1.—13 a.

3

A. U. ATKINSON.j

pendently of the merits of this particular reform or that, that a case has been made out lor a thorough overhauling of our university methods in the hglit, as 1 say, of the most modern and up-to-aate knowledge. Professor G. \V. Yon Zedlitz examined. (No. 3.) 1. The Chairman.] What is your subject at the University/ —Modern languages. On the question of organization oi the University -Ur. Atkinson has made it plain how, in the most natural and intelligible wa\ possible, there never lias been any revision in Parliament. It has never been before Parliament in any shape. The question of organization is the most important part of the reform movement. V\ c have traced to a detective organization most of the defects now visible in the working of our system, and these delects are oi such a nature that they can only be removed by a reorganization, and gradually. I'or convenience 1 .shall separate the subject into two parts —1, the University itself, and Lts relation to the colleges; lx, the internal arrangements of the colleges. 1. In the earl} days of our University, in the seventies, in addition to Otago University and Canterbury College, there were a number i>l secondary schools in various parts of New Zealand " affiliated " to the University, and engaged in preparing students for University examinations. These institutions naturally differed greatly in character and standing, ana Parliament,, in providing a central authority to name a University syllabus and control University examinations for all oi them, could hardly have proceeded otherwise than by creating a governing body which should stand outside of and above the various schools and colleges. In 1879 y Royal Commission took evidence on the state of affairs thus created, and recommended that the secondary schools should be disaftiliated —thai institutions of a University character should be created in Wellington and Auckland, and thai these new colleges, with the Otago and Canterbury Colleges, should constitute the University— i.e., that, instead of being subordinate to and outside of the University, as they actually are, they should conjointly be the University, which would thus lose its objectionable character oi a mere examining body and become a federated teaching body under the supreme control of a Senate containing representatives of the four colleges and also nominees of the State. The Commission also laid uown the safeguards required in its opinion to protect the academic independence of the colleges, so that in the uistant future they might develop into independent universities —say, when the population of New Zealand should reach three or four millions. The first material step towards carrying out the recommendations of the Commission was the foundation c>l colleges in Auckland aim Wellington, and this step was taken as regards Auckland in 1882, and Wellington in 1897. But the Acts required to found these institutions gave no opening for a reconstitution of the University on the lines advocated by the Commission; and it is scarcely surprising that in 1897 the report of the Commission of 18 f 9 should have been more or less forgotten. At any rate, Parliament never at any time has had before it for discussion the constructive recommendations of the Commission of 1879, with the result that a system suited to entirely different conditions—conditions which have long vanished —still subsists; and, although that system was condemned as long ago as 1879, no one can exactly be blamed for the shelving of this report of the Commission. Parliament has never had the opportunity of attending to it, and the great lapse of time between the presentation of the report and the maturing of the conditions for a lederal University — eighteen years —makes it very natural and intelligible that the recommendations have never been considered by Parliament. The result is, we have now four University Colleges, with staffs of professors and lecturers, and yet the technical detail work of determining curricula of studies and managing examinations, which in all universities are part oi' the duties for which professors get paid their salaries, falls upon our Senate or supreme body. The body which ought to do this work, and is receiving emoluments on a scale which presupposes ordinary professorial duties, is shut out from it, and the work is thrown upon a body not well fitted to perform it. This is not a reproach against the Senate. The evidence in our pamphlet shows that every subject of instruction in a university needs representation on the body which initiates legislation; and in general I refer you for proof of these views to tne pamphlet, in which so large a number of experts unanimously agree in condemning this extraordinary feature of our system. While expressing my sincere respect for almost all the members of the Senate, as individuals, I venture to suggest that that body, though it may be perfectly fit to discharge the normal duties of the supreme governing body of a university, is ill composed for the purpose of doing the normal technical work of a body of professors, and ought not, in common fairness, to be asked to do it. My argument involves certain assumptions of fact, namely —(1) That the work above mentioned is the normal work of university teachers; (2) that their exclusion from it reacts upon themselves and on the University; (3) that the presence of a few professors on the Senate, and any willingness on the part of the Senate to listen to professorial advice, does not in the least meet the requirements of the case; (4) that none of the departments of study in a University College ought to be thrust into the disadvantageous position of not being represented in the body which prepares the detailed legislation. As regards these four assumptions which underlie my argument, we also have the unanimous support of the authorities consulted by us, and. so far as we are aware, of every authority on university education. I have tried to show how naturally our anomalous system arose. It has subsisted all these years mainly owing to the separation of the four colleges. In New Zealand there has been no professorial body to discharge the normal duties. The professors of the four colleges have had no common meeting-ground—not even conferences —and have therefore been physically unable to perform-- conjoint duties. Besides, this has led to mischievous intellectual isolation and dispersion of effort. But I will not here enter upon a recital of the resulting evils, which are set forth at sufficient length in the pamphlet. I should prefer to point out briefly how analogous difficulties to ours are met in the case of the federal University of Wales, consisting