaining in many of its ancient forms a close resemblance to the University of Paris has, as every university must do, grown with the nations growth and strengthened with her strength. We may fix upon any university as the model on which ours is to bo built up, but we shall find ourselves compelled to curtail, to add, or to alter according to our necessities and resources. The university must be racy of the soil. It must grow, it cannot be forced. This growth must have a beginning, and why not now ? When did these older universities we have referred to take their beginning ? Did they wait till the country was interlaced with roads, and other means of transport ? Had not the student to make a long and dangerous pilgrimage to the seat of learning? Did they wait until they were fully equipped? If the University of Glasgow— not yet perhaps in the estimation of these learned petitioners a " university in the highest sense, 11 — had delayed the teaching of natural philosophy until it had better appliances, the world would have lost the genius of a Watt, whose attempt as a poor student at a poor university to mend the broken apparatus of his Professor, resulted in the wonders of steam. No, these universities all began in the same way and from the same starting point as we now recommend for the establishment of a colonial university. They began, as we hope to begin, whenever they bad a sufficient endowment to establish two or three chairs. They began, as we must begin, with small means at their command, with faith in themselves and in their country. The University of Paris gathered hundreds of students from all countries loug before it had a building of its own. The Council of the University of Dunodin offers us the most magnificent building in the colony, and an endowment already amounting to £1,700 per annum, and are we to lose this chance by delaying its acceptance a single clay? Nay, more, Otago offers what endowments cannot at once secure, students eagerly impatient and qualified to matriculate. The pupils of every school in the province compete for scholarships at the High Schools, tenuble for five years, and university scholarships only wait the establishment of a university to be permanently endowed. Grammar schools are established at the centres of population throughout the province, and the smallest township has its public library. No other province in the colony can show such educational appliances, constituting (as Mr Fitzherbert happily expressed it) on " educational momentum" which ought to sweep away before it all local or provincial jealousies. As the universities at home were founded simply whenever and wherever sufficient endowments accrued, so we think a univeri sity should be first planted in that part of the colony which contributes most to its endowment, and which most urgently re- ' quires its services. This was the principle '■ of the bill, and it is a thousand pities that j the provincial jealousy of the Canterbury : members succeeded last night in preventing its being passed into law, and in depriving the colony of a munificent offer that may never, be renewed.