There is no doubt that there is a problem and looking nostalgically at the classical idea of a University as Cardinal Newman saw it is only hankering for the unattainable. There is no doubt that the universities today are in

A Chaotic State . . .

At Victoria we have none of the family or community spirit emphasised by Newman we are, in fact more like telegraph poles entrenched in individualism with nothing to say to each other. The ideal of a rounded scholar does not enter our heads. Newman's idea which did once exist in some measure was changed during the

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment, so-called, changed the universities after the French Revolution and the accompanying wave of anti-clericalism did harm to the theological core of the courses. The new universities were Liberal. They relied on investigation rather than instruction, learning for learning's sake and were well apart from both the Church and the State. AU questions were regarded as open questions and besides being highly selective in their courses there was great freedom for students and staff which resulted in making the curriculum to fit the wishes of the student. In this type of university the function of the teacher as pastor of his students disappeared.

In this century a new university type has appeared as a result of the use of science and the popularity of democracy. There has been an invasion by chemists and engineers and the new university could best be labelled . . .

Technological and Democratic

The idea of an empirical culture dominates university study rather than general reasoning and the approach is more analytical with emphasis on results.

By now the once wrongly labelled lower classes have been assisted to the university and many of these regard the university merely as a hurdle to material wealth. Frills are now irrelevant and "moat are willing to leave wisdom to others as long as they can rake in the shekels" and this means that exams become the dominating factor and prevent real university life.

It is probable that Victoria is a mixture of all three with an emphasis on the last type so that there is a . . .

Shirking of Fundamental Issues

The whole approach of the modern university is superficial. How should men live? is the basic question which is consistently ignored.

A critic of the modern university writing from the United States describes this type of university as a "feeding store for philistines, a parking ground for Packards." It is in the modern university that values are supposed to emerge but it is in the modern university that there are no signs of any values at all, no values at least that come as a result of university study.

Both faculty members and students take up an attitude of neutrality towards those questions which are fundamental even though those same questions are the stuff from which the course is made. Another critic looks at this modem woolly-minded liberal and says "consciousness of one single certainty would have been unsupportable in his mind."

This approach which we are all familiar with in this university college leads us into byways and detracts from our study, and since the university gives its students nothing to think about, no issues, the result is clear. Victoria University College

Stinks Among the People

That may seem a hard accusation. It is true. Irresponsible idealism and extravagant behaviour has cut us off from the people. We are not willing to involve ourselves in anything costly and this we call: academic objectivity.

This is a fraud. Academic objectivity is, in reality, an acceptance of the status quo, a refusal to examine the issues, to face up to them and decide. It is in fact Intellectual cowardice.

The fact that religion is regarded as an extra can be blamed on this attitude. The university in New Zealand is not neutral in the matter of religion but atheistic and this atheism being more Insidious is a worse evil than militant atheism. University neutrality provokes no one, offends no one, sets up no standards and assumes no responsibility.

To make this criticism is not to suggest that religion should be imposed on the university but it should be there so that right and wrong at least get a showing.

At the moment we have no unity, nothing to build our university on, and in the common rooms of staff and students no one seems to care, or if they do the lights are hidden under bushels while the chaos, intellectual and spiritual, continues to be criticised by a minority.

That Minority

Some of that minority are members of the Student Christian Movement and the Catholic Student Guild who met together recently. The Rev., W. Gardner Scott gave an address upon the Idea of a University and the first part of this article was written from that address.

There were several speakers afterwards, including one of the two staff members present. No one thought the problem was simple but the solutions [unclear: offered] by the chaplains to both groups, Rev. W. Gardner Scott and Father Callaghan, seemed a practical start. They suggested, in effect, that the university discard its neutrality and face up to issues. They made it clear that what was needed was clear thinking without shirking [unclear: conlusions]. To the students present this seemed as sensible as anything they had heard at the university.

—"Criticus."