[.—l3a.

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I'JIOI'KSSOIi YON ZEDLITZ.

17. 1 am not asking the question as to a man solely educated in New Zealand : my question refers to the New-Zealander partly educated in New Zealand, or either wholly or partly in England or elsewhere Can we hope to draw from such resources the supply of professors in the comparatively near future?— Certainly. I think there is great hope from the fact that there are even now about a dozen graduates of our University who are employed in teaching-posts in universities elsewhere. 18. And who might be brought back here? —Yes. At the same time you must understand rhat anything short of absolutely free competition would be a mistake in making the appointments. 19. I am not suggesting there should not be free competition. It comes to this: that there are different ideals in the three great countries, America, England, and Germany, as compared with our ideals. I think you have admitted that our ideals are not quite in line with even the British. Are we not compelled from our necessities to carry on our University education on somewhat different lines from those of other countries because of the circumstances? —Frankly, I think we are compelled to have university teaching in the four centres. I cannot see any escape from that, which imposes upon us the necessity of a Federal University, and a Federal University is never quite as satisfactory as one with the ordinary constitution —that is to say, it is a pis aller. After a very considerable lapse of years our Federal University might divide into four distinct ones, but that is in the very distant future. It would depend upon a very large increase of population indeed before that was possible; but apart from the necessity of a federal constitution I see absolutely no reason whatever why the conception of training young men and women to the scientific spirit, and attempting to give them that kind of knowledge which is power —because it trains the judgment and the power of reasoning—should not be the aim of our Federal University as it is of every normal university. That is to say, we should trample under foot the old hydra of trusting almost entirely to the magic of examinations. 20. You have in your mind, so far as I can gather, rather the question of examinations and the constitution of our University under its existing circumstances. What I want to know is, cari we not amongst ourselves, with the knowledge we have here and which we can get outside, settle this question of examinations —can we be helped in the solution of this question by outside opinion? —Well, for what my experience of life is worth, I dread short cuts. I think the attempt to solve this whole difficult question quickly without recourse to the usual method, which in all universities has been the method of inquiry by a Royal Commission or by a parliamentary Committee with the assistance of outside experts, as in the case of the University of Wales, is a short cut which will probably plunge us into worse troubles, or as bad troubles as we are in. 21. Might not the Commission direct us on the road of the short cut and the very short cut? I mean, is it not possible that the Commission, especially if we got an outsider, may say, " We recommend you to at once do away with external examinations " and wipe the whole thing out, and go in at once for such kind of examinations as you have yourselves suggested? That would be a very short cut, would it not? Would that be better than the evolutionary progress of gradually getting that? —I almost think we are at cross purposes. I may not have been following the exact meaning of your questions. I thought you were referring to the method of inquiry. 22. I am referring now to the question of examinations. I want presently to get to the question of the constitution of the Universities? —The two are inextricably bound up. Had the professors as a whole been recognized as a consultative body they would have long since brought pressure to beai on the Senate in the matter of examinations, and there would have been a continuous pressure year after year until at last the Senate had to give in. Given a constitution which affords the professorial body a locus standi even without any great authority, and even without a fixed position in the constitution, as long as they have got that regular conference that you yourself advocate they will exercise pressure in the course of time, and the question of how examinations are run. which ultimately is a minor question although it has been put very much in the forefront, will solve itself. We should greatly grieve if Parliament or any outside body of men bound the University for ever to a particular scheme of conducting these examinations. The University should be free. The first requirement of a university is freedom—free to fix its own fate. 23. Well, I am net quite sure what your attitude is. Do you place more importance upon amending the constitution of the University than upon this other question of examinations?— Unquestionably that is the essential. 24. I want to know whether you think an outsider can advise us, seeing how different our circumstances are —whether an outsider can advise us satisfactorily upon the constitution of the University here, taking into consideration all our circumstances? He does not live here, does not know us, and does not know what the ideals are. Can he be much help to us? —Well, it has been thought so by the Imperial Government in regard to the inquiry into the University of Wales. 25. You can hardly call the University of Wales a university in which local British men are not acquainted with the circumstances? —You know Cambridge yourself, and the head of Downing College would have as much knowledge or as little knowledge of and sympathy with the position of the Welsh student in Aberystwith College as he would of the New Zealand student. You know how entirely alien the thoughts and training of a master of a Cambridge college would be. You could not have a clearer example of whether it would be valuable to bring in a man entirely from outside. 26. I want your reason for suggesting to us that an outsider should be on the Commission— our circumstances do differ very materially from the British? —Yes, but what it does not differ in is the essentials of a useful university. If you have an outsider when two or three proposals aiv being considered U>v the constitution of the University he can speak with authority on those two proposals, and say whether either of them is capable of providing a nucleus for a genuine university education, Now. I think the whole history of the University of New Zealand shows