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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 41

The University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne.

A new organization of the University made necessary by the establishment of high schools, and desirable on its own account.

The outline of changes that I have sketched so far will, I hope, make it easy to understand why the University of Melbourne requires to be remodelled and more largely endowed. If we are to have high schools established by the State, we shall, in fact, be proposing to educate scholars many of whom will want to go on to the University; and we must furnish the University with the means of completing their education. This necessitates a fresh endowment, either by the State paying University fees for State exhibitioners, or by the grant of a subsidy in return for which University education shall be given free of expense. Now, apart from the important point that the fees for even 160 exhibitioners would not make the University self-supporting, such a plan would deprive the State of all right to interfere and propose reforms which it is most important the University should adopt. For instance, the present constitution of the University is so complicated that it is difficult to carry reforms, even when there is a general consensus in favour of them; and the most necessary matters are sometimes delayed for weeks or months, because arrears of work have accumulated. It is needless to say that with such a system none but the most sanguine reformer will ever attempt to propose an organic change, however desirable.
page 111
It has been my great good fortune to secure the co-operation of

The University council has co-operated in preparing & scheme of reform.

the University council in considering what changes might improve the working of the University; and the draft Bill which I submit below represents, therefore, the reforms which the present governing body deems desirable. I must tender my best thanks to the Vice-Chancellor and other members of council who devoted much time and thought to the preparation of this measure; and without whose criticisms and co-operation much that is most important might have escaped my notice.
Briefly, the new Bill embodies four considerable changes. It

Change of constitution, more practical teaching, abolition of fees, admission of women.

remodels the constitution by substituting two governing bodies for three, and by merging the professorial board in the council. It remodels the teaching of the University by creating a faculty of Engineering and Practical Science, and by developing the practical teaching in every direction. It changes the somewhat exclusive character of the University by modifying the restrictions on residence and by abolishing fees for lectures; and it does a tardy act of justice by throwing open class-rooms and degrees to women.
The present constitution of the University vests "the entire

Complicated character of the actual government of the University.

management and superintendence over the affairs, concerns, and property thereof" in the council, which is now an elective body whose members are chosen by the senate. But the council's powers are modified in two directions. It has delegated part of its powers to the professorial board, a committee of professors, who arrange lectures and examinations, maintain discipline, and, through the president, determine the duties of the servants of the University. Then, again, the senate, or collective body of University graduates, can reject, though it cannot alter, any Statute framed by the council. The inconveniences of this complicated system are very great. If the council is appealed to against the professorial board—and such appeals are not infrequent in matters of discipline or examination—council and board correspond with one another, and a week at least is commonly spent over every letter that is exchanged. Matters that would be cleared up in five minutes, if the members of the two boards sat at the same table, become the subject of voluminous and sometimes of hostile correspondence. Meanwhile, as the professorial board includes only professors, it is always matter of doubt how far it represents the teaching body of the University, which is largely composed of lecturers. The position of the senate is even more unfortunate. It can reject, but it cannot amend or suggest, and thus it not unfrequently happens that a most important Statute, recommended perhaps by a faculty and elaborated with great care by the council, is thrown out in what seems an offensive manner, simply because the senate has no power to propose one or two verbal alterations.
The draft Act which I have the honour to submit proposes that

Council to be reinforced by nominees and professional members.

the council shall be reinforced by two members nominated from the University roll of graduates by the Governor in Council, and by eight professors and lecturers elected in equal proportions by the four faculties. I have thought it desirable that the State should nominate two members as an emphatic assertion of the page 112 principle that the University is not independent of State control. I do not think a larger number of nominee members is required. The State has no policy to enforce that the University is not ready to adopt; and with every year from the introduction of the new reforms the tone of the University is likely to become more and more liberal. Nor is it so easy as it might seem for the State to nominate appropriate members. It cannot, for instance, put the Minister of Education on the council, where he might from time to time find himself out-voted. In California the President of the San Francisco Mechanics' Institute is an official member of the university council, but there seems no reason why the officer of one literary association should receive such rank to the exclusion of others, if we mean our University to belong to the country at large and not specially to Melbourne.
About the propriety of putting representatives of the teaching body on the council there will not, I think, be much difference of opinion. I have pointed out the practical defects of the professorial board. The ordinary functions of this will be discharged by the faculties, two of which are already organized, while the two others may be constituted within three months after the passing of this Act; and the work of the higher administration will thus devolve naturally, and I hope without any jealousy being excited, upon the remodelled council.

Practical working of the proposed changes.

Practically, there is, I think, little doubt that the council's ordinary business will be in the hands of the professors and lecturers, who will be always on the spot, and whose interest in the efficient working of the University is at once great and direct. But these gentlemen will be debarred (by a rule which partly exists in Sydney also) from voting on matters of finance; and when any great question of organic change has to be discussed we may probably anticipate that the other members of council will attend, and reinforce the professional by the lay element.

The senate to have the power of amending.

As regards the senate, it is proposed that in future the senate shall have power to amend any Bill sent down by the council, and to remit the Bill so amended for reconsideration. I believe this slight change, which the council has approved, will give reality to future discussions in the senate, will allow practical men now and again to suggest important improvements, and will make quarrels between council and senate well nigh impossible.
II. With respect to the more practical character which it is proposed to give to the University teaching, it will be necessary to examine the work of each faculty separately and at length. In

Present faculty of Arts.

the faculty* of Arts there are at present—a professor of classics, a professor of mathematics, a professor and lecturer in natural science, and a lecturer in history and political economy. In addition to teaching Creek and Latin, the professor of classics teaches English, and did, not long ago, teach logic and examine

* I adopt the Dame faculty of Arts for convenience; but the statute constituting the teaching body in Arts a faculty, has miscarried in a quarrel between council and senate.

page 113 in French and German. Logic is now taught by the lecturer in natural philosophy, who also gives lectures in elementary mathematics. The subjects taught by the professor of natural philosophy occupy at least eight professors in Berlin,* and the lecturer in history ranges over ground which takes at least three men in ordinary universities, ancient history being commonly separated from modern history, while political economy is nowhere combined with them.
The disadvantages of this system are obvious. The teacher

Disadvantages of the present system.

cannot concentrate his energies on the subject he is best adapted to teach; and there can be no proper subdivision of classes according to capacity. At the same time, having regard to the great need for economy, the council has only indicated such changes as it may be said are rendered indispensable if sixty students from the Training College and various State scholars have to be provided for in the lecture-rooms.

The first change recommended is that the professor of classics be relieved of English, and allowed the assistance of two lecturers. Striking off English only means to the professor reducing his work by one lecture of three hours in the week. A simple calculation will show that, if the actual pupils in Arts, numbering about forty, are meagrely supplied with three lectures of three hours a week, six lectures of three hours a week will not be excessive when the forty have swelled to one hundred or more.

I may mention here that I think these lecturers should be what

Position of classical lecturers.

are known in the Scotch universities as adlati, under the professor of classics' orders, rather than independent of him; and this will apply with equal force to the teachers of modern languages, who ought, I think, to be under the direction of the professor of English and other European languages. This was the plan recommended and partially worked with success at Harvard College by the historian of Spanish literature, Mr. Ticknor. For the teaching of

Chair of English and other European languages.

grammar, idiom, and accent to advanced scholars, the natives of a country are generally, I think, to be preferred to foreigners, and I hope it will be possible, in such a city as Melbourne, to secure the services of highly qualified Frenchmen and Germans, Italians and Spaniards. But by parity of reasoning English ought to be taught by an Englishman; and as instances of a teacher able to lecture fluently in a foreign language, though not absolutely unknown, are rare, the task of lecturing on European literature and of superintending the work of the modern language teachers ought, I think, for the present at least, to be discharged by the professor of English.
The lecturers on French and German are put down for a higher

Lecturers in French, German, &c.

salary than the lecturers in Italian and Spanish, as it is assumed that the former will do double work. Indeed it may be conceded that it is not a matter of urgent necessity to teach Spanish and

* It is very difficult, of course, to compare accurately in such matters. There are 38 professors lecturing at Berlin on the subjects Professor McCoy's courses might be held to embrace. I have only counted History of Chemistry, first part of Inorganic Chemistry, Mineralogy, General Geology, Paleontology, General Botany, Morphology or Physiology of Plants, and General Zoology.

page 114 Italian.* Still either language has a rich literature, both are commercially important, and the value of Spanish is perhaps likely to become greater, year by year, as the trade with South America is opened up.

History.

With respect to history, I think there will be a general agreement that so vast a subject is sufficient in itself to absorb the energies of any lecturer, and that there is no necessary connection between a knowledge of history and more than a slight acquaintance

Political economy.

with political economy. But it is not so easy to decide how the chair of political economy ought to be established. As a general rule, men with no work outside the University are more likely to be efficient teachers of speculative subjects than men who are engrossed by a profession; and the true work professional men seemed called to do as teachers, is in matters that require constant experience, such as the practical branches of law and medicine. On the other hand, it is hardly worth while for the State to endow a professorship of political economy at present. It has been suggested accordingly that the lectureships of logic and political economy might be held by the same person, who would thus enjoy a moderate income, which might enable him to dispense with a profession. At the same time it will, I think, be better that the University should retain the power of awarding them separately.

Residence of professors.

One last point may be considered here, though it applies to all the faculties. The council holds strongly, and I believe all practical men will agree with it, that it is of great importance to the University that the professors should reside on or near the grounds. An attempt was made to secure this when the University was first founded by providing the professors with houses in the main building. This plan has not been very successful. In the first place only four houses were built, and of these it has been thought desirable to take over one for the larger offices that are now required. In the next place the houses built are small and badly drained and unprovided with yards, or with drying grounds except at inconvenient distances. Should the University be extended, it will be desirable that the professors' present houses should be converted into lecture rooms and studies for the academical staff. Happily the University grounds are so extensive that it will be easy to supply the professors with detached houses standing on their own grounds, if the State will make them a fixed allowance for house rent, on which advances may be secured from building societies. In this case it will be necessary to stipulate that residence in the grounds during term time be strictly enforced.

Cost of proposed additions to the faculty of Arts.

Altogether the cost of these changes in the faculty of Arts will be about £4,200 a year if they are carried out at once in the most complete manner. From this, however, we ought in fairness to deduct part of the present cost of tuition at the Training College.

* In connection with this I may remark that an Italian class, numbering 12 pupils, has been formed in so small a town as Colac through the accidental presence of an Italian teacher, Professor Thomatis.

The cost of teaching Latin, English, French, mathematics and chemistry, to 60 students would be at least £1,000 a year, and the faculty of Arts will educate many of our exhibitioners in addition to the pupils in the Training College.

page 115
In the faculty of Law the changes proposed are very slight and

Faculty of Law.

comparatively costless. It is proposed that this faculty should he so far assimilated to the others, that the lectures now given by the Dean should be given, whenever the Dean vacates office, or sooner if the arrangement can be effected, by a professor of jurisprudence. This will avoid the anomaly that the Dean at present claims not to be a professor or subject to the restrictions binding on professors. Two lectureships have been added to the four already in existence. One in criminal law and procedure is nominally included in the course on the law of procedure, but it has been thought better to divide a subject which, from its great extent, was never adequately treated. The other on commercial law is designed to be of a more popular character and treated with more special reference to contracts in commerce than the course on the law of obligations.
The cost of the faculty of Law will only be increased £500 a

Cost of proposed addition to the faculty of Law.

year by the proposed changes.
The medical men of this colony number about one to two thousand of the population, rather more than less. This proportion

Faculty of Medicine.

is not equal by fifty per cent, to that in England, and I believe it may fairly be said that the profession is not over-stocked in this part of the world. To keep up its numbers we ought to turn out at least twelve bachelors of medicine a year, assuming the average professional life of a medical man to be thirty-five years, and without allowance for the prospective increase of population. On an average of the last six years I find that we do actually turn out about three doctors a year, that is, about a fourth of the number required for our own wants. But we ought not, I think, to consider that the Medical faculty labors only for Victoria. It is the most fully officered of any in the southern hemisphere, and the only one that even approaches the conditions of an efficient medical school. Make it what it may easily be made, as good as one of the best schools in Great Britain, and abolish the heavy fees which at present drive even our own men out of the country, and we shall soon monopolise the medical training of Australia and New Zealand.

The mere economical advantage of a change that should bring among us from 50 to 100 students spending from £100 to £200 a year is no unimportant consideration.

I have said that students are driven from us by the heavy fees

Heavy cost of a medical education in Melbourne.

we exact. Thus I find that at King's College, London, a needy and not very cheap institution, the fees for a medical course, exclusive of hospital attendance, were under £02 in 1872,* while the minimum fees at Melbourne, also exclusive of hospital attendance, are over £100. At Glasgow the fees seem to amount to nearly £100; but here, as in other British schools, the fees charged represent only part of the real difference in cost. The medical course in Melbourne is a five years' course. In Great Britain it is nominally a five years' course, but admits of being

* I regret to say that I have not been able to obtain recent calendars of University College and King's College, London, from any public or private library. When I discovered this quite unexpected difficulty it was too late to send home for them. The want has been partially, but not altogether, supplied from other sources.

page 116 easily compressed into four, or, under certain circumstances, into three.* No one, I think, will wish that our own higher standard should be materially changed. But as every year of studentship represents cost of living and postponement of professional gains, I think the State which exacts these sacrifices in order to give the country a highly trained body of physicians and surgeons should, in common justice, do what it can to reduce the cost of their education to the English standard. Might it not also be well that no one practising under a British diploma should be held capable of employment in our hospitals or under Government unless he could give proof of having satisfied the same requirements in England, Scotland, or Ireland, that we exact of our men in Victoria.

Comparison of the medical staff proposed with that maintained in other countries.

I subjoin a short list of the numbers of the medical staff in some of the chief European medical schools, that it may be seen how inadequate the numbers of our own teaching body are.
  • University College, London, 18 professors.
  • King's College, London, 15 professors, besides lecturers and hospital staff in 1872.
  • Edinburgh, 13 professors, 14 lecturers, and 3 demonstrators.
  • Glasgow, 14 professors and 7 assistants.
  • Aberdeen, 10 professors and 3 assistants, besides hospital physicians.
  • Dublin, 21 professors and lecturers, besides examiners and hospital physicians.
  • Paris, 61 in three places.
  • Berlin, 110 courses.
  • Upsala, 12 professors and lecturers and 3 adjuncts, giving 26 courses.
  • Melbourne, 8 professors and lecturers, giving 11 courses. By proposed scheme, 20 giving 24 courses.

* The following scheme will show the difference between British requirements and our own. It was drawn up by a committee of medical graduates of Melbourne:—

Surgical Qualifications. For M.B., Melbourne. 3 courses of dissections. 2 courses lectures anatomy. 2 examinations in anatomy, descriptive and surgical. 1 oral examination on dissections done by the student before the professor. 2 courses of lectures on surgery and surgical pathology. Lectures and training in operative surgery. 3 years' hospital practice, medical and surgical. In-patients and out-patients, with 6 months' clinical lectures or special bedside instruction in surgery; 16 to 18 months' dressership. 2 written examinations in surgery and surgical pathology. Clinical examination in surgery. Examination in operative surgery on the dead subject. Certificate of minor surgery, &c. In all, a 5 years' course. M.B.B.S., London. 2 courses of dissections. 1 course anatomy. Similar examinations in anatomy. 1 examination on preparations of subjects, but none on the student's own dissections. 1 course surgery. 1 course pathology. Similar lectures. 2 years' hospital practice, medical and surgical, with clinical lectures; and 6 months with special charge of cases. A written and oral examination in each subject. Similar clinic. Similar examination. Examinations in application of surgical apparatus. In all, a 4 years' course. M.B.Ch.M.. Edinburgh and Glasgow. Only one course compulsory. 1 course anatomy. Similar examinations in anatomy. 1 examination on a body dissected ready for the student, but none on their own dissections. 1 course of each. No special lecture or training. 2 years' hospital practice, medical and surgical, with clinical lectures; 6 months' outpatients' work. A written and oral examination in each subject. Similar clinic. No such examination at all. Examination in application of surgical apparatus. In all, a 4 years' course.

For the certificate of M.R.C.S.Eng. only two courses of dissections are required, and there is no examination in operative surgery on the dead subject, and no examination in the student's own dissections.

page 117
The most important change which the council recommends in

Separation of anatomy, physiology, and pathology.

the Medical faculty is the separation of anatomy, physiology, and pathology, which are at present taught by Professor Halford. Concerning these subjects, I may observe that the University of Edinburgh regards the separation of anatomy and physiology as so important that it refuses to allow their terms to students who have learned the two subjects under one teacher; that even in England it is customary to have two professors of anatomy; and that even Oxford has two of physiology. As for the conjunction of pathology with these two others, I cannot find a single example of it, though I am of course aware that it is sometimes taught by the same teacher as anatomy, and sometimes by the same teacher as therapeutics. It must be remembered that, if the medical school classes increase, as I think there is reason to hope they will, the professor of anatomy will be compelled to divide the lectures now given, and may further, at no very distant date, be compelled to give separate lectures to female students. Add to this the time he must spend in the dissecting room, and the time that has not yet been found for the preparation of a medical museum, and there need not be any fear that time will hang heavy on his hands. It will be noticed that in the schedule of incomes the professor of anatomy is put down for a smaller yearly income than any of the other professors. The idea is that he should combine the conservatorship of the Museum with his work as teacher. But should he prefer the lower income and less work, the choice will be open to him.
Seven new lectureships have been added. Two of these, that

New lecture-ships.

on pathology and that on practical and operative surgery, are included in the present course; but that on pathology made the professor's work excessive, and that on practical surgery needs more time than can be given to it when it is only part of a course. The other lectures may each be defended by special reasons. Ophthalmic surgery seems too important a subject in a country where eye diseases are prevalent to be treated merely as a part of surgery. The public generally finds out one or two men in whom it places special confidence as oculists, and it would appear natural that the science these men have mastered should be taught separately. A lectureship in dental surgery is necessary if the University is to give certificates in dentistry as the College of Surgeons in London now does. A lecturer in pharmacy has been rendered almost necessary by the Act (40 Vict. 558) constituting the Pharmacy Board of Victoria, which compels future applicants for a chemistry license to pass an examination, while they have at present no means of pursuing their studies under guidance.* The lecture in botany must be regarded as complementary to the lecture in that subject already given. The

* "No one can practice, as a druggist or apothecary in France," says Mr. Arnold, "without getting either a first or a second class diploma. A first-class diploma necessitates three years study in an Ecole Supéneure de Pharmacia three years' practice with a regularly authorized apothecary, and the passing eight examinations the last of which cannot be passed before the age of twenty-five. A second class diploma only entitles its holder to practice in the department chosen by him when he enters his name for lectures. But to hold this second-class diploma he must have attended faculty lectures for one or two years, have practiced six or four years with a regular pharmacien, and passed four of five examinations, for the last of which he must be twenty-five years old."—Matthew Arnold's Report, France, p. 516.

page 118 professor of natural science explains the structure and physiology of plants in a course which is considered adequate for the purposes of general education, but medical students require a further knowledge of the families and of the officinal uses of plants.

Lectures on hygiene.

Lectures on hygiene are not as yet indispensable to a medical course in a university, but I think it is true to say that they are becoming so, especially on the Continent. The Health Society has lately made several very praiseworthy attempts to introduce the teaching of the laws of health into our primary schools. With every wish that these efforts may be successful, I must still regard the University as the proper place in which the laws of health can be studied, and University students as the persons best fitted by age and training to understand them. The salaries for two teachers of clinical medicine and clinical surgery will be given in lieu of the fees which students at present pay; and I hope Government will be able to facilitate some arrangement by which the University shall have the right of nominating the best men it can

The Melbourne Hospital.

find to these posts, and of assigning them beds in the Melbourne Hospital. Under the present wonderful arrangement, by which subscribers nominate the persons who are to have charge of the sick, there is no security that now and again some of the worst men in the profession may not be elected in lieu of the best.

Cost of proposed additions to the faculty of Medicine.

The expense of this new organization of the Medical faculty will be £6,800, against £2,805 13s. 6d., the expense of last year; altogether an increase of about £4,000 a year. If, however, the new faculty turns out twenty graduates a year where we now turn out three, the cost of the change will have been more than justified; and my conviction is that the sums spent by medical students whom our improved school will attract from other colonies, will more than reimburse the country for the enhanced cost of the medical staff.

Faculty of Engineering and Practical Science.

The faculty of Engineering and Practical Science has only i existed hitherto in embryo, and as a part of the faculty of Arts. But it embraces subjects which are quite distinct from the Arts teaching, and which it is usual on the Continent to teach in a so-called polytechnicon or polytechnic school. The assumption, however, that such matters as engineering, scientific agriculture and stock-breeding, mining and metallurgy, or technology are not proper matters for a university to embrace has never yet been admitted by any English-speaking people. There are obvious reasons why we should not divide our teaching here. Such a course, making two establishments and two governments necessary in place of one, would be at once costly and awkward, and its direct effect would be to suggest the idea of a distinction between various branches of intellectual culture, while the tendency of all discovery is to show their inter-dependence and common affinities.

Proposed additions to the Engineering staff.

For the engineering and mining branches of this faculty, which admit of being worked together, the council suggests that there should be a professor of engineering, a lecturer on mining and metallurgy, a lecturer on mechanics, and a lecturer on geometric drawing. These gentlemen will be assisted by the professor of page 119 natural philosophy, who belongs also to the faculty of Arts; and as his work in Arts will be reduced by the appointment of a mathematical lecturer and of a lecturer in logic, the professor of natural philosophy will practically devote most of his time to the department of engineering.
Comparing this side of the faculty with corresponding departments

Comparison with other countries.

in Britain and Sweden,* we shall then find that the numbers stand thus:—
  • King's College, London, 16 professors and lecturers in 1862.
  • Cooper's Hill, 11 professors and instructors.
  • Edinburgh, 7 professors.
  • Glasgow, 7 professors.
  • Dublin, 8, and 4 others lecturing in collateral subjects.
  • Upsala, 14 in mathematics and natural science.
  • Melbourne, 6 professors and lecturers.

This comparison will show, I hope, that the council has kept within the narrowest possible limits in the changes that it proposes.

The great drawback to the school of engineering in this country

The State may on-courage this faculty by giving its degrees professional value.

is that the State, if not quite the only, is the only great employer of engineers; and the State has not cared hitherto to see that its subordinates were trained in the highest possible manner for their positions. Where they are so, it is due to their own energy and intelligence. Meanwhile the irregular demand for engineers has been so great, that few of our University students complete more than a second year's course; and this they are the more tempted to do, as the engineering fees are very high. Practically we turn out five certificated engineers every two years, at an expense to each of nearly £30 a year in University fees. In other words, the difference to the State between an efficient staff and an inefficient staff being measured by many thousands of pounds yearly, we make the training the most expensive possible, and give the least possible advantage, if any, to the certificated engineer. I believe the State will have done a great deal if it founds a school in which engineers may be adequately trained at the smallest, possible cost to themselves. Such a school, I feel sure, like the. Medical School, will attract students from other colonies. But this will not be sufficient by itself; and I hope the Government will see its way to pass an Act by which all the more lucrative State appointments in the railway and engineering service shall be confined to graduates in the faculty of Engineering; and no ma n shall be allowed to take the post of manager of a mine without a certificate of mining.
"I was lately saying," says Mr. Matthew Arnold, "to one of the

Mr. Arnold's evidence about engineering.

first mathematicians in England, who had been a distinguished senior wrangler at Cambridge and a practical mechaniciary besides, that in one department at any rate, that of mechanics and engineering, we seemed, in spite of the absence of special, schools,

* I have found it very difficult to compare this faculty with any in foreign universities, as many subjects that we assign to the university are taught in a polytechnic school or in various colleges on the continent of Europe. But I may observe that the Polytechnicon of Zurich has about 50 professors, who teach architecture, mechanics, engineering, chemistry, forestry, and political economy.

page 120 good instruction, and the idea of science, to get on wonderfully well. " 'On the contrary,' said he, 'we get on wonderfully ill. Our engineers have no real scientific instruction, and we let them learn their business at our expense by the rule of thumb; but it is a ruinous system of blunder and plunder. A man without the requisite scientific knowledge undertakes to build a difficult bridge; he builds three which tumble down, and so learns how to build a fourth which stands; but somebody pays for the three failures. In France or Switzerland he would not have been suffered to build his first bridge till he had satisfied competent persons that he knew how to build it, because abroad they cannot afford our extravagance. The scientific training of the foreign engineers is therefore perfectly right. Take the present cost per mile of the construction of an English railway, and the cost per mile as it was twenty years ago; and the comparison will give you a correct notion of what rule of thumb engineering without special schools, and without scientific instruction, has cost the country.' "

Mr. Kernot's evidence about engineering.

Lest it should be thought that these remarks apply chiefly to England, I append a communication from a gentleman, specially qualified to speak on the subject of Victorian engineering:—

"As instances of the evils resulting from the lack of accurate scientific knowledge on the part of persons possessing considerable practical experience, the following examples may be quoted:—

"1. Some years since it happened, through circumstances which it is not necessary to mention here, that the designs of a large iron bridge which it was proposed to erect over an Australian river were submitted to my inspection. On critically examining the drawings, I discovered that certain vital parts of the structure did not possess half the requisite strength, while other parts were needlessly massive. On my recommendation the design was condemned, and an amended one prepared by a gentleman who had attended lectures at the Melbourne University. The amended design involved but a trifling increase of material and cost, while the strength was augmented fully three-fold.

"2. Some years ago a new steam-boiler, which had been guaranteed by its maker to bear with safety a pressure of 60 lbs. per square inch, exploded with most disastrous consequences. On calculating its strength in accordance with Sir W. Fairbairn's investigations, which had been made public several years previously, I ascertained—(1.) That the boiler was not safe for a pressure of more than 25 lbs. per square inch. (2.) That a trifling modification, which would not have augmented its cost by more than about 5 per cent., would have rendered it quite safe at 60 lbs.

"3. I have in my possession several indicator diagrams taken from a steam-engine, the vital parts of which are so unscientifically constructed as to cause it to consume about twice as much steam as it ought. And as it is what is termed a slop-made engine, I do not see how to avoid the conclusion that there are in all probability many like it, wasting fuel and reducing the profits of the establishments where they are used.

page 121

"4. I have come in contact on various occasions with persons of considerable inventive power, but lacking scientific training, who have spent both time and money upon schemes which, being incompatible with known physical laws, of necessity end in disappointment. And I have often observed that the difficulties which the true inventor meets with in the prosecution of his work are considerably enhanced by the fact that the public are occasionally victimized by persons of this class.

"From the above and similar instances, of which very many have come under my personal observation, I have been led to the conclusion that no amount of ordinary practical experience can adequately compensate for the want of thorough acquaintance with scientific principles and methods; and, farther, that scientific knowledge, if not imparted in early life, is very rarely acquired at all. Hence the importance of a systematic scientific course of training for young engineers becomes apparent.

"W. C. Kernot."

Let me add that the waste of thought and energy which a

Disadvantage even to the greatest men of imperfect training.

society sustains from half-educated professional men is not confined to the large class of projectors who waste their ingenuity upon crude and impossible schemes, or to engineers of the second order who do imperfect work. It extends even to those great men whose incomparable thinking-power forces them into the first rank in spite of all defects of early training. When we remember Smeaton, in the last years of his life, building a bridge that was washed away within five years;* Brahman testifying in a court of justice, that "Mr. Watt had really invented nothing but what could do more mischief than good to the public;" and the elder Brunei declining to take any part in a scheme for steam navigation across the ocean, on the ground that all such projects were visionary; it is impossible not to feel that no genius exempts the possessor from bearing with him the defects of imperfect education through life. Again, let anyone compute the loss England probably sustained from the fact that the elder Stephenson did not begin serious study till he was more than thirty years old, and then say whether it is not worth while even for a young country to put out its money to interest in the form of a school that shall guide the inventive faculty of its engineers.
Side by side with engineering in importance, is the science of

Agricultural science.

agriculture, in which I include the science of stock-breeding, as, although the pastoral tenant may succeed without raising crops on his own ground, the true farmer rarely or never prospers without stock-breeding. There is an important part of agriculture which can only be taught on a farm, and the proper teaching of which I have discussed in connection with the question of an agricultural college. But there are parts also which it is simplest and most economical to teach at a university, as the expense

* Life of Smeaton, in Smlles's Lives of the Engineers.

Mulrhead's Life of Watt, p. 414.

Beamish's Life of Brunei, p. 188.

page 122 of providing a separate staff of teachers to every model farm would be much greater here than it is on the continent of Europe. Apart from this, there is the incidental advantage that students of agriculture are more likely to gain than to lose by mixing with students of other professions in the lecture-room, and that agriculture is more likely to take its proper place as a practical science, when it is made one of the most prominent subjects in the chief school of the country.

Proposed staff for teaching agriculture.

Under the scheme the council has approved, the side of agriculture will have the services of nine professors and lecturers. Three of these, the professor of chemistry and the lecturers on botany and physiology, will belong also and chiefly to the medical side, under which they are accordingly classed; while one, the lecturer on mechanics, will also lecture to engineers. The expense of teachers special to agriculture, of the lecturer on forestry, and of the special lecturers in the veterinary school, will amount altogether to about £1,600. It has been suggested that all the work of the agricultural side should be done for some time to come by a single professor of agriculture, who

One man cannot teach agriculture.

might presumably be procured for £800 a year. With all respect for the fact that such a chair of agriculture has actually been established in Edinburgh and in some American universities, I venture to think that any attempt to reduce agricultural teaching to the same proportions here would be most disastrous. Let anyone consider what goes to make a scientific farmer. Such a man must have a fair knowledge of chemistry and have mastered the principles at least of organic as well as of inorganic analysis, if he is to understand the composition of soils and manures, when these have been tested for him in a laboratory. He must know enough of mechanics to be able to understand why one plough or one harrow or one waggon is better than another, and to adjust the gear of the machines he employs intelligently. "If a skilful and ingenious farmer," says one of the best American agriculturists, "will only become accustomed to repair his implements, he will have the satisfaction of knowing that, all things considered, his repairing is done better than he is accustomed to have it clone by regular mechanics."* As a breeder he must know something of the anatomy of the beasts he breeds, and have a reason for whatever system he adopts—whether of breeding in and in, or of selection, or of crossing. As an owner, he will certainly not be the worse for knowing how to deal with disease, when it breaks out in his stock; the more so as the value of choice stock shows no sign of decreasing; and a single ram may be priced at £714, and a single heifer at £2,310. Lastly, from the lecturer on forestry, the agriculturist may learn what are taught on the Continent as the separate sciences of viticulture and pomology, the trees best fitted for farm purposes, and something about the insects that destroy trees. Of course this does not exhaust the uses of such a lecturer. The French and German Governments in Europe, and the British Government in India,

* Todd's Farmer's Manual, p. 365.

page 123 have been forced by droughts and inundations to take practical measures for regulating the rainfall of a country by large plantations. The French and Austrian Governments have fostered the production of silk by appointing special instructors to impart a knowledge of the mulberry tree and the silk-worm.
Now, I venture to say that no single gentleman, however

The dignity of a science depends on its thoroughness.

capable and laborious, can master the subjects I have enumerated so as adequately to teach them. The teacher, be it remembered, is not merely to be a student who has read in advance of others, but a man armed at all points, prepared to meet any difficulties, and impressing his class with a feeling that his knowledge has been the product of a life-time's work. The dignity of a science depends on its thoroughness, and a science imparted by one man stands ipso facto condemned as trivial or imperfectly known. Above all, it is most important that a science which has not yet conquered its full professional rank everywhere, should not suffer from the defective organization of its teaching body. If degrees in Practical Science are to be of equal account with degrees in Arts, Medicine, or Law, they must be given for equally thorough study under equally competent teachers. As well set one man to teach medicine as one man to teach agriculture.
It will be noticed that the council applies for power to grant

Degrees, associateships, and certificates required to mark different educational values.

certificates and the titles of associate and licentiate in the subjects of agriculture, forestry, and veterinary science, as well as degrees in Practical Science, which will be obtained by a knowledge of one or more of these subjects. This latitude is, I think, necessary. We are opening up new ground, and cannot, I fear, expect that the full importance of the new faculty will be appreciated at once by the public. Probably for some time to come our young farmers will only care to spend a year at the University, and will thus only qualify for a certificate. But it may be desirable that no one should be allowed to practice as a veterinary surgeon without qualifying by a two years' course for an associateship; and before long we shall, I hope, have students qualifying by a three or four years' course, as the University may direct, to be Bachelors or Masters in Practical Science. It has seemed convenient to cover several subjects with this one name, rather than to specify in every instance the particular branch to which a student has devoted himself.
Three lectureships—those of navigation, nautical astronomy,

Navigation nautical astronomy, and naval architecture.

and naval architecture—are intended for the instruction of students who wish to obtain a certificate of navigation. Melbourne, from its commercial eminence, seems particularly to require a school for the training of seamen. The model of English nautical schools has been followed in framing the list of necessary lectureships. A certain knowledge of naval architecture is necessary to others besides the designers of ships, if seamen are to know what craft to select and under what conditions a ship is safe. The sciences that teach how to handle a ship, and how to guide it across the ocean, are so obviously necessary as to need no explanation.
A special lecturer has been assigned to the subject of technology.

Technology.

Such a man would take students who have learned chemistry page 124 and mechanics up to a certain point, and would show them in what way their knowledge can he applied to processes of trade.

Importance of technological teaching.

It must he remembered that it is no part of the duties of a lecturer on chemistry or mechanics to do this; that a science and its applications are absolutely distinct subjects. Yet no one, I think, will doubt that the teaching of a practical man, acquainted with the processes in some of the most important industrial arts, able to explain how wool is woven, or glass made, or iron cast, may be of the last importance in a young country. I will go further and say, that, living as we do at a distance from the greatest manufacturing countries, it is well worth the State's while to maintain an expert who shall keep the public informed as to what is actually being done in England, Germany, and America, were it only to save the expenditure of thought and labour on processes that have been already discovered or proved elsewhere.

The small sum appropriated in the council's estimates to a lecturer in architecture, is due to the fact that the council does not propose thoroughly to organize this department at present. At the same time it believes that a course of lectures on the principles and practice of architecture might prove useful to young men entering the profession and attractive to many outsiders. Such isolated courses, delivered by lecturers who are changed from time to time, have many precedents in English practice; and as the Oxford professorship of poetry, Whyte's professorship of moral philosophy, and the Rede lecture at Cambridge, are sought for as high distinctions by some of the ablest scholars in England, it is perhaps not unreasonable to hope that the ablest architects in Victoria will esteem it an honour to hold the post of University lecturers for a time.

Cost of the faculty of Engineering and Practical Science.

The expense of the faculty of Engineering and Practical Science will be £5,550, against about £700, which the two lecturers on engineering and mining at present receive.

Professorship of Music.

It is probably not well known that the University of Melbourne has the power of granting the degrees of Bachelor in Music and Doctor in Music. It seems a little curious that our first founders should have applied for these powers, which even in England are rarely exercised, while they omitted to obtain the power to grant degrees in Surgery, in Engineering, or in Practical Science. I presume, however, the draftsman of our letters patent had the charter of Oxford before him, and copied what he found there. The council is of opinion that it would be possible, and very desirable, to create a school of music in Melbourne, by which teachers of music may obtain some such credential as the Academy of Music gives in England. A time when it is proposed to admit women as undergraduates seems eminently favourable to the development of musical studies; and it may be hoped that the Wilson Hall will be an appropriate theatre for musical exercises. The establishment of a chair of music will only entail an expenditure of £1,000.

Paid examiners outside the teaching staff.

In addition to these faculties, the council recommends the establishment of a paid body of examiners distinct from the teaching staff. The need of this has long since been felt; and there page 125 are at present two paid examiners for the faculty of Law, and a provisional hoard of unpaid examiners for degrees in Medicine. But there are no such examiners for students in Arts or Engineering, and should the number of medical students be trebled or quadrupled, as is I hope probable, we can hardly expect that professional men, with heavy calls on their time, will find leisure to work gratuitously for the University. It will be asked why the professors and lecturers should not continue to do examiners' work? There is no intention to relieve them, and in fact their work will increase with the increase in the number of students: or, allowing for some subdivision of subjects, will not be diminished. What the council desires is to couple every professor and lecturer with an examiner appointed for the time, who will aid in setting the papers, and will bring the aid of a second judgment to the answers. It is giving undue power to any men, however competent, to make them sole teachers and examiners in their own subjects, and the almost inevitable result is that the teacher gets into a groove, and that the student only consults the teacher's supposed wishes. Independent examiners are at once a corrective to the tutorial staff and a guarantee of fairness to the student and of efficient testing to the public. For some time there will probably be a difficulty in obtaining qualified examiners, not connected with Victorian schools, for some subjects of examination. But it is possible to look beyond the limits of the colony, to Sydney and Adelaide, for help in such a matter, and, after a time, these examinerships will be prizes eagerly sought for by our young graduates.
The expense of examiners for all departments has been calculated

Cost of examiners.

at £2,260.
The other expenses that these changes will make necessary are

Additional expenses of clerical staff, fittings, and apparatus.

not very alarming. It is thought desirable, in view of the increased work thrown on the registrar, that he should be required to live at the University, and that his salary should be raised from £600 to £800 a year. This, and £150 a year for an extra clerk, make up all the additions that seem needful for the office and attendants. The exhibitions, scholarships, and prizes can be kept at the same sum as at present (£826), and when fees are abolished the present scholarships may be halved in value without loss to the holders, and doubled in number. On the other hand, it will be necessary to make some permanent provision for the purchase of books and apparatus and for forming a medical museum. Hitherto these objects have received whatever surplus has been left after salaries had been paid, and the repairs of the buildings provided for; and this has come to mean, as I explained in my introductory Report, that the libraries, workshops, and museums get nothing or next to nothing. A single lecturer sometimes applies, and makes out a strong case for a larger grant than the whole sum of which the council can dispose. No one, knowing the requirements of modern teaching, can think that £400—a hundred pounds to each faculty—is an unduly large sum for books and bookbinding. But if the University will adopt the plan of selling off its superfluous stock—worthless gifts from page 126 public bodies and obsolete editions—it may economise funds and space so as to make a grant of £400 sufficient.

The total expenditure under these various heads is estimated at £6,034, against £4,639, the present cost.

Abolition of fees not communistic (stated more temperately).

III. I have already alluded to several grave reasons for abolishing fees, but as this part of the proposed changes in the University has been discussed and attacked by anticipation, I may perhaps be permitted to examine it at some length.

In the first place it is said that giving the higher education to young men at the expense of the State is communistic;* that is, I suppose, that one class of the population is unfairly taxed to supply another class with an advantage not of urgent necessity. The holders of this view are often in favour of costless primary education, on the obvious grounds that every child ought to receive a minimum of education, and that only a costless system can be enforced. But they argue that there is no similar obligation to provide everyone with a chance of the higher education; that the mere abolition of fees does not remove the chief cost of a university, its years of residence; that it is undesirable to crowd the professions; and that it is unfair to tax property in order that boys whose natural place is behind the counter or the plough may be tempted to qualify as physicians or lawyers.

Every undergraduate is a State pensioner at present.

In reply, I would point out that the reproach of being communistic in the worst sense really applies to the University as it exists. That foundation has cost the State more than £300,000 of the public money (taking buildings and endowment into consideration), while its benefits have been confined to a few persons of easy income, or resident in Melbourne. Practically at this moment every student in the University is a State pensioner for more than half the education he receives; and there is no reason to assume that the institution can or will become self-supporting. I do not think it can truly be said that our public revenue is

* It is interesting to notice that this point has already been raised in the American law courts, where a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Michigan has put to rest a question which has occasionally arisen as to the legal right to support a high school by public tax. The following is a partial abstract of the opinion of Judge Cooley in the case:—

"Taxation for higher education.—The most general question, legally stated, is whether there is authority in this State to make the high schools free by taxation levied on the people at large. The argument is that, while there may be no constitutional provision expressly prohibiting such taxation, the general course of the State's legislation, and the popular understanding of the people, require us to regard instruction in the classics and in living modern languages in these schools as not practical, and therefore unnecessary for the people at large, but rather as accomplishments for the few, to be sought after in the main by those best able to pay for them, and to be paid for by those who seek them, and not by general tax. It is surprising that the legislation and policy of the State should be appealed to against the right of the State to furnish a liberal education to its youth. We supposed it had always been understood in Michigan that education, not merely rudimentary but in an enlarged sense, was regarded as an important practical advantage, to be supplied at will to rich and poor alike, and not as something pertaining merely to culture and accomplishment, to be brought as such within the reach of those who would pay for it. Territorial and State legislation on this point may be profitably surveyed.

"The constitution as adopted provided for the establishment of free schools in every school district for at least three months in the year, and for the university. By the aid of these we have every reason to believe the people expected a complete collegiate education might be obtained. The branches of the university had ceased to exist, and it must either have been understood that young men were to be prepared for the university in the common schools, or that they should go abroad for that purpose, or be prepared in private schools. Private schools adapted to the purpose were almost unknown in the State, and very few, then, had money enough to educate their children abroad. The inference is irresistible that the people expected the tendency toward the establishment of high schools in the primary school districts would continue until every locality capable of supporting one was supplied. This inference is strengthened by the fact that many of our union schools date their establishment from 1850 and the two or three years after.

"State educational policy.—It these facts do not clearly and conclusively demonstrate a general State policy, beginning in 1817, and continuing until after the adoption of the present constitution, in the direction of free schools in which education, and at their option the elements of classical education, might be brought within the reach of all children of the State, then nothing can demonstrate it. Subsequent legislation has all concurred with this policy. Neither in our State policy, in our constitution, nor in our laws, are the primary school districts restricted in the branches of knowledge which their officers may cause to be taught, or the grade of instruction that may be given, if their voters consent, in regular form, to bear the expense and raise the taxes for the purpose."—School Supervision, by Payne, pp. 111-113.

page 127 raised principally from the rich; and though I am personally convinced that it would he worth the while of the industrial classes to support the University, even though their sons were excluded from its lecture-rooms, I think it fair that, where all contribute, all should be allowed to share in the benefits of the foundation. The great reason why the State should found a University is that it cannot pay private enterprise to establish one in a young country. We must have professional men; and it is important to have them well taught that they may be efficient, and cheaply taught that there may be a sufficient supply. But all these reasons point to the importance of making the University as cheap and as good as possible; and the advocates of a high price,

The trades' union objection to an increased supply of labour unsound.

which shall restrict education, are surely of the same spiritual family as the Sheffield knife-grinders, who keep their trade deadly that the rate of wages may be enhanced. Between those who would make the training of the mind costly, that the professions may not be over-crowded, and those who legislate against the health of the body, that there may be a quick supply of laborers, there is it seems to me little to choose. At any rate the interest of the State is to care that all may start as nearly as possible even in the race for professional success, leaving it to the best man to win.
No doubt the student who finds costless teaching at the University

The payment of fees is the heaviest burden on students.

will still be burdened with heavy charges; will have to support himself during three, four, or five years, and to provide books and defray the cost of experiments. But these, as all students know, are not the most formidable charges.* Men with the scholarly instinct will find means to live, and will work in public libraries if they cannot buy books, provided they are not crippled by the demand for twenty or thirty pounds a year in fees. But in fact a fair number of the most competent will be helped on through the University by State exhibitions or University scholarships.
As to the chance that students unfitted for intellectual pursuits

The examination test will keep out incompetent students.

will be tempted to devote their time to them, the remedy lies in efficient examinations. There is no reason, for instance, why the matriculation standard should not be sensibly raised when fees are abolished; and, better still, why the yearly examinations should not be made more difficult. The fact is that the evil imagined is almost a necessary part of the present system. While the number of students is kept low by the cost of education, professors are unwilling to thin their classes, and establish an apparent case for inutility against the University. Yet it can hardly be doubted that the duty of drafting out the idle and incompetent is second in importance only to the duty of securing a large supply of the industrious and clever. No doubt it is a strong thing to say that a stupid rich man shall be debarred attendance on University lectures, where he may acquire the

* "Distinguished students," says Mr. Neil Maclean, in Life at a Northern University, "have been found acting as gillies on the Highland Moors during the summer recess; attending as golf-club carriers or professional golfers on the links of their University town; going a voyage to Greenland or Davis* Straits when the funds became low; in fact doing anything that would recruit their purses and their libraries."—Preface, p. vii.

page 128 culture that will keep him from trivial or vicious pursuits in afterlife; and I believe it will generally be possible to retain such men, if they will work hard, in a University class. But where a rich man's natural tastes are those of a farmer, or trainer, or an overseer, where all book-work is distasteful to him, I think society gains nothing by trying to force a certain quantum of the dead languages into his mind. Some of these young men will, I hope, find congenial work in the lecture-rooms of the faculty of Practical Science. Those who have no literary instincts had better be kept from the University, to which they could only bring idle habits and unsympathetic temperaments.

Ratio of students to population in some typical countries.

Meanwhile I would ask those who think that our University is at present well filled to consider the present comparative list, showing approximately the proportion of matriculated students to the population in the chief countries that may fairly be compared with our own:—
  • England, 1 in 5,400 in 1876.
  • Scotland, 1 in 1,000 in 1876.
  • Ireland, 1 in 3,000 in 1876.
  • France, 1 in 1,500 in 1862.
  • Germany, 1 in 2,500 in 1877, with non-matriculated students 1 in 2,200.
  • Austria, 1 in 3,200 in 1874.
  • Sweden, 1 in 2,175 in 1877.
  • Norway, 1 in 2,250 in 1875.
  • Holland, 1 in 2,200, including the Delft Polytechnic School.
  • California, 1 in 2,250 in 1875.
  • Massachusetts, 1 in 1,800 in 1875.
  • Michigan, 1 in 1,100 in 1875.
  • Melbourne, 1 in 4,500.*

It will be seen by this list that, even if our present numbers were doubled, we should only stand midway in a list, where we are at present lowest, with one exception.

Justification of fees for examinations, &c.

It may seem inconsistent with the proposal to abolish class fees that the University proposes to retain fees for matriculation, for examinations in which the student has failed, and for certificates and degrees. But in the case of the matriculation examination it must be borne in mind that many hundred students offer themselves, who only desire to test their efficiency in school-work, and who have no thoughts of going on to the University. The expense of providing examiners for these is very great to the University, and the fee charged to each student is comparatively small. The University has, however, taken power to reduce or abolish even this, should it seem desirable. As regards fees for the annual examinations, it must be borne in mind that it is very important to discourage men from going up at a venture, not only because it encumbers the University with needless work, but because it makes the student callous to failure and disposed to try his chance on the smallest possible amount of knowledge.

* An estimate in the New York Nation (April 19, 1877) gives the following figures for 1872:—Connecticut 1 in 1529, New York 1 in 1773, Ohio 1 in 1520, Pennsylvania 1 in 2011, Virginia 1 in 1015.

The net loss to the University from the abolition of fees for matriculation would be about £1,000 a year.

page 129 The council has therefore adopted the principle, that the State pays for success and not for failure, and the fee paid by the successful student will be carried to the account of his degree, while the plucked man's fee will reimburse the University for the trouble it has been put to wantonly or needlessly.
As regards the fees for degrees it must be remembered that

Fees for decrees.

every degree involves the issuing of a certificate, the holding of a court to confer degrees, and the maintenance of an accurate system of registration. When I mention that the cost of a Bachelor of Law's degree will be reduced under the new system from an average of more than £100 to a minimum of £7, and a probable average of between £7 and £10, it will be seen, I hope, that the advantages offered by the new system are very genuine. Medical students will gain almost equally, and engineers rather more.
It is proposed that medical students shall continue to defray

Charge for experiments.

the cost of their experiments in the laboratory and the dissecting room. In this case it would be difficult or impossible to furnish any estimate of the cost to the State; but the present cost would undoubtedly be enhanced if the student had no motive for economy. I may add that the great abundance of subjects in a French dissecting room is said to be rather prejudicial to the interests of education. The student, not paying appreciably for his blunders, acquires a careless habit of dissection.

The second point I have adverted to under this head of diminished exclusiveness is the modification of restrictions on residence.

By the existing Act of Incorporation every student is to "dwell

Modification of the restrictions on residence.

with his parent or guardian, or with some near relative or friend selected by his parent or guardian, and approved by the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor, or in some collegiate or educational establishment affiliated to or in connection with the University, or in a boarding-house licensed as aforesaid." The words which give the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor a power of objecting to the house in which a student resides seem inconsistent with the complete liberty of choice which poor students especially ought to possess. They might be interpreted to mean that a hovel or a garret was not a proper place of residence; they might be strained so as to drive students into licensed boarding-houses or affiliated colleges. On the other hand, they throw the rather odious responsibility of choosing homes for minors on one or other of two gentlemen, who already discharge very onerous and unpaid work for the University, and who are members of busy professions. It has been thought simpler to relieve the University of any responsibility for an undergraduate's dwelling-place.
IV. The admission of women to the lecture-rooms and to competition

Admission of women to university teaching and honours.

for degrees will probably seem to a few persons a startling innovation; though the public is by this time familiar with the fact that many ladies every year, by passing the matriculation examination, prove themselves capable of attending the University classes with profit. In fact, our present regulations do not exclude them from attending lectures; but as they are denied degrees, none, I believe, have as yet cared to qualify where they cannot compete.
page 130

On this subject the practice of universities throughout the world has undergone a great change of late.

Women are now admitted in several universities.

Fifty years ago, it would, I believe, have been difficult to point out any universities in which women were students. But latterly a few ladies have vindicated the right of attending lectures and passing examinations in Edinburgh, though they have been denied the prizes and degrees which they had fairly won. Within the last year the College of Physicians in Dublin has admitted women to medical degrees, and the University of London has just decided to abolish all restrictions. The University of Paris admits them to degrees in all the faculties. The University of Zurich has many female students in its Medical faculty. In the United States, several of the most eminent universities, such as Cornell, Michigan, and California, make no distinction between women and men.* The University of New Zealand has already admitted a lady to a degree.

It is proposed to admit them at Melbourne under restrictions.

In removing the old restrictions, which were partly accidental, the University of Melbourne has therefore only followed the example of other learned bodies. Where it has differed from most of these, and I think differed wisely, has been in regulating the conditions under which ladies shall be admitted to the lecture-rooms. We may perhaps look forward to a time when the presence of two or three or even of one lady among male students in a lecture-room will not seem more incongruous than it would now appear in a church, or cause more awkwardness. But as we are facing a new experiment, it is desirable to conduct it with every possible precaution.

Arts, Music, and Medicine are the subjects in which ladies are most likely to qualify.

The proposal that the University shall only provide teaching where there are twenty female students to profit by it, will I think have the effect that ladies will only offer themselves for degrees in Arts or Music, and after a few years for degrees in Medicine. As regards Arts, the Training College alone will supply thirty female students a year; as regards Music we may perhaps expect that ladies will monopolize the teaching; and though a period may intervene before the requisite twenty can be mustered to study Medicine, the lesson of English experience that lady doctors are instantly sought for and employed will, I hope, tempt many among ourselves into the profession. But though ladies have been doctors of laws in Italy, I see no reason to anticipate that our law lectures are likely to be crowded by female law students; least of all that women will wish to become engineers or veterinary surgeons.

The admission to lectures in Arts will cause no difficulty.

Practically, therefore, the admission of women, coupled with the restriction that there must be twenty together to demand a lecture, will only involve the obligation to provide courses for them in Arts and Medicine. Now the teaching in Arts is mostly such as ladies may attend together with men. Mathematics, Logic, Chemistry, Botany, and Mineralogy are subjects in which mixed audiences may be taught fearlessly; and if the men and women enter by different doors and sit separate, no other pre-

* "In regard to the admission of females, the results are decisive, be far as this at least, that young ladies are found able successfully to study the subjects of a collegiate or professional course—if this indeed was ever a question, They are supposed to average about the scholarship of their classes."—American Stale Universities, by Andrew Ten Brook, ed. 1875, p. 311.

page 131 caution seems necessary. English Literature, History, and Modern Languages occupy an ambiguous position. The lecturer may wish to lecture on a play of Shakespeare that contains offensive passages; or to speak frankly on the moral tone of ancient Rome and Athens, or of the Court of Louis XV.; or to translate a modern classic, such as Voltaire's "Candide" or Goethe's "Wahl-Verwandschaften," that is unfit for ladies' reading. Such cases may, I think, be met, if the interruption is a short one, by an intimation that ladies are not expected to attend the class on the next day. If it is a long one, the teacher will have to provide them with a different course. The study of the old classics may be expected to offer the greatest difficulties in this respect. Entertaining myself a strong opinion that the moral tone of young Englishmen gains nothing from the protracted study of Catullus, of Martial, or of the worst plays of Aristophanes, I should see their banishment from the lecture-room without the smallest regret. But if the professor of classics thinks differently, he will be able, now that his work is reduced and that he is provided with assistants, to give lectures in Cæsar, Virgil, or Cicero, which women (and men, if they desire it) may attend fearlessly. All that is requisite is that the council should come to a clear understanding with its teaching body what duties they will have to perform, so that, if anyone shrinks from the responsibility of lecturing to a class of female students, provision may be made to relieve him without any infringement of existing contracts. Thus, for instance, should the professor of classics decline this work, it would be necessary to suspend the appointment to the chair of English and European Languages, and devote the salary destined for that purpose to paying some one who should teach classics and English together to female students. But I do not imagine for a moment that any professor will decline to lecture to ladies, if his fair share of work is not increased by it, and if he is allowed to take all reasonable precautious that his sense of delicacy can suggest.
As regards the Medical faculty, the provision for the purely

Provision is already made for teaching first year female students in the Medical faculty.

scientific teaching given in the first year has been doubled—the professor of anatomy and physiology having his work halved, and the lecturer on chemistry being made a professor with an assistant. Therefore, the University will have a year during which to arrange for the admission of female students to the practical courses of the last three years. Practically such a change, of course, means more money, though not, I am inclined to think, much more money, as men will generally give the same course twice over for much less than twice the sum they are paid for a single course. As it is quite uncertain at present whether ladies will wish to qualify as doctors, or how soon the required

Further provision may be made when the occasion arises*

number of matriculated students will be made up, the council has not thought it necessary to apply at present for any further endowment. If, five or ten years hence, it should appear that twenty female students have passed their first year's examination, I feel sure that Parliament will not grudge the few hundred pounds requisite to carry them on through the remaining lectures.
page 132

The houses now used by three of the professors will supply lecture-rooms and club-rooms for the students.

At this point I may fitly call attention to certain arrangements which, I think, it will be desirable to make for the comfort and accommodation of the new students attracted to the University. In the estimates the council has approved provision is made for an allowance in lieu of a house to every professor, though in fact, three are provided with houses in the University buildings. The University will thus have three houses, each of which contains three good rooms and two smaller ones, placed at its disposal. Assuming the nine large rooms used as lecture-rooms, they will, I think, be sufficient for all the new wants of classes. But I should like, I confess, to see these houses put to a further use. Teachers and students at the University suffer grievously at present for the want of rooms to wait in between or after lectures, being only able to use the libraries or unoccupied lecture-rooms. I would propose that, while the University reserves to itself the use of the large rooms in each house between the hours of nine and one, it should hand over these rooms at other times, and the other rooms at all times for the use of the various persons attending classes. One house might be set apart for the teaching staff, one for male and another for female students; of course under regulations framed and enforced by the council. I see no reason why such houses, in which there might be writing-rooms and reading-rooms, and in which lunch and dinner might be provided at moderate charges, should not serve as efficient substitutes for the collegiate system, which, however it may prosper, can never, from its costly nature, provide for more than a portion of the students. Half the good of a university is in the social intercourse it promotes; and a plan which can give the students a club in the University grounds, without cost to themselves or to the State, is, I think, worthy of consideration.

An engineer's workshop required.

Besides the trifling expense of taking over these three houses for lecture-rooms, the State ought, I think, to spend a small sum in building an engineer's laboratory. There is no proper accommodation at present for the costly and delicate plant that is necessary to illustrate lectures on natural philosophy, no room for engineering models, and no place in which students can learn the use of the lathe. The cost of such a building as is required is estimated by Mr. Kernot at £8,000; but it might be wise to add something to this for fittings, as the present provision is very inadequate.

Three affiliated colleges will soon be built.

I had hoped that a portion of the expenses these changes will entail might be defrayed by an amicable arrangement with three of the religious bodies, who have held land in trust for more than twenty years, while they have neglected to build the colleges for which the land was granted; and that these bodies might be willing to see the land sold and the proceeds shared between themselves and the State. Unhappily, since Trinity College was affiliated by the Church of England, the position of these bodies has changed; and they are unwilling that the young members of their own communions should be at a seeming disadvantage compared with Anglicans. They have accordingly decided to keep their land and build. While I regret this decision on many page 133 accounts, I may congratulate the country and the University that waste spaces, which have been an eyesore and a nuisance for twenty years, are at last likely to be redeemed from neglect and put to an academical use.
On the other hand, I think it will be only fair that the State

The State ought to resume ten acres now enclosed in the University grounds.

should now resume the parallelogram of ten acres, which lies at the south-eastern end of the University grounds fronting Madeline and Grattan streets, and which the University has been permitted to enclose. The University is more a loser than a gainer by the occupation of this block, which is not necessary to its grounds, and which it has to keep in order at a certain expense. The State will gain considerably. It wants sites for a training college and for a high school, and none more suitable or appropriate could be found than in the immediate neighbourhood of the University. Nowhere else could it get the space which these institutions will need for recreation grounds. I may add that by the removal of the Education Offices and the Training College from their present home, in Spring street, only the Model School will be left there, and a large part of the Spring-street ground, in particular the valuable frontage, may be disposed of. The price of the land so liberated would go far to pay the whole expenses of building a training college, a high school, and an engineer's laboratory. Assuming this to be case, and deducting

Cost of making the University efficient.

from the £32,000 the council asks as an endowment the £9,000 already given, the £2,000 economised in the Training College, and the £300 now paid to State exhibitioners, the whole cost of making the University efficient will appear to be less than £21,000 a year.
It may be interesting to compare the total endowments of

Comparison of the revenues of various important universities.

leading universities in Europe and America with our own.
  • Oxford, £424,262, including fees.
  • Cambridge, £340,561, including fees.
  • Edinburgh, £23,000.
  • Glasgow, £15,756.
  • Dublin, £43,000, not including fees.
  • Queen's University, £37,609 in 1877, not including fees.
  • Paris, £154,000 in 1865, not including fees.
  • Prussia, £267,150 in 1877, not including fees.
  • Austria (not including Hungary), £198,000 in 1872, not including fees.
  • Upsala, £97,682 in 1872; no fees charged.
  • Belgium, Liège and Ghent, £35,743, not including fees, in 1871.
  • California, £46,000 in 1872; no fees charged.
  • Harvard, £44,000 in 1872, including fees.
  • Michigan, £22,600 in 1872, including fees.
  • Melbourne at present, £14,500, including fees (£5,500).
  • Melbourne as proposed, £33,500, including fees (£1,500).*

* Cornell University, in New York State, was endowed by the State with 990,000 acres, estimated to be worth £600,000, and by Mr. Cornell with £145,000. About £80.000 was contributed from other quarters in the first four years. It must be borne in mind that Cornell is only one of several universities in the State of New York.

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It is impossible to compare the London University, which only examines and grants degrees, with our own University, whose first function is to teach.

Cost of professors and lecturers.

This list, it will be seen, shows very great varieties, but I think it may fairly be said that the present income of Melbourne University is lamentably insufficient, and that the higher sum now asked for is warranted by every precedent. For it must be borne in mind that throughout the continent of Europe men of worldwide reputation, such as Ampére, Arago, Oersted, Madvig, and von Sybel, have been or are secured for three-fifths, at most, of the sum that buys a competent English or Irish graduate for Melbourne. "The income of an able Paris professor of the first rank in his calling" reaches "very nearly 10,000 francs (£400) a year" from all sources, writes Mr. Arnold in 1866. In Germany and Sweden incomes have been even lower than this, but there has been a rise in Germany in the last ten years. In Italy, Professor Thomatis tells me, the pay of a professor scarcely averages more than £100 a year. It is not that learning is undervalued, but that in countries where commerce presents fewer openings, all professions are crowded, and judges, clergymen, and officers are very poorly paid by the English standard.*
There are some, I believe, who think that £1,000 a year is a large sum for a University professor. The elements for deciding such a point are very simple. We all wish, I presume, that the highest teachers in the University should be men not palpably inferior in intelligence and working power to the leading men of other professions—to judges and leading barristers, to physicians and surgeons, to bank managers, and to the heads of departments. Practically, however, we pay a judge of the Supreme Court £3,000 or £3,500 a year, and a County Court judge £1,500, while a bank manager in Melbourne earns, I understand, from £1,000 to £2,500 a year. The political heads of departments receive from £1,500 to £2,000, and their immediate subordinates from £900 to £1,200 a year with retiring pensions, which the professors do not receive. The gains of a successful barrister, a successful medical man, or a successful schoolmaster (if he combines the boarding with the teaching department) are even larger than any of these. The advantages in a professor's career that attract men to it in spite of comparatively poor remuneration are the congenial character of literary work, the secure income, and in some instances the early promotion. But there is great danger in the colonies that even these advantages may not rivet them to their work, so that now and again a professor exchanges his chair for better paid school work

Graduated incomes.

or devotes his spare time to money-making pursuits other than literature. Considering this, I see no immediate prospect that

* In Vienna the university pays nearly two hundred professors, lecturers, and assistants with £76,000, besides discharging all ordinary expenses. In Prague a hundred and forty teachers get what remains of £45,000 after all expenses of management are defrsyed.—Jahres Bericht des K.K. Ministeriums für 1876.

Mr. Perry says that, in German universities, "the salaries of the professors in ordinary range from £120 to £450, exclusive of fees. In the case of very distinguished men they rise to £500 or even £600 per annum. The most usual fee for a course is 18s."—Macmillanys Magazine, December 1877, pp. 149, 150.

In Upsala the staff in 1874 numbered thirty-four professors, twenty-six adjunkts, and forty-six docents.—Upsala Universitel's Kalalog für 1873. An article in Macmillanys Magazine of October 1877 (p. 487) says that the salary of a professor in Upsala is 6,000 crowns, about £340 a year, and the salary of an adjunct from £136 to £170.

page 135 any economy can be effected in the salaries of professors, but I believe the council is inclined to consider a plan for graduating their incomes, so that, taking £1,000 a year as the average, men may rise by degrees from £800 to £1,200. A time when many promotions are made will be specially adapted for the introduction of such a change.
In conclusion, I may observe that money granted to the University

University teaching is not objected to as irreligious.

will not, I am glad to think, provoke any of the hostility with which a small portion of the community regards our primary schools. I am assured that no religious difficulty will be felt by Catholic parents about sending their children to a secular University, as the mature age of the students is a guarantee that they are grounded in their faith, and those about whom their parents are specially anxious may be sent to an affiliated college, for which the State has provided a site. I venture to hope that this consideration will weigh with the Houses of Parliament, and that they will be the less reluctant to give largely when they know that they are giving to all.