INFLUENCE OF HISTORY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2573, 6 August 1909, Page 7

INFLUENCE OF HISTORY.

INTERVIEW WITH DR. HODGKIN.

WHAT A UNIVERSITY SHOULD BE.

Dr Hodgkin, the distinguished English historian, arrived in Sydney the other day, after a stay of some weeks in New Zealand.

Speaking of what a modern university should be, Dr Hodgkin said: — “It is obviously desirable that a university must teach the applied sciences. It must give - the young men that kind of instruction which l will enable them to make their way in the world. It must not be purely academical. Electrical engineering, ship building, mining, agriculture, and commercial science should all have a large place in a modern university. At the same time, I think there ought to be a strong bias given towards the study of the arts, literature, and science. “A young country especially needs to study history. It should have a knowledge of the experience of the past to prevent its repeating the mistakes. A knowledge of history carries with, it a consciousness of the great past which belongs to us all, as members of the British nation, and ennobles life. And no system of education is complete which does not teach it. Give by all means a knowledge of Australian history, but give also a view of its background. “The neglect to teach history has been a grievous fault in American education. I am told that much of the history taught in the schools of the United States begins with the clays of George 111., and the throwing of tho tea into Boston Harbor., A great series of events happened before all that, of which students,were kept in igporance; and it has had a painful effect on American politics. Americans know all about the frightful mistakes which their country and ours made in those years, but have not fully allowed for all the noble things which their forefathers and ours did in the ages before. Even so, it is desirable that tho colonies should have a strong grasp of their own and our history. After all, our history is just as much theirs, and they should know something of the period before their forefathers came to settle this great land. “In a modern university a strong leature should be made of modern things. For the ordinary citizen it is probably more important that he should know French or German than Greek. But I don’t think the remark applies to Latin, because it is the parent of so many European languages that it saves trouble in the end. “Literature should also be a feature of the modern university. We ought to study tlie great literature of the past, and hand its teachings on to those that come after us. I look with a little suspicion on the immense circulation of magazines and periodicals. And in saying this I must confess that I generally buy a magazine myself when starting on a railway journey. But for solid food tlie mind wants something much better and stronger. On the other hand I look with great satisfaction on.the attempts made by many publishers to make the great English classics available to the multitude.” What do you think of the modern novel? —“I am afraid I have not read it.”

While not professing to have given the matter great thought, Dr Hodgkin inclined to the view that a journalist was born and not bred. He knew of no university in the world which professed to teach journalism.. The natural qualification must be in a man, and no amount of education would make him a journalist if he did not possess that qualification. But it followed without question that the journalist with a university education would have a big pull over the next man. Regarding university reform in England Dr Hodgkin said that London University, of which he was a graduate, was now an enormous congeries of different educational institutions, colleges and hospitals. At Oxford the great fault was that the ultimate government rested- with convocation, which simply consisted of people who had taken past degrees. Convocation was made up practically of Country clergy, who often voted on important points they didn’t know much about. In that way the thinking power of the university was very much neutralised. It was generally admitted that the system would have to be altered, doubtless the alteration would he soon; but it was not easy to say how. ' Dr Hodgkin thinks there is a great opportunity just now for some historian to write up the land question in connection with history. He was much struck in New Zealand with the resemblance of the problems there in con : nection with opening up the Maori lands to those which agitated Rome at the time of the Agrarian laws. Dr Hodgkin’s idea is that such history should not be polemical but descriptive. Speaking of university extension, Dr. Hodgkin said its progress in England was retarded somewhat by tlie craze for sport. Young men gave more thought to football matches than developing their mental faculties. The influence of university extension was being felt more away from the crowded centres, ivliere as many as 50,000 people went to see a football or cricket match.

Dr Hodgkin will stay three months in tho Commonwealth, during which time he hopes to travel through several 'of the States. He will be in touch with the Societies of Friends, and has undertaken to deliver several lectures 6n university extension.