25

T. A. HUNTEB.

1.—13 a.

.'{. You have no other objection than thai I I have also the other objection thai if you bave the individual professors examining their own students it will keep the professors apart, and i contend that the system should tend to drive them into conference rather than to isolate them. My objection is. lirsi of all, thai you get four different standards throughout the colony in any one subjeel ; and. secondly, that it would further isolate the professors. 4. Professor Sale, in dissenting iron, thai part of the report of the Commission of 1879 in which it is recommended that the examiners of the New Zealand I'niv. ould be taken from among the professors of the University Colleges, said: " 1 think it wrong thai any professor or lecturer should be placed in the exceedingly difficult position of having to pronounce upon the relative merits of his own students and others educated at rival colleges. I think it not unlikely that ihis difficulty will lead to the breakdown of the scheme, and will precipitate the establishment of four or more distinct universities." l) c , you dissent from thai view?— No. The view there put forward is not the view we are now putting forward. Professor Sale is objecting to the system by which one professor of a subject would examine ail the student., of that subject in New Zealand. The Professor of Classics, say. in Auckland, would examine his own students as well as all the other students in classics. I would object to that, as I do to the external system. 5. Supposing you have four professors examining a number of the students from an individual college, and we will say that (lie examination is not for tin; degree, but for a scholarship : do you not think the professors might be put in a difficult position in having to choose between their own students anil the students of rival colleges? — The method of adjudicating upon scholarships in New Zealand is generally looked upon, I think, as educationally unsound. (i. The reply is that you would alter the method of awarding scholarships) — Yes. I think an alteration in that method is desirable. The retention of the present method of awarding scholarships is nol to be put on a par with the necessity for altering the present system of external examination. Professor T. 11. I,m>,v examined. (No. 11.) I. The Chairman.] You wish to make a statement Professor I — Yes. The petition we make, gentlemen, is that the House of Representatives " will inquire into the state of university administration and education in New Zealand." My evidence will he directed to show thai there is an urgeni need for a Royal Commission to inquire into university education, empowered to take evidence in New Zealand and abroad, and to report on the constructive reforms that are necessary to give the Dominion an efficient university system suited to its needs and resources. You, gentlemen, have it in your power to initiate the practical steps which may give to New Zealand a real university—the intellectual centre of a nation whose influence would extend through the schools ami professions to rvvvy part of the community; an institution that would show, as the German universities have especially shown, that trained minds are of inestimable value to a nation in all its activities —in fact, are essential to any modern community if it is to compete with success with the most progressive of other communities. My evidence will be directed mainly to establishing the statements which we make in the petition before you, and to answering certain general questions which members of the Educational Committee have asked. Tf our university system has failed, as we contend it has. then there should be very definite evidence to that effect. 1 propose to mention specific facts, which, to mx mind, prove that our University has failed signally in what should have been its functions. But before doing that, may I disclaim any desire to depreciate the Senate of the University or the students. As a teacher in Sydney University and a student in Cambridge, T came in contact with a number of students, and after that experience the enthusiasm and natural intelligence of the New Zealand students seemed to me surprisingly good. If the training of the University Colleges is poor it will drive away such students as can afford it to study abroad. I contend that New-Zealanders who can send their sons to universities abroad are very often doing so. T consider that, if they believe the university training abroad is worth the heavy extra cost. the\ act rightly. The main consideration is good training, wherever it can be obtained. Rut the matter which is of importance to you is that there are a large number of New-Zealanders studying at universities abroad. No one would send his son abroad unless he hail no doubt whatever that the training to !:.■ obtained in New Zealand colleges was distinctly inferior to that of the English universities. The extra cost of a university I raining abroad alone amounts to, say, £100 a year. Further, the student is separated from his people, ami thrown with few restraints on the large centres at Home. At first, Canadians and Australians, who could" afford it, went to English universities; but the growth of efficient universities in Canada and Australia practically stopped the exodus. South Africans, who until recently had access only to a university which was possibly a greater failure than the New Zealand University, when they could afford it, went to universities in all parts of Europe. There is definite evidence of the exodus of New Zealand students; it is not merely a personal impression. Tn 1909, forty-eight New Zealanders passed medical examinations in Edinburgh alone, and no doubt some failed, and others studied at the London medical schools. We may safely conclude that there were then at least si.xtv New -Zealanders at Rome studying medicine. How many there were studying other subjects I have no information. The following letter from the Professor of Anatomy in the Melbourne University Medical School. Dr. TSevv, is evidence that while the Australians siudying medicine at Edinburgh have decreased the New-Zealanders have increased. I attribute the change to the failure of our Medical School, and the success of the Australian medical schools. Professor Bevy, in his letter, says, "Unfortunately, T know but little of your University, hut when in Edinburgh last year I was much struck by the fact that a large majority of Australasian students in Edinburgh emanate from New Zealand, which did not use to be the case in my student duys in that University." What is the failure of our Medical School, which has the miserable income of £2,000. posting New Zealanders? It is not possible to say exactly,

4—l. 13a.