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Devolution or Revolution?

[Report of Royal Commission on University Education in New Zealand (W. A. G. Skinner, Government Printer, 1925).]

A melancholy charm broods over this document, a fatal beauty. But a few weeks it is since those very courteous gentle-men, Sir Harry Rudolf Reichel, M.A., LL.D., KB., and Frank Tate, Esquire, M.A., C.M.G., I.S.O., effected a landing on our shores amid a hail of high explosive from that very excitable old gentleman, Sir Robert Stout; and now they are gone, here is their report, a hundred pages of good English prose, enlivened with quotations from various other Royal Commissions, Cardinal Newman, Professor Hunter and two jokes. For the benefit of those who read Government publications only for their humour we copy these out at once, though they have already gained a certain currency among the frivolous.

"The general impression left on our minds is that the New Zealand University offers unrivalled facilities for gaining University degrees, but that it is less successful in providing university education."

"Legal practitioners have always been regarded as members of a learned profession, as, indeed, is shown by the customary courtesy of allusion to my learned friend.. It appears to us that unless a marked change is effected in the legal education provided in the Dominion, this term runs the risk of being regarded as a delicate sarcasm."

A melancholy charm, we said, and indeed it is melancholy to see one's own worst criticisms endorsed—a sad triumph, a sorrowful vindication. For there is nothing very new in this report, no unknown horrible abuses driven into the light, no fresh fearful outrage to shatter a frail woman's nervous system, or make strong men turn ashen and shudder. Take each indictment of our University system separately, and if you are astonished, it is more at the moderation with which the condemnation is passed than at anything else; for has it not been said before in varying tones of sarcasm, disgust and despair by many many men struggling in the clutch of the system? Has not every obnoxious feature been regarded with rage by critics of every type, and have they ever hesitated to record their emotions? It is rather the cumulative effect of these hundred pages which bears one down; everything is so nicely drawn up and marginally annotated, put so very politely yet so very firmly, so neatly is every brick in the pile of condemnation mortared and fixed that we have not even strength to writhe; we merely groan. And now, perhaps, that everything has been said so well in such well-weighed words, by an authority from outside and (one hopes) unbribed, perhaps even the Senate will sit up and take notice. Sit up, that is,, if it is able to, for one of the remarkable things about the report is the way in which that gathering of incompetency is quietly and unobtrusively dropped without even the courtesy of condemnation. So do our governing bodies meet their fate.

In regard to the crux of the business, the constitution of the University, the Commission has not gone as far as with varying horror and jubilation it was prophesied it would. To Sir Robert page 23 Stout and his gallant band of die-hards, we understand, the advent of the Commission meant instant death for the lovely child of their brain and tending, that unfortunate constitution; and as the sinister figures of Sir Harry and his fellow-conspirators passed backwards and forwards on their peregrinations we thought we saw them clutch at their breasts and heard them mutter fiercely underneath their breath—

"So the two brothers and their murdered man

Rode past fair Florence...."

while in the camp of the radicals joy reigned at a scene of imminent carnage. Yet the report recommends that the University of New Zealand should still be allowed to exist; but as a teaching University and not as a mere emporium for degrees. The Senate is wiped out and a University Council of quite different constitution substituted, to be guided in respect of all academic matters by an Academic Board, which supersedes the Board of Studies. And oh! how delightful it will be to be rid of the yearly spectacle of these two bodies, Senate and Board of Studies, tearing at each other's throats! Changes are recommended in the constitution of the College Councils; convocation is to include all graduates of the University in one body; and very salutary principles are laid down for the future selection by College and University Councils of members of the teaching staff. The new constitution sketched out can only in the nature of things be temporary, as the report says; a four University system is ultimately inevitable; but while these recommendations mean that another agitation and more toil must be gone through in twenty or thirty years' time to get another Royal Commission and an-other set of recommendations, yet in the meantime such increased freedom is given to the constituent colleges in the essentials of teaching and academic management that it would be churlish to render the Commission anything but thanks.

Very few, we imagine, will be found to quarrel with the criticisms offered on the standard of work required for the B.A., B.Sc. and LL.B. degrees. The six subject B.A. has long been recognised as a farce; students who have taken it have done so in the main with the disapproval of their professors, and no one but admits that it is a disgrace to any University course. But at the same time we believe there have been plans moving for some time for its abolition, and the substitution of a nine-point system of qualification on the lines laid down by the Commission. If the granting of the B.Sc. is not such a farce as the B.A. it certainly in some respects verges on light comedy, and the raising of its level can do nothing but good. For the LL.B. degree, as at present constituted, there appears to be nothing but wailing and gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts; this, however, we leave to the lawyers, much more qualified as our learned friends are in all the elocutionary and histrionic arts. The delicate remark of Sir Harry Reichel's (or can it be Mr. Tate's?) quoted above seems to the lay mind to sum up the matter very effectually. Apart from this, it is pleasant to note that the Masters and Honours degrees are up to the standard of those of English Universities, though we have previously been assured of this by comforting remarks of Home examiners; but we fancy that among the Honours degrees themselves a good deal of a levelling-up process could be very advantageously carried out.

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Some of the points made which carry most weight are those on the co-ordination of the University with other departments of education, together with the problem of special schools. (We say "problem," though to any sane man, apart from the silly parochial prejudice that is the curse of New Zealand, special schools would present no more of a problem than the buying of a new mat for the front door). There have for a long time been rows over matriculation, the exam, and the age, and the adoption of an examination system, such as the report recommends, a system of intermediate and leaving certificates, qualified for to a certain extent by the accrediting system, should do a good deal to free us from the recent abuses. But how many children stay at secondary schools in New Zealand till their eighteenth year (which a leaving certificate of this type presupposes), and how many New Zealand parents would consent to keep their children there till that time? There seems a serious catch here— would the University help things out by raising the age of matriculation again, this time to eighteen? The special fields of technical schools and university work in scientific education are lucidly delimited, though this question, we believe, is not of much concern to V.U.C. But certainly we are concerned with the problems involved in the training of teachers and their University work. The "Spike" has before now infuriated the Training College with caustic comments on its mentality-mentality the product rather of a system than of anything else, perhaps; the section in the report dealing with the training of teachers really seems to bear us out. And there seems no reason why here at least in the hands of a Minister, who knew what he wanted and was determined to get it, considerable reform should not be carried out. With regard to special schools, the report is excellent (especially the very interesting section on Agricultural Education, the work, we believe, of Mr. Tate)—so excellent, that already in the House the hysterical Mr. Isitt, on behalf of the South, apparently, has been asking questions about a School of Forestry (only one, forsooth!) and why should it be at Auckland? Recognition for engineering at Auckland is foreshadowed, and the very strong recommendation for a properly constituted School of Law, on the lines prayed for by Professor Adamson, leads us to hope that Victoria University will at last perhaps have her claims considered.

But apart from the pages on the reform of the constitution of the University, perhaps the most interesting to the average reader are those sections dealing with the students in relation to the University, the evening lecture system, and the teaching staff. The section of the report on the evening lecture system, with some important omissions, is reprinted entire elsewhere in this "Spike,"^* for students themselves to judge, we therefore make no comment on it here. Student representation on College Councils is recommended-it is gratifying so to see the apotheosis of the recent life-work of one of our own members; the cry that has for long years risen from the very earth for hostels is re-echoed and reinforced; the importance of some sort of Students' Union is emphasised (" Here again the erection of such a building offers a worthy object for the educational philan page 25 thropist"—a bird that to this extent visits us at particularly infrequent intervals); the importance of students having "unfettered control" of their non-academic life is likewise made much of. And then there are two or three paragraphs of magnificent idealism on University surroundings—" University buildings should be dignified structures of real architectural merit, and should be appropriately grouped in beautiful surroundings large, open spaces . . . . formative influences . . . . fine inspiring environment." With which we at V.U.C. can only agree and groan.

If the recommendations of the Report on the teaching staff are half of them carried out it will mean the dawn of a new, quite beautiful day for University work in New Zealand. This applies both to the quality and the quantity of the staff, to the conditions under which they work, and to the methods of University teaching generally. Of real University teaching there is at present, we all admit, practically none; of research (the tremendous importance of which for a University is stressed at length) we know nothing but the name; but will the Government even think of standing the expense involved in providing for all this? in paying an adequate staff a decent wage; in giving it the chance to do more than grind the feeblest elements of science and arts into inadequate skulls; will it, above all, give professors and lecturers the freedom of teaching, which is the point perhaps of most vital importance in the whole report?

"We have, we trust, made clear our attitude on the question of the imposed fixed curriculum, and the external examination in which the professor has no part in the testing and certification of his own students. Both of these are, in our judgment, the negation of that academic freedom, which is the very breath of life of a true University. 'The spring of educational vigour is freedom, and without freedom the best University work is impossible.' "—Report p. 62.

We doubt and hope. Cognate to all this is the remarkable enthusiasm with which the Commission urges the appointment of a Principal for the University. Almost the very pages glow in which this elevated ambition is set forth. "We believe that the appointment, as Academic Head of the University, of a young and vigorous man of high academic standing, of lofty ideals of University life and work, and of inspiring personality, would inaugurate a new era in the higher education of the Dominion. . . . Unless there is such a guide and inspirer we may find that opportunities for reform have been given but that reform has not materialised. It is, of course, not an easy matter to get the right man." How very nice it sounds! And with what bated breath will we wait to see if it comes off! Could New Zealand wonderfully, miraculously do such a thing as choose the right man?

Finally there are the questions of University extension work, which, as it is practised in New Zealand, receives excellent criticism; of exempted students, whom it is desired to aid much more than at present; of divinity degrees, which, to the "Spike," have what one might describe as purely an academic interest; and of libraries, which do not require discussion, because every-one agrees on what should be done. The Commission wants £10,000 for books in the first five years, and grants to be doubled page 26 permanently; and this, we expect, would certainly help to make a College library less of a somewhat melancholy house of bond-age, and more of a useful institution.

And there is our report, all alive and kicking. And what is going to be done about it? What happened to the recommendations of 1879, quoted so often, and with such a mournful cadence, by our Commissioners? Is it going to have any real effect on the University? Is it going to give us our long-sought liberty new life, revivified teaching? Is it going to make us men and make us wise? Is it going to send us, with the blood of freedom coursing through our academic veins, prancing and cavorting to hitherto unattained, undreamt of heights of inspiration and endeavour, unthought of glories of fulfilment; or is all this hectic excitement, this delightful playing around in the china-shop of the present and the accustomed, to end in a dull, sickening, extremely distasteful but quite unmistakable thud? And we do not even know what god to pray to. O Public Opinion!

—J.C.B.