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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 65

[extract from Southland Times]

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Professor Duncan McGregor, as our readers are aware, is to succeed Dr. Grabham as Inspector of Lunatic Asylums in New Zealand, and the chair of Logic and Moral Philosophy in the University of Otago will in consequence become vacant. Already the question of a new Professor has become an exciting one, and is being discussed in several lights, and already the names of two candidates have been placed before the public. The importance of the appointment is manifest without any argument, too much care cannot be exercised by the body in whose hands it lies Of all the Arts classes in a University course there is no other in which the mind of the student receives so distinct and permanent a mould as it does in the class of Mental Science. The teacher in that class, if he be a man of any originality or force of character will have disciples as well as scholars, and will leave his mark perhaps on a generation of thinkers. Hence the imperative necessity of selecting a man not only of gifts and attainments but of sound and trustworthy opinions on philosophy and ethics. A dull exponent of the different schools and systems of metaphysical thought is not the person we I want; and neither is a brilliant theorist tainted with the materialism and steeped in the pseudo-philosophy of the time. There are circumstances in connection with the chair that ought to safeguard it from any us worth-intrusion in respect at least of pernicious opinion. From the funds of the Church of Otago and Southland comes the endowment of the chair, and with the Synod of that Church the appointment practically rests. As we understand the matter, the Synod nominates or recommends to the University, and it is usual for the Council to accept the Synod's nomination. At any rate the appointment cannot be made without the consent of the Synod. Not misled by any bigoted restrictiveness, but true to its own broad views of philosophical soundness, it may be expected that such a body will provide at all times a safe teacher for the chair of Logic and Moral Philosophy. That it will also provide an able and accomplished one may, we think, be as confidently assumed. Of course, on one hand, there should be no limitation of the area of choice; but on the other, it is time that we in New Zealand were freeing ourselves from the imagination that in order to get efficient teachers we must go beyond the limits of the colony. We publish elsewhere in this issue a letter bearing on this branch of the question, and we are much in accord with the views of the writer. We believe it is unnecessary to go out of the colony—we believe it is unnecessary to go out of Otago—to find a fitting occupant for the vacant chair. We understand two candidates have announced themselves—Dr James Macgregor of Oamaru, and Dr James Copland of Dunedin. Both are well known the general community, having long occupied and continuing to occupy, prominent public positions.. Dr Copland has given proof of his ethical and dialectic skill in a small volume published some years ago, and re-stating the Christian Evidences and generally stands well as a thinker and debater. Dr. James Macgregor is a man of 'high intellectual mark—it might be more just to say, of striking and singular genius. It is well-known that he held in Scotland a high academic position, having been Professor of Systematic Theology in the New College, Edinburgh. His learning is vast and varied and no one knows better how no make use of it for illustration and argument. Besides the keenest logical faculty he has a wealth of imagination eminently fitted to make metaphysics fascinating to the student mind. In short, it would be difficult to find even beyond the colony any one more richly furnished for the chair in question Dr. Macgregor delivered not long ago in Dunedin a lecture "Regarding Evolutional, which has been published and is an excellent reflex of his mind and example of his method of reasoning. It is certainly an admirable production, and in its scornful strength and eloquence is strikingly suggestive of Thomas Carlyle. We have of course, no right to say that Dr. Macgregor will turn out the most worthy candidate for the Moral Philosophy Chair that may yet be in the choice of the Synod, but we are at least entitled to congratulate the public that one so eminently suitable will be at command when the day of selection arrives.

Southland Times.