1.—13 a.

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PBOFESSOE BBOWN.

is putting the arguments in favour of science from the lowest point of view : there are other gains of a higher type which cannot be reckoned in value of money. A point in which science is perhaps unfairly treated is the imposition of a laboratory fee. In Victoria College this is ,£.i 3b., so that a student taking science pays a total fee of £6 Cs. as against £:! 3s. for an arts subject. There is a great deal to be said for the abolition of this imposition; but if laboratory fees were abolished, ami (he sum at present produced by them taken for the commonfee fund, arts and law would contribute in Victoria College in the proportion of at least eight to one —that is to say, the undoubted benefit to the faculty of science might prove to be at the expense of the legitimate development of the faculties of arts and law. 1 give this solely as an illustration of my meaning. What I should like to make quite clear, then, is that, whilst I believe in something like a common-fee fund, I do think that arts will suffer if it is expected to contribute largely to the development of science. For one thing, the word ''science" in these days is something like the blessed word ".Mesopotamia"; and science, after having been, I admit, unjustly held down by the brute force of the older arts subjects, is now threatening to exercise some oppression in its turn — it has a capacious maw, it is somewhat noisy, and verj keen and enthusiastic — whilst the average Arts Professor te a quiet, studious creature whose work is sometimes undervalued in these material days. I think that it should be clearly understood that arts should have something like a first call on arts fees for the improvement of the teaching in arts. Library : Here, too, I think that the arts faculty is apt to be treated unfairly owing to the absence of a clear conception of its needs. To an Aits Professor a good library is all-in-all; it furnishes him with the material on which he works, anil is to him very much what his laboratory is to a scientist. A scientist, of course, requires a good library too, but not in the sense in which an arts man needs one. A language-teacher, for instance, cannot do any work at all without access to an extensive collection of books. That is another reason why original work in languages worth publishing is not common in Australia or X;w Zealand. It is undoubtedly possible for a scientist to do original work, not entirely without books, of course, but certainly with less dependence on them than the arts man. I do not suppose, for instance, that the researches in X rays, for which Professor Laby and his students are rightly distinguished, require a large library. They require, I take it, mainly aptitude or genius for research work in that particular direction, and an adequate laboratory, combined with access to recent scientific literature on the question. Syntactical work in Latin, on the other hand, in which I am personally interested, 1 find exceedingly difficult to bring to any definite conclusion owing to-the absence of books, and I have to do a great deal of preliminary work myself in studying any problem which I know to have been already covered by sonic other student. All original workers in arts are really faced by similar difficulties. The point [ wish to make, therefore, is that in respect of library provision the arts subjects ought to receive special consideration 1)\ reason of their close dependence on libraries; and I should like to strengthen this general argument by two facts—one, that the arts subjects are the huge fee-producing subjects, and so provide a fund from which, to some extent, such increased grant might lie taken ; and the other, that aits subjects are not expensive to teach, as they do not involve laboratory expenditure and therefore do not draw largely on the common funds of the college. I quite agree as to the inadequacy of the proposed expenditure of £2."i0 per annum to do anything in the way of equipping the college libraries in the direction of research. The annual expenditure of a larger sum in Victoria College is insufficient to provide the ordinary books required in each subject—in my subject quite inadequate, as there is so much back literature to lie procured.

Friday. 29th August, 1913. Professor Easterfield examined. (No. 16.) 1. The Chairman.] What are you?— Chairman of the Science Faculty at Victoria College. 2. Will you make your statement to the Committee? —Yes. Before dealing with the report itself I wish to protest against the principle that such a report shall be taken as the basis for fixing the finances of our University institutions. If the precedent is once established I foresee great danger that the Education Department will eventually override the four University colleges, and their independence will remain in name only. So long as the present Inspector-General remains in office friction would be reduced to the minimum, because lie is in sympathy with the Univereity institutions, but no one can guarantee that his successors will be equally sympathetic. In any case the function allotted to him forms only a portion of a far wider inquiry which can only be conducted by a Royal Commission of the type which witnesses from Christchurch and Wellington have already suggested. Urgent as it is that the financial straits which are crippling the colleges should be relieved, it is, I consider, most improper that the rigid fixing of the finances should be attempted on a one-man recommendation and without any reference to the reform of University education in New Zealand. Coining to the report itself, I enter my protest as a private citizen against the special reference to the wealthy citizens of Wellington (page 17, linel). No part of New Zealand has reason to be proud of the liberality of the private citizen in the support of University education, and it seems out of place to select the citizens of that district in which a college has existed for the smallest length of time for a reproof which, if administered at all, should be applied to New-Zealanders as a whole rather than those in any particular centre. In this connection I would point out that University teaching has existed in Wellington for only one-half the number of years that it has existed in Auckland, and only one-third of the length of time that it has existed in Dunedin. The general principle underlying the report appears to be a pious attempt to enforce the scriptural precept, " To him that hath shall be given and he