PROFESSOR BROWN.j

59

J.— l3a.

is now almost universally regarded as the most important function of a university. I do not desire to undervalue the ordinary pass student. The subjects which I teach, when handled by a competent man, are just such as have a great value to a pass student, and open up his mind to trains of thought and give him such vistas of knowledge aa often profoundly influence his mental attitude. I should be the last to push the ordinary man into the background, as it seems to me that a good deal of " tall talk " about university ideals tends to do. The vast majority of the population consists of average men, and you can only make the lump good by making the atoms which compose it good. But at the same time the highest function of a university is undoubtedly the encouragement and propagation of what may be called the higher learning, either by disseminating it or by adding to it by original work on the part of the teachers or the taught. So far as this aspect of university work is concerned the report leaves New Zealand very much where it is at present. I am speaking solely from the arts point of view, but I believe that what I am going to suggest would prove acceptable to science, and might solve the problem of higher teach ing and specialization, which so far in New Zealand has been urged entirely from the point of view of science. I do not suggest that all the colleges should be strengthened in this direction in all subjects equally —the expense of doing so would be considerable, and 1 do not think that it is at all necessary; but I do think that each college might to have a homogeneous section of the arts curriculum more highly developed than the report suggests. If one college had the teaching of languages fully provided for, so that it had five Professors of Languages—Latin, Greek, French, German, English —or if one college had Latin and Greek, another French ami German, both having English adequately taught, it would be possible for a New Zealand student who desired to specialize in these subjects or group of subjects to get adequate instruction. Another college might have mathematics provided for by the institution of two professorships, one of pure the other of applied mathematics, and the same principle could be applied to the other subjects in the arts group. The result would be that in New Zealand, though not at every college, there would be facilities for the highest work, and these facilities could be secured at some expense certainly, but not by an inordinate expenditure. The student would have in go to the centre where his specialty was taught, but the present Senior Scholarships would lie available for the purpose, and if necessary some system of higher scholarships could be instituted to supply the means. 1 believe myself that the country would gain in the long-run if some portion of the money which is at present being spent on free places and the like in secondary schools for pupils who are really not fitted for secondary education were devoted to some purpose like this. It is essentially the systetn which prevails at Home, where Oxford and Cambridge are the universities to which the students of the provincial colleges of England and of the Scottish universities proceed for higher work. This was. for instance, what happened in the case of Professors Easterfield, Picken, and myself, anil of other New Zealand professors. One result of such a scheme would undoubtedly be that the output of original work on the part of the art profeßßorß ami their pupils would be increased. There are several reasons why such output both here and in Australia is at present low, but one of them undoubtedly is that the teachers are overburdened with work. The Professors of Classics and Modern Languages in New Zealand,'for instance, all teach two subjects. The hours required for lectures are considerable. but that is really the smallest part of the difficulty. Far the greater portion of their trme is taken up with preparing their work; and as one who for live years hail Latin and Greek classes going at all grades-—from pass to honours-- I can say that the mere preparation of lectures in a subject when the work varies from year to year took up the greater part of my summers. This applies to all the Arts Professors, even more, I think, than it does to the Professors of Science, who are not now double-banked as far as physics and chemistry are concerned. If at some one or other of the colleges two professors were appointed to do what at present is done by one it is almost certain that the time gained and the concentration secured by the professors having to attend to one subject only would result in a greater amount of original work being done. The same applies to the relations of professor to student. At present an Arts Professor has little time to give to eld students who desire post-graduate work. I have had a ease of this quite lately myself. Fees : The carrying-out of the proposals of the report depend to a great extent on the increase in the fees of the different oolleges. This point has been dealt with by a previous witness, and I should like to say something about it from an arts point of view. I certainly do not think that the fees earned by each class ought to be earmarked for that class —an idea which seems to be implied in some portions of the report —nor do 1 entirely approve of the other alternative, that they should form a common-fee fund on which the whole college should be able to draw without discrimination. Such a course undoubtedly tells against the faculty of arts, which is the great fee-producing element in the college, and which, in a college dependent on its fees for its development, is apt to be "milked" for the benefit of the faculty of science. I am not in any way inimical to the development of that faculty, but I think that its development must mainly, if not entirely, come from funds provided by the State or by outside sources apart from the revenue of the college from fees. Taking the number given for Victoria College in Table C, page 3, and assuming that the fee is £3 35., the fees produced by arts subjects, including mathematics, would be £2,200, while the fees produced by the science subjects, excluding laboratory fees, would be £.'S4S. The expense of salaries for the arts subjects is, roughly, at present, £4,400; that of salaries on the science side is about £2.800. In the case of the faculty of arts the fees do form an appreciable portion of the expenditure on teaching. They are sufficient to pay almost one-half of the present staff; in the faculty of science the fees are a negligible quantity. I do not grumble at this; it is the universal experience of all universities. Science is admittedly expensive to teach, but the ulterior gains to the State from the commercial value of discoveries alone probably justifies the expenditure. This