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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

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This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY - UNIVERSITY OF NEW ZEALAND

Contents


Battle for Reform

But the seeds of reform sown by David Starr Jordan fell on fertile ground about “the old clay patch” of Victoria University College where were a number of young professors, all dissatisfied with the conditions in New Zealand. Among these were von Zedlitz, Laby, Picken, Easterfield, Kirk, and Thomas Hunter, the last-named to become in the course of time first principal of Victoria College and the first professional vice-chancellor of the University of New Zealand. These men were the leaders who formed the University Reform Association in 1910 and in the following year issued the pamphlet University Reform in New Zealand. In this were gathered the opinions of 65 leading university men of Britain, America, and Australia concerning the two fundamental questions — the external examination, and the powers that professors ought to have in the organisation of the university. The replies were almost unanimous in condemning the system as it was, and the Reform Association set about petitioning Parliament for a Royal Commission. The reformers insisted that the defects in the system went back to the very origins of the University in 1874 as a purely examining body. The Senate prescribed examinations and appointed examiners, and so indirectly controlled the academic life of the colleges. Teachers had no direct voice in deciding what should be taught, how students should study, or how they should proceed to graduation. The external examination, in which the chancellor and the Senate took such pride as giving prestige to our graduates overseas, was condemned as wrong in principle and misleading in practice. Other grounds for criticism there were indeed — lack of finance and, as a corollary, inadequate salaries, haphazard appointments, inadequate libraries, and lack of provision for research.

The petition for a Royal Commission, referred to the Education Committee of the House, was bitterly opposed by the Chancellor. The Committee reported against the Commission — the Senate could itself effect the necessary reforms — but it agreed the professors should have more part in framing curricula and in examinations, and recommended that the Director of Education, George Hogben, should report to the Government on college finances and on libraries.

Senate met in January 1912; and, on the motion of James Allen of Otago, decided to institute an annual Professorial Conference. The reformers rested their hopes for a while on that, as well as on electioneering to secure better representation on college councils. In November the Professorial Conference was held; it made some recommendations which the Senate, in 1913, rejected; it also decided that the conference was useless, and abolished it. This was a blow to the reformers, and so, a new Government having taken office, they concentrated on evidence before the Education Committee, then sitting. But the Royal Commission was again denied, though the Committee did recommend reconstitution of Senate to make it consist mainly of members elected from college councils. In the end the New Zealand University Amendment Act, 1914, was passed with little debate — war in a wider field had begun. The Senate remained unchanged; a Board of Studies was set up; but the financial provisions were unsatisfactory.

The Reform Association dissolved, but the Board of Studies took up its policy though it too inherited the hostility of the Senate. At last, in 1921, Senate gave way: pass examinations from 1922 were to be conducted by the teachers, and an assessor with the right of final decision. But reform of the structure of the course for a bachelor's degree — the nine-unit course — was still to be won.

During the war years the load of administration had become too complex for any chancellor not entirely a university officer to superintend adequately. Defalcations by the then Registrar in 1915 caused some office reorganisation, and Hunter's plan for committee control between Senate meetings was adopted, though it was soon found that the bulk of the work fell on the Wellington committee. Stout Suggested the appointment of a principal — his retort to the declaration of the Board of Studies that the time had come to establish four separate universities.