A School of Political Studies

The Executive Committee of the New Zealand University Students' Association recently interviewed the Prime Minister to place before him facts relative to the position of graduates entering the Civil Service. The founding of a "School of Public Administration" at V.U.C. for advanced teaching to older students has been decided upon, and quite apart from the case urged by the N.Z.U.S.A., the Government has agreed to make an annual grant of £2000 to finance the new teaching. A new department with a new professor will be set up to carry it out. Thus political studies in the University, especially at V.U.C., are very much matters of importance at the moment.

Particularly welcome therefore is a pamphlet by Dr. J. C. Beaglehole, entitled "A School of Political Studies," which does much to clarify the relationship both as it exists now, and as it ought to be, between University education and an enlightened Civil Service.

Dr. Beaglehole suggests that something wider in scope than an institute of Public Administration is needed. "In the society towards which we seem to be moving in New Zealand, political success . . . will depend not merely on the wisdom, sympathy, and imagination of the administrator, but on the extent to which those qualities are diffused among the people whose corporate affairs are administered—among the community at large," and without denying the importance of the school, he goes on to establish the claims of the University to be the institution to which may best be trusted the preservation and enlargement of civic virtue, and the clarification of the issues of social life.

"To create merely a 'School of Public Administration' is to ignore half our problem. . . It has forgotten the citizen." What is desirable in New Zealand at its particular contemporary stage of development, is a school which is at once a School of Political Studies and of Modern Humanities.

After examining the pre-requisities for such studies. Dr. Beaglehole embodies in his thesis definite recommendations for the content of the course. First comes the study of English and other modern languages, for the public servant needs to be acquainted "not merely with office files and the peculiar mode of prose composition they breed, but with literature."

Law. Economics, and aspects of history of particular relevance to New Zealand, and political science should all find a place.

Dr. Beaglehole touches upon a very important question when he raises the question of the study of Anthropology. This subject is taught at another University, and consequently difficulties stand in the way of its introduction at V.U.C. Yet, after all, the aim of the proposed course of studies is to fit its students to participate intelligently in a changing society, and it is open to question whether there is any subject which so urgently demands study for this very purpose, or from which more valuable information could be obtained than this subject with the formidable name. One is inclined to think that the serious study of Anthropology is fraught with revolutionary consequences, so that those who shape our courses think it best left alone—an attitude which, if it exists, can hardly be justified in a modern democracy. One cannot accuse Dr. Beaglehole of holding this attitude, but if one had any suggestion to make with regard to his proposed course of studies it would be that Anthropology be placed near the head of the list, and everything possible be done to overcome difficulties in the way of its introduction at this College. Similarly, a study of the history of the nations on the Pacific littoral seems to have quite as important a claim to a place in the proposed scheme as any of the other aspects of history mentioned.

As Dr. Beaglehole says, however, his suggestions are merely an outline, not yet complete, and they must be regarded as such.

With the importance of obtaining the right man for the direction of the school, as expressed in the pamphlet, one must agree, as one does, with the necessity of incorporating the research work of the newly-founded Social Science Research Bureau in the proposed new group of studies.

We liked also the suggestion to obtain for a short period—even only a term—the services of scholars of first-rate capacity, men of international repute "in the full flood and passion of creative thought" to come to New Zealand, and so "stimulate . . . that vitality of thought which is sometimes . . . liable to stupefy the colonial student in the older world."

Dr. Beaglehole convinces us of the wisdom of establishing a a school wider and deeper in scope than an Institute of Public Administration. His pamphlet is a product of the political crucible which at present is giving off much heat in New Zealand. His effort is that rare phenomenon—light without heat. It is, as he says, merely an outline framework, a suggestion. One must admit that the plan is clearly drawn. He has shown a way to begin the proper study of mankind, in particular homo Novae Zealandiae, in a way that challenges the thought of the student, and in particular the student who is also a Civil Servant.

—A.H.S.