Chapter Two Establishing the College, 1883,93

URING the discussions on starting a university in Auckland, and indeed Delsewhere in New Zealand, leading politicians, parsons, and newspaper editors cited precedents in Oxford, Cambridge, London, Dublin, and elsewhere, and quoted the opinions of John Stuart Mill, Mark Pattison, and others on higher education. But what could a university college be like in Auckland? In many respects it took a long time to discover any lasting answers. But the College Council and its Professorial Board were not inhibited in making experiments and advancing, or at least sending out scouting parties, in various educational directions. While the College was small it is possible to see its work whole; to see in one glance most of its efforts to find its niche in the colonial cultural ecology of Auckland. On a minute scale, very many of the activities of the large University of a century later were attempted, often without much success. In 1881, although the University College Bill did not receive its third reading, Parliament had voted £1,500 for the College. In March 1882, without waiting for the Bill to pass, the Minister of Education, Thomas Dick, instructed Francis Dillon Bell, the Agent-General in London, to engage the services of a Professor of Classics and English and a Professor of Mathematics and Mathematical Physics at £700 a year each.1 Once the Act was passed he was also asked to find a Professor of Chemistry and Experimental Physics and another professor for Natural Science. Applicants were not sought in Australasia. The Agent-General recounted some of his difficulties over the appointments in letters to Sir John Hall, the Premier in 1879 to 1882. He wrote that there had been

20 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE

MRS E . T IZ... R O

The original teachers were an impressive group: LEFT Frederick Douglas Brown,

the chemist; RIGHT Thomas George Tucker, first Professor of Classics

No end of attempts at 'influencing' in favour of particular candidates, but l hope we shall make a good choice of men all the same. The inferior applicants ask awkward questions, but even the best are puzzled by the terms 'Natural Science', 'Biology', and 'Mathematical physics'; and I chuckle when I think what the Education Department would do if it had to make a shot at defining its own terms.

And, a month later, in November 1882, he added,

These 4 Auckland Chairs of yours have given me fits in every way. A motley crowd of people have been wanting to be taken on for rhe sake of their big brother, or (more often) of their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts. The Lord do so unto me more also if I ever under­ takes such a job no more. But I think you will allow I made a stroke in getting, Huxley, Frankland, and Geikie, to say nothing of Crum Brown for the choosing of the 2 new chairs. 2

Some of the most distinguished scholars and scientists in Great Britain had agreed to scrutinize the applications and select the professors. The applications in classics were reviewed by the famous Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, and three other classicists. Professor T a it of Edinburgh and Dr Jellett, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, scrutinized the applications for the mathematics chair. Professor Frankland of the Royal School of Mines and Professor Crum Brown of Edinburgh did the same for chemistry, while Professor Huxley and Professor Geikie, Director General of the Geological Survey, took charge of the natural science appointment.3 The new College could scarcely have been better advised.

21 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

The original reaching staff, and their immediate successors, were an impressive group both intellectually and in their academic training. The chemist, Frederick D. Brown, had studied both in France, where he obtained a B.Sc., and at Leipzig, and had graduated B.Sc. in the University of London. He had excellent research experience both in Germany and at the Royal College of Chemistry. He also studied Geology in Germany and at the Royal School of Mines. In 1881 he was demonstrator in Chemistry in the University Museum at Oxford. The University gave him the rare degree of M. A. honoris causa. He had also lectured in physics at Bedford College. He had published thirteen papers in the leading English and German chemistry journals. His papers on fractional distillation were described by the Oxford Professor of Chemistry as the most important contributions to the subject. Algernon Phillips Thomas, the biologist, was an Oxford graduate from Balliol College with second-class honours in mathematics in his 'moderations' (the preliminary examinations) and first-class honours in the final honours School of Natural Sciences. He, too, had studied in Germany. In 1879 he held an Oxford scholarship to study geology. He was Demonstrator in Biology in the University Museum of Oxford. He had carried out research for the Royal Agricultural Society into the life history of the liver fluke which had wiped out about a tenth of the sheep in Britain in 1879 and again in 1880. He solved this problem and published papers both in Nature and in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. Two further reports were published in 1883. Almost simultaneously a German scientist had discovered the life cycle of the fluke, and there was some dispute about who deserved the credit.4 Thomas was twenty-six. The emphasis on research which lay at the foundation of the college was not to be revived for many years. The classicist was a brilliant young scholar of twenty-four who was a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, Thomas George Tucker. Against sixty competitors he had won the Craven scholarship in 1881. In 1882 when he graduated B.A. he was declared first equal, and in the Classical Tripos he was the Senior Classic-the best of the sixty-five scholars of his year. Of these three applicants their very distinguished referees spoke in the highest terms. The mathematics chair was originally offered to a man named William Steadman Aldis, but he could not come in the near future. so it was then offered to George F. Walker, a Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. He was twenty-six and had been the second Wrangler-that is, second in his year in mathematics, a very distinguished place.5 Shortly after he arrived in Auckland he went out in a boat with Professor Tucker to go fishing off Shelly Beach, Ponsonby, and was drowned. Tucker was rescued by some boys, narrowly escaping the same fate. The mathematics chair was again offered to Aldis, who now accepted. Francis Dillon Bell had remarked on the youth of these professors and said that distinguished scholars of thirty or forty could not easily be tempted to leave. Aldis was an exception. He was born in 1839, the son of a Baptist minister. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and was first Wrangler in 1861, and was the Smith's Prizeman for the year, but because he was a Nonconformist he could not hold a col­ lege fellowship (until the religious disabilities were abolished in 1871). He spent some time as a private tutor in Oxford and then he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Principal of the Newcastle College of Physical Science, which was part of the University of Durham. When he came to Auckland at the end of 1883 he

22 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE

The first Registrar, the Rev. Robert Kidd

A tiCKI ANO STAR was forty-four, the only early professor who was not relatively young. He had already published several textbooks and 'elementary treatises', some of which had come through several editions, Geometrical Optics (1872), Solid Geometry (1865), and Rigid Dynamics (1882). In 1887 the Clarendon Press published A Text Book on Algebra as one of a series of books. Auckland was very fortunate to secure the services of so impressive a mathematician. The first six members of the Auckland University College Council were gazetted in November 1882 and in February 1883-the Government nominating the graduates' three members for the time being. They were Judge T. B. Gillies, a Methodist minister, Thomas Buddle, Sir Maurice O'Rorke, the Presbyterian minister, David Bruce, Judge Hugh Garden Seth Smith, and the Honourable Colonel Theodore Minet Haultain, a British army officer who fought in the Anglo-Maori wars and was later a cabinet minister. The Auckland parliamentarians elected John Logan Campbell, one of Auckland's founders, W. G. Cowie, the Anglican Bishop of Auckland, and a leading lawyer, Edwin Hesketh. Haultain, Seth-Smith, Hesketh, and Sir Frederick Whitaker, a later Councillor were, with Cowie, the Standing Commission of the Anglican General Synod for the interpretation of the Canons, so the Council was predominantly Anglican.6 The Mayor and the Chairman of the

23 A HISTORY OF TH E UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

Education Board were also members of Council. They represented the core of the Auckland 'establishment', the essence of respectability and standing in society. At their first meeting, in February 1883, O'Rorke was elected Chairman. They adver­ tised for a Registrar at a salary of £100, and in March appointed the Reverend Robert Kidd. Or Kidd, as he was usually called, had been the first headmaster of Auckland Grammar, but had been dismissed. He was a 'squat figure with a slight lisp, a club foot and (strangely enough in an Irishman) a difficulty in sounding his "r's".'7 Like O'Rorke, he was a graduate of Trinity College, with the degrees of B.A. and LLD. He was sixty-four. His duties were to attend all meetings of Council and committees desiring his attendance, to keep the records, the Registry books and accounts, to countersign all cheques and to conduct all correspondence.8 Early in 1883 the Auckland secondary schools were disaffiliated and the Auckland University College affiliated with the University of New Zealand. The College was formally opened on the evening of Monday, 21 May 1883, at a ceremony in the crowded Choral Hall. The Governor, Sir William Jervois, a former military engineer, whose house stood four hundred yards away, addressed the gathering. He began by saying:

The work on which we are engaged-placing the advantages of a university education within the reach of every man and woman of Auckland-is one the importance of which it is almost impossible to over-estimate. It is a work that will, l trust, influence not merely the immediate neighbourhood and the present generation, but also indirectly the whole colony, and that for all time. It is hardly too much to say that the life of a nation and the life of its universities are so closely bound together that the causes which have brought about the rise or, it may be, decay, of a country may best be understood by studying the history of its educational institutions.

He went on to review the history of European universities at length-in those days when public entertainments were few audiences expected speeches to be prolonged. He argued that the details, not the principle, of university training must be altered to suit altered circum­ stances. Of course each country has its own special requirements; but l believe rhat the idea that university education is unsuited to the requirements of a colony such as this, arises from the fact that those who put it forward refer only to university life as it existed at Oxford and Cambridge some years ago. lt must be recollected, however, that at that time the English universities had to some extent drifted away from the objects of their foundation. They were almost limited to one class whereas rhe word 'university' implies not, as some have supposed, that everything is taught, but that which is taught is taught to all.

He went on to say that the early universities in Paris and Bologna were, 'as I hope the University Colleges of New Zealand always will be-thoroughly popular institu­ tions. No greater mistake can be made than to suppose that universities are intended only for people of private means and learned desire.' The new College would be open to all, women as well as men, and to all classes. He looked forward to students being able to study part-time. He spoke of the recent new university creations in England and Australia and thought that New Zealand could be proud that colleges had been established so soon after the colony was founded.

24 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE

The remark about everything being taught was a reference to the view, put forward by John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University in 1853, that a university must teach 'universal knowledge'. The Governor held up a democratic ideal, while the classicist, Tucker, expressed a more traditional Oxford view, much nearer to Newman:

A university aims ... at expanding the faculties, raising the intellect, turning them in the right direction, and supplying people with a mental apparatus, as it were, for use in future investigation; it helps to cultivate their intellectual powers, and therewith, l imagine, the moral tone also.

The two scientists occupied very different ground. They both spoke of the practical value of their subject. Brown related how an Englishman discovered how to extract dyes from coal tar, but how the Germans had the necessary expertise in applied chemistry to take the process over. Thomas spoke of research into 'spleenic fever' and the 'fluke disease' in cattle, and sheep, and urged that the biological and geological resources of New Zealand had to be opened up. Sir Maurice O'Rorke, whose efforts the Governor had praised, finally spoke. O'Rorke related how his endeavours to secure a College in 1872 and again in 1880 and 1881 had been foiled. Even now there was no building. He could not forbear to bring up what came to be called 'the site row', one of Auckland's obsessions. 'I say· fearlessly, and without any dread of contradiction, that no site can be too good for our university-(cheers)-and that we shall never consent to have it banished into the outskirts of the city, to the detriment of the institution, and the inconvenience of the student, but rely on the Government to find a suitable site for us.' The Governor then, with some good humour, declared the College open. His Excellency said:

I may say, before I formally declare the college open, that the other day I visited that structure which is now designated the Auckland University College, and I was persuaded that no time should be lost in providing a suitable home for this new institution. (Cheers.) I really could not believe, when I was taken into that barn-(laughter)-by Sir Maurice O'Rorke, that I was in a university at all. (Laughter.) I asked where the Registrar was, and I was taken into what first I was inclined to think was the scullery-(laughter)-but there I found not only the Registrar, but the Professor of Natural Science, Professor Thomas. Then I asked where Professor Brown was to he found, and l was shown into a room which absolutely had nothing in it but a chair and a table. (Laughter.) There was no chemical apparatus whatever.9

A month later the new College came under some light political fire. Three Members of the House of Representatives, from Nelson, Motueka, and Oamaru, introduced in the House an Auckland University College Repeal Bill arguing that Auckland should not have a College unless Wellington did too.10 They received no support and the existence of the College was no longer threatened, though its precise form remained exiguous.

Certain things about the College were clear from the first. Most striking, perhaps, was that it was a state university college. Otago and Canterbury had been launched by private citizens co-operating with the Provincial Councils, but Auckland was a state creation, almost entirely dependent on the central government for funds. In this

25 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND respect it was less independent than the British civic universities, all of which were private or municipal in origins.11 But state origins were not all disadvantageous. As with the state universities in the U.S.A., the establishment of a state college was a recognition that the provision of higher education was a vital function of societies and of the view that the most suitable agency to provide this function was the state, not religious or private groups. There was also a strong belief that in a democracy the recipients of higher education should not be an intellectual elite, but that all citizens who could benefit from it should have the opportunity to do so.12 A further, impor­ tant point was that the College was entirely secular. Many early colleges in the U.S.A. and, of course, in Europe, were religious foundations. By contrast the College at Auckland did not even possess a chapel until the mid-twentieth century. Other characteristics of the College were obvious from the beginning: it was goirig to be poor and it would be small. Starting with four professors was common enough-Aidis's previous College had begun with four, as had the University of Melbourne. But there would not, for a long time, be many students. In 1881 Auckland's population was 30,952, while the township of Onehunga and some villages lay a few miles to the south. Dunedin was still larger than Auckland, with 42,795 people. Both Otago and Canterbury had larger European populations than Auckland Province, which had a European population of 100,000 plus a majority of the country's 44,000 Maoris. In Auckland there were 20,669 children at school. In the secondary schools there were only 550 students. Had the College enrolled only matriculated students it could scarcely have survived. Its regulations specified that lectures were nor restricted to matriculated students of the University of New Zealand, but that anyone paying the fees could attend. There were so few secondary schools that the name 'College' often meant no more than post-primary school education. In this respect, too, there were North American parallels. When the University of Wisconsin was started there were no public high schools whatsoever and it was common for students to enrol at university without a secondary education. 13 One of the Council's first tasks was to find a home for the College. When it opened it had only one building provided by the Government, the disused District Court House in Eden Street. It was described by Arthur Bowell, Brown's laboratory assistant, as a building '-it hardly warranted the term, being one room, twenty-eight feet by fifty feet with a "lean-to" on three sides .. . .' When O'Rorke showed the staff round it was full of cobwebs, and the wallpaper and scrim was hanging loose.14 It was refurbished at a cost of £300, to provide a lecture room for Professors Brown and Thomas. A room was built on for a chemical laboratory. The Auckland Institute agreed that Professor Tucker could lecture in a room in the Museum. When District Judge Seth-Smith began to give law lectures in rnid-1883, he delivered them in the new District Resident Magistrate's Court. Lest readers may suppose that such accommodation was unique, it should be added that the Universities of Liverpool and Leicester began work in disused lunatic asylums and the University of Leeds in a disused bankruptcy court. The Leicestershire and Rutland Lunatic Asylum, however, it must be conceded, looked like a palace.15 The Hall Government had considered-or perhaps, it is not clear, intended-giving Government House to the new College and there is a plan of this sub-division in the Crown Lands Office, Auckland, dated July 1881.16 Certainly O'Rorke and the

26 ESTABLIS HING THE COLLEGE

Council were led to expect that Government House would be available.17 ln London, the Agent-General showed a picture of Government House to Thomas and Brown and said, 'That is to be the home of your College.' Brown commented later, 'Unfor­ tunately I found, on landing in Auckland, that this information was-shall we say?-premature.'18 The Governor, Jervois, was very helpful, and agreed that a suitable site for the College was 'in the paddock at the rear of Government House facing Princes Street and extending to Symonds Street'.19 This suggestion was even­ tually to cause prolonged disputes. In July 1883 Council drew up a memorandum urging the Government either to provide suitable accommodation or a capital grant.20 To its plea, like O'Rorke's to Whitaker a month earlier, the Government responded with a flat negative. It had no funds for accommodation for the College, and no suitable building was available. In an act of thrift which looked to O'Rorke like meanness, the Government also refused to renew the 1881 vote of £1,500, which had lapsed.21 O'Rorke protested that since the Government asked the Agent-General to select the first professors on the strength of that vote, Council assumed that it had been reserved for that purpose. But now the Government had charged the expenses incurred in making the appoint­ ments against the £4,000 vote of 1882.22 The Professors felt that 'the mean and inefficient character of the present buildings cannot but impair the position which the University College should hold in the public estimation and in this way also greatly diminish its usefulness. '23 In August, after a term's experience of teaching, the Professorial Board sent resolutions to Council complaining about conditions. Because of the distance between the three buildings where lectures were delivered, students were often late for lectures. There was no accommodation for the students, who had to stand in the street in the inter­ vals between lectures. There was no library nor even a reading room where a professor could keep books or see students. 24 O'Rorke approached Thomas Dick, the Minister of Education, again early in 1884 and received the same answer. The Government would not give rooms in Govern­ ment House, nor pay rent for rooms elsewhere, as it had 'no vote for the purpose'.25 The reasons for these refusals were clear. First of all, though Auckland enjoyed an

Government House, Auckland, in the early 1880s AUCKlAND INSTlTUTE ANO MUSEUM A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

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A survey plan of 1881 showed the Government House site given to the University economic boom in the years 1881 to about 1884, the country in general had entered the 'long depression' of 1879-95. By 1885-6 Auckland, too, was suffering from the depression.26 As Dick told O'Rorke, a recent £3,000,000 British loan was appropriated and there was no loan money availableP

28 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE

As far as Government House was concerned, there was another problem. Opposi­ tion to using it for a college was as strong as in 1872. At a meeting in mid-1882, Sir George Grey, John Sheehan, and other politicians had opposed handing Govern­ ment House over to the College. 28 The Auckland City Council petitioned the Government against the 'alienation' of the area for any purpose.29 The Government would do nothing until Aucklanders were agreed. When T ole asked in the House about a building, Dick replied that Government House was most suitable but that Auckland Members were divided in opinion.30 The Star favoured giving Government House-'a melancholy memorial of the past'-to the College: 'The site is perfec­ tion-accommodation good, surroundings picturesque and classical, and its nearness to the centre of the city favours for the night classes'. The 'academical groves' could be opened to citizens for a few days each week. Bur the Herald thought that the site should 'be of service to the whole people'. Indeed, it was 'a question whether the University would not be more suitably placed at some distance from the business part of the town'. It thought that 'the grounds are too precious'. Their use by the College would not be 'a public purpose': 'that the University should snatch away this unique piece of land in the very centre of the city would be a robbery of the public.' It would be best if the grounds were used for a park and the house as an art gallery and library. Now the Star swung round to agreeing with the Herald and suggested that perhaps the College could be placed in the suburb of Grey Lynn.31 All the College received in 1884 as a result of its representations was Admiralty House, another two-storey wooden building nearly twenty years old, and on the con­ dition that if the Admiral wanted the rooms the College would vacate them.32 It pro­ vided a second lecture room. In 1886 the College arranged to lease a building in Princes Street, next door to the Museum, from the Auckland Institute. The Institute made its geological and biological collections available for study by the College staff and students. O'Rorke had his eyes on a large two-storey building known as 'Old Parliament House', which had been built in 1854 to accommodate the first Parlia­ ment, and later housed the Provincial Council. It was now occupied by the Lands and Survey Department. In 1885 Robert Stout, the Premier, said that the College could have it when the Department moved.33 Brown and Thomas went over the building in 1885,34 and thought that, with the other buildings, it would suffice for current needs. The College occupied this building in 1890. Generations of students called it 'the Shirt Factory', 'the Boot Factory', or 'the Shedifice'. It was, a student wrote, a

structure that looked you know, Like an ad. for the Kauri Timber Co.35

At least it was relatively spacious in comparison with the other buildings. The College now had a group of buildings in the vicinity of Princes Street, Jermyn Street, and Symonds Street-'quaim ramshackle wooden buildings', Beatrice Webb called them in 1898.36 They were, of course, not comparable with the elegant buildings erected for Otago University and Canterbury College, but as far as instruc­ tion went they sufficed, and were to suffice until 1912. Approaching the Government for a site, or for Government House, became a ritual. For instance, in 1885 O'Rorke, Brown, Thomas, and the Mayor formed a

29 A HlSTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND deputation to Sir Robert Stout, without avaii.J7 Sometimes the College received local support. ln 1887 the Herald temporarily changed its opinion and said that Govern­ ment House was now 'practically useless' for its original purpose, since the Governor had to be in Wellington most of the time. The 'best and most popular destination' for the House would be 'for the purposes of the People's University College. The People's University College we say, because there is no greater fallacy than to suppose ... that the University College exists only for the benefit of the wealthier class'. 38 But nothing was achieved. Almost the sole income of the College in this period was the statutory grant of £4,000. Lecture fees, which were small, went to the professors. The Auckland Univer­ sity College Reserves Act of 1885, drafted by O'Rorke, vested large areas of land in the College. There were 10,000 acres at Taupiri, 10,000 in the Waikato, another 10,000 at Whakatane, and 354 acres at Ararimu, near Waimauku. The land was poor or heavily forested, and when Council leased some of it out, and also leased out the rights to cut flax and timber, it brought in very little money, a mere £780 in 1890. The Taupiri Reserve Coal Co. leased some of the reserves, but it was in constant trouble in the 1880s, and could not pay its rent. Eventually Council had to forego arrears and to reduce the rent. ln 1892 Council decided to ask the Commissioner of

An Auckland University College budget for one quarter, 1890

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30 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE

Crown Lands to control the leases, rather than put up with the endless trouble.39 The College Council loaned £3,000 in 1888 on the security of a mortgage to the Agricultural and Pastoral Association. Further evidence of the economic depression may be seen in the fact that the Association could not pay the interest and eventually Council had to take over its property at Green Lane.40 Because the College was so poor, Council had to make unceasing efforts to save money, for instance by cancelling courses. There were no departmental funds at all, so that the Professors were always writing to the Chairman of the Council to ask for a few benches, drawers, cupboards, lights. In the old buildings Brown had many problems because the foundations were sinking and the floor was not level. Even petty requests had to be directed to O'Rorke himself. So the staff was not freed for thought, reading, and lecture preparation, but endlessly involved in minor details of housekeeping. It was not an atmosphere likely to encourage or even to permit original work. A. H. Bowell, Brown's lab. assistant, found that he had to be 'farrier, carpenter, electrician, mechanician, brick-layer, cleaner, these without exaggeration'. He said that his furniture consisted of 'a gas meter, a gas engine and rat holes. For warmth, I used to place a sheet of iron over the gas jet and hope for the best.'41 Although the College was small, many tasks had to be done as if for a larger institu­ tion. For instance a College Seal had to be invented. In 1883, the Agent-General was asked to select a design. In 1887 a design from Mr Wyon of London was submitted to a committee of Council, which substituted three kiwis for the three stars suggested by the designer. The motto 'Meliora sequor' (1 follow the better [course]) was adopted provisionally. Later Bishop Cowie suggested 'lngenio et labore' (By talent and hard work) which was accepted.42 Such small matters took up much time. Then the College Regulations had to be drawn up-and printed for the second term 1883. They were simple-the 'bureaucracy' consisted of one man, Or Kidd, and the Professorial Board of four men. There were two terms of fourteen weeks, starting in early April and late July. Lecture fees were fifteen shillings for a course occupying an hour a week, thirty shillings for two, and so on. In 1888, because of the depression, they were reduced to ten shillings. Anyone who paid could attend. A student who attended two-thirds of the lectures and passed the annual examinations of the College would receive a 'certificate of attendance'. These exams were to be held at the end of the second term. This was what came to be called 'keeping terms'. Any matriculated student who 'kept terms' could then sit for the University of New Zealand's degree examination. Most of the B.A. and Honours papers were examined in England, the aim being to ensure the New Zealand degree standards should be those of the University of London. The chief author of this system was Tancred; its chief opponent, for some time, was O'Rorke, backed by the Auckland University College Council. This strange arrangement ensured that teachers did not examine their own-or, indeed, any other advanced students-for the degree itself. It rook up to six months for degree candidates to learn the results-and in 1897, all the examina­ tion scripts were lost in a shipwreck in the Straits of Magellan. In this case the University was forced to accept examinations conducted and marked in the Colleges. 43 The whole system was utterly dominated by examinations but this was true of the

31 A HISTORY OF THE UNlVERSITY OF AUCKLAND entire education system, which was based on that in England. Every primary school child was examined regularly to test that a certain 'standard' of work had been achieved before it was promoted to the next 'standard'. Students living more than ten miles from a College could be exempted from atten­ dance at lectures (these were called 'exemptcd'-later 'extra-mural'-students, but they could not escape the net of examinations. At first exempted students had to sit a special examination before the degree exams, and from 1888 they had to sit the annual examination of the College where they were registered. The Minister of Education, William Pember Reeves, objected to this and asked that they be excused the College exams, since they had not heard the lectures. Tancred observed, in reply, 'that examinations taken by themselves .. . do not afford always sufficient indication of the attainments of a graduate.' Reeves replied acidly that he had 'not been able to understand the bearing of the argument which makes the insufficiency of the examination tests a reason for an increase in their number.' He threatened to legislate on this matter, but did not do so.44 Because of the extra-mural system the Auckland University College arranged for its internal examination papers to be sat in various towns, including Nelson, Napier, Wellington, and New Plymouth. The atmosphere of academic competitiveness was fostered by a series of scholar­ ships: there were the University of New Zealand's Junior (Entrance) Scholarships and its Senior Scholarships, to be won by candidates for Honours. Both of these involved extra examinations. Then Auckland introduced its own College scholarships, both Entrance and Senior Scholarships-the latter awarded to the best students in the College examinations. The College's first benefactor, Judge Gillies, in 1884 donated £3,000 for two science scholarships. One was named the Sinclair Scholarship in zoology and botany after his wife and her uncle, Andrew Sinclair, the former Colonial Secretary and a notable botanist. The second was the Gillies Scholarship in chemistry and physics. All the matriculated Auckland students were enrolled for the LLB., the M.A. degree, or the B.A. degree-there was at first no B.Sc. The B.A. structure was simple, and by more modern standards not demanding, for no subject was 'advanced' beyond a year. Students sat for the degree in two sections, the first after two years and the second after the third year. Latin and mathematics were compulsory. Students had to pass in five of the prescribed subjects, which included several not taught in Auckland at first, for instance 'Mental Science', that is, psychology and philosophy. In 1886 the number of subjects was raised to six. A candidate for Honours sat an extra exam after a fourth year. One or two subjects were then 'advanced'. The examination papers for M.A. were the same as for B.A. (Honours). In 1885 the University of New Zealand approved of a B.Sc. degree, to be taken in two sections. Mathematics, physical science, chemistry, and natural science were compulsory. The other subjects were Latin, Greek, English, modern languages, and mental science, of which two were to be chosen. The Auckland University College began teaching for this degree in 1887. The number of students at Auckland was small. In 1883 ninery-five students attended lectures. Next year there were 175; including two graduates, thirty-one undergraduates, and sixty-three unmatriculated students. There was a decline,

32 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE probably because of the economic depression, after 1885. Even in 1901 , in prosperous times, there were only 156 people attending lectures-four graduates, fifty-one undergr<�duates, and I 01 students without 'matric'. Despite the constant claim that the College was fo r all classes, in fact the students must have been mainly fro m prosperous families. The poor rarely sent their children to secondary school; there were no 'free places' in secondary schools untill903. A fair number were students from the Teachers' Training College. Even in chemistry, of fo rty students in 1887, fo urteen were student teachers.45 Such students were to assume a greater role in later years. As late as 1932 a critic in the English Universities Review wrote that the British civic universities were mere vestibules of the teaching profession, mere machines producing graduates with qualifications which would enable them to earn a living.46 ln a New Zealand or a British context it could, of course, have been contended that this situation showed that the universities were relating to, and in this way satisfying the needs of, their local communities. In the nineteenth century there were few Maori students, although by 1905 Henare Poananga was a first-year student and a member of the rugby team. ln 1894 Apirana Ngata, later a fa mous Maori leader, and at that time enrolled at Auckland for the degree of M.A. in political science {which was not taught there), wrote to the Registrar about the desirability of granting university scholarships to 'Maori half caste youths'. Some students at Te Aute College had passed the matriculation examination but lacked money to attend university. The Minister of Education, William Pember Reeves, was favourable but wanted an expression of opinion fr om the University CollegesY Right fro m the start mo st of the students were part-time, working as teachers or in commerce during the day. Consequently most of the lectures were delivered in the evening. In the second term of 1883 there were only fo ur classes beforel p.m., two in law and two in English. The rest were after 6 p.m. Altogether there were seven classes before 7 p.m. and ten either at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. The students had no common room and no toilets. In 1891 they fo rmed a Students' Association. At the first meeting, the minute book records, the enthusiasm was almost overwhelming and 'much time was wasted'. At the second meeting, however, 'the comments were kept within due bounds by the gentlemanly and studentlike instincts of those present.'48 The students were far from being 'stirrers'. The first letter from the secretary, E. H. Barber, to the Registrar asked Council to authorize an 'Academic costume' fo r undergraduates. Council reaffirmed a resolution of 1883 that undergraduates must wear a plain stuff gown and trencher cap, to all lectures, examinations, and College ceremonies. At that time the Professors had agreed, but the regulation had not been enforced. Now the Professorial Board resolved that wearing academic dress should not be co mpulsory. Its objections to compulsion were that the gown and trencher were expensive-they wo uld cost £2 Ss; that special costumes would create an invidious distinction between matriculated and non-matriculated students; that the College resembled provincial colleges in England, where academic dress was not worn, rather than Oxford or Cambridge. A meeting of thirty students in July 1892 resolved almost unanimously that academic dress should be compulsory bur, after a conference with the Professorial Board, Council resolved that it should not be

33 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND compulsory. Nevertheless, Council strongly approved of students wearing it.49 In practice the full-time women students and some men wore the gown up until about 1940. By 1889 students, and doubtless outsiders too, had begun to disrupt the ceremonies on 'diploma day', that is, graduation day. In that year the speeches were interrupted. The Herald thought that the constable at the door should 'run them in'.50 The same thing happened in 1890, a group of boys and young men making a noise. The Herald said that most people did not think this funny: 'if there is any poor afflicted creature in such a state of imbecility as to think so, .. . we should advise his friends to keep him at home under proper supervision.'51 At a meeting of 'Stud. Ass.' in August 1891 ir was moved that members should 'do their best to maintain order' at the forrhcom­ ing ceremony. The Association voted that it disapproved 'of any demonstration which may disturb the general order of the mecting'.52 On this occasion the pro­ ceedings were decorous, which O'Rorke attributed to the good sense of the Students' Association. Personally, he said, he had no objection to exuberance or buoyancy of spirit as long as it was toned by gentlemanly feeling.53 ln 1892 the Chancellor of the University, Sir Robert Stout, spoke. The students had practised some songs. They gathered in the gallery at the back of the Choral Hall. He failed to stop them singing and abruptly closed the proceedings as soon as the certificates had been presented. The students continued to complete their performance. One undergraduate, Eliot Davis, played his clarinet while they sang 'Do you ken the lads of the A.U.C.' (to the tune of John Peel), and 'Senior Wrangler Aldis leaving College' (a prophetic title) and other songs. 54 In 1893 the proceedings were, once again, peaceful. The students were permitted, as they wished, to make their singing of songs and parodies part of the ceremony. lt was noticed that there was an 'absence of coarseness' in their parodies. 55 However, the Senate of the University had by this time had enough of the barracking and general uproar on capping days. In 1894 Senate abolished the degree-granting ceremony and resolved that the diplomas would simply be posted. The Auckland students wanted some sort of ceremony but the Professorial Board would not act against the Senate. 56

Problems with staffing began, as has been seen, with Professor Walker's death, before the College even opened. In 1885 T. G. Tucker, the most brilliant of the first four professors, asked whether he could resign to take up the chair of classics in Melbourne. He had applied before the post was advertised and that university called for no further applicants. He wrote to O'Rorke that 'the heat of the day is over in the work of establishing the college'; he had taken his full share of the work 'under hard conditions which were entirely unexpected.' Something of the attitude of the lay members of Council to professors is revealed by the fact that Judge Gillies moved that his application to resign be declined. This motion was defeated four to two, the Mayor voting with the judge. Tucker became a famous classical scholar, the author of numerous books on Plato and Aristotle as well as on Roman topics. He was also an outstanding popular lecturerY Tucker was a great loss. In his lifetime he was internationally the most prestigious of the early professors. However, today, the best known of the early professors is his successor, a linguist with the splendid name of Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett, M. A., LLD. His originality was not widely recognized at the time. Posnett was a graduate of

34 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE

Trinity College, Dublin, like O'Rorke. He won a long list of prizes in classical and 'oriental' (Semitic) languages, scholarship, English literature, modern history, logic, and metaphysics. His references spoke enthusiastically about his teaching and the numerous successes of his students at Trinity College. 58 Of the fifty-nine applicants, fo urteen were interviewed at Balliol College, Oxford, by Jowett, Henry Sidgwick, the Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge, and an Irish professor. 59 They selected Posnett. H. M. Posnett had already published two books. The first was The Historical Method in Ethics, Jurisprudence, and Political Economy (London, 1882), in which he argued that the existence of a body of thought 'traceable to social organisation' proved the possibility of a 'Social Science apart from Individual Human Nature, whatever that Individual Human Nature may be.' The second book was The Ricardian Theory of Rent (London, 1884) which shows that he · was a radical opponent of landlords. The theories he Ms "· o coNNELL discussed, of David Ricardo, J. S. Mill, and Henry Huccheson Macaulay Po snett, a George, lay behind the widespread land-tax reform memorable person, an original movement of the time, especially in English-speaking scholar countries, including New Zealand. Posnett was a very learned man. The two books discussed the ideas of Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, Henry Maine, John Ruskin, and numerous other thinkers. Just before he left for New Zealand in January 1886 Posnett hurriedly read the proofs of Comparative Literature, a book in the International Scientific Series published in London in that year. Waiter Bagehot, Herbert Spencer, and other fa mous men published books in the same series. Although Matthew Arnold had used . the expression 'comparative literature' in a letter in 1848, it does not seem to have come into general use until after Posnett's book appeared. Posnett later claimed to have been the first person to have fo rmulated and explained the principles of his sub­ ject, which was not exactly to compare literatures, but to demonstrate the influences of social evolution and the environment on the life of man and on his literatures. It was a study in what would now be called the sociology of literature and was, at the time, very original. In an important article in the Contemporary Review in 1901 Posnett conceded that Madame de Sdiel, Montesquieu, Alexander von Humboldt, Goethe, and others had 'touched the borders of Comparative Literature' before himself. He had obviously been influ enced by Coleridge, whom he criticized. In discussing the relations between literature and different societies he also sounds like Giambattista Vico, but he is unlikely to have known of Vico's work directly. In his prefa ce Posnett mentions that most of the translations in the book were his own-he cites French, Italian, German, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin sources as well as Asian literature. He called for the establishment of chairs of comparative literature-ten years before the fi rst such position was created in France.60 Strangely

35 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND enough, T. G. Tucker, Posnett's predecessor, was also to publish a study of com­ parative literature, on the foreign debts of English literature.61 No reminiscences of former Auckland students about Posnett seem to have been recorded, but the documents speak of a memorable person, both as a polymath and an Irish fighting-man. In 1887, a year after he arrived, he offered to lecture on political economy and jurisprudence for an extra £150. He had already been appointed as examiner in French, English history, and political economy, as well as in Greek and Latin. 62 As a colleague he was clearly a very uncomfortable person. The Professorial Board complained about him concentrating his lectures on one or two days and they 'remonstrated in vain, an amicable arrangement being only possible when every point was conceded to him'. Council asked him to put on two extra Latin classes and he arranged to have five lectures on Friday, claiming that no other times were available. The Board said that plenty of hours were available. He fought the Registrar. He complained to Council that the Board held a meeting while he was lecturing: in fact he had agreed to the date of the meeting and then fixed a lecture to coincide with it. The Board formally resolved to express its regret that Posnett was putting up notices 'offensiveto some of his colleagues',63 a remark which will remain a mystery. In 1890 Posnett wrote to Council saying that his duties were too onerous. His students had won University Senior Scholarships in Latin and English and political science. But he could not continue to deliver 260 lectures per session (28 weeks). However, if the Council were to raise his salary to the level of Sydney or Melbourne (£1,000) he would agree to stay on as Professor of both Classics and English.64 Council declined and he resigned. He returned to Dublin and practised as a lawyer. In 1894 he issued a pamphlet denouncing the House of Lords as a body devoted to defending the privileges of great landlords.65

A large part of the time and energy of early Councils was spent in arranging for classes in new subjects and in trying to set up 'special schools', such as medicine or engineering. The successes were very few, which is not surprising, in view of the poverty of the college, the small size of the community, and the expense of teaching professional subjects. Otago already had schools of medicine and mines. Canterbury established a school of engineering in 1890. Auckland must not, it was felt in the North, be left out in the cold. In the very first year of its existence, Council considered establishing a medical school, a school of music, and lectures in law.66 In 1883 the Registrar, Kidd, discussed with Francis Dart Fenton, a retired Chief]udge of the Native Land Court, and presi­ dent of the Choral Society, the possibility that the Society might pay half the salary of the fi rst professor of music. In 1888 a German, Herr Car! Schmitt, was appointed Professor for £100 plus fees.67 He was already the conductor of the Auckland Choral Society, which continued to pay him a small salary. Schmitt was a German violinist, with both German and Italian training. The regulations for the appointment were taken from the University of Adelaide. The Choral Society allowed him to use the 'side room' in its spacious Choral Hall for lectures.68 Forty students began attending his classes. In 1889 they heard that the chair was to be abolished, and petitioned

36 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE

Council to establish it on a permanent basis. F. D. Fenton made the same plea to O'Rorke. 69 At Council, however, Bishop Cowie moved that it was 'undesirable' to appoint a professor of music, and Schmitt was reappointed as a lecturer at the same salary.70 The motive for this move is unknown. Possibly some professor had disapproved of Schmitt's title. He seems to have been the only Auckland professor ever to be demoted.71 The Amateur Opera Club provided twelve 'Exhibitions' in Music to a total value of two hundred guineas in the years 1890-2. The Governor's wife, the Countess of Onslow, offered two silver medals fo r music prizes.72 But the subject did not thrive. In 1892 there were only twenty-seven students, of whom only three had matriculated. The newspapers began to call the school a 'white elephant': the school at Canterbury had started later and had seventy-five students. 73 There were rumours that Council intended to close the school down. These gained credence because Council simply appointed Schmitt for a year at a time. In 1892 some fo rty students and fo rmer students of music petitioned Council to establish the school on a permanent basis. Council merely resolved that it had no present intention of abolishing the school. In 1894 there were only twenty students, all women. Council warned the public that, unless more students enrolled, the school might be closed in 1895.74 Nevertheless, music was the most successful of the new subjects. In 1883-4 lectures on real property and equity were delivered by Judge Seth-Smith, but he was too busy and resigned.75 In 1888 Or A. McArthur, M.A., LLD. offered to teach some law. He was an Australian who had been Principal of the Teachers' Training College, but had been dismissed.76 On this occasion Council declined his offer. However in 1898 he offered to give lectures in jurisprudence and constitutional history in return for fees only and was now accepted. 77 lt was not necessary for would­ be lawyers to attend lectures at a university college; up until 1882 they could serve articles under a solicitor for a few years and pass an examination set by the judges. In 1877 the University of New Zealand established the LLB. degree and, in 1889, the judges' rules provided that the law examiners should be appointed by the University of New Zealand. It became customary, but not obligatory, fo r law clerks to attend university classes at night. Most lawyers did not complete a degree, but sat for the easier law professional examinations to qualify as solicitors. In 1898 a new Act in­ troduced rhe 'back door principle' whereby a solicitor could become a barrister after five years in practice. The standard of legal education was deplorably low.78 Starting a medical school in Auckland was to prove a prolonged operation. In 1883 O'Rorke was corresponding with Professor John Scott, the Otago University anatomist, about the costs and other aspects of setting up a school. Sometimes O'Rorke sounded as though he were 'climbing after knowledge infinite' but on a shoe-string. If a medical school proved too expensive, he suggested to Council, perhaps they might start a school of engineering and of mines: both in a College with £4,000 a year!19 The Herald strongly supported Council's ambition to introduce a medical course. A local doctor, E. D. Mackellar, suggested that the College should appoint a lecturer in anatomy.80 He had once been in charge of the Auckland hospital and had been a lecturer at Otago. A Council committee supported his suggestion as an experiment which could be readily discontinued if there were too few students. The committee

37 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND realized that a complete medical course would not be possible 'for some years', but a one or two year course would be fe asible and cheap, because chemistry, botany, and zoology were already taught at the College. Only anatomy need be added to provide a first-year medical course.81 The idea was that after a year or two of study in Auckland, medical students would proceed to Otago, Australia, or Great Britain to complete their degrees. Mackellar was appointed and began lecturing on anatotny in 1886.82 However, when Council sought the co-operation of the Hospital Board, O'Rorke said, it met with 'obstruction'. The Board declined to agree to building a dissection room since recognition of the course had not been obtained from the British medical schools.83 The Councillors were disappointed, but realized that they could not start a medical school without the co-operation of the Hospital. Next year O'Rorke tried to get the University of New Zealand Senate to approve of an Auckland medical school, and failed. The Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, however, did recognize Auckland's courses and in 1888 the Government agreed to the teaching of anatomy in Auckland.84 Mackellar seems to have lectured only in 1886 and 1887. Auckland students could, however, study for the fi rst part of their medical course at Auckland because courses in biology, chemistry, and physics at the College were recognized as part of the medical course at Cambridge and the Scottish universities. Music, law, and medicine by no means exhausted Council's early efforts at expan­ sion. In 1887 Professor Frederick D. Brown wanted to start a school of applied science for engineers, architects, surveyors, and mine managers, to teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, and drawing. As with the medical proposal, all these sub­ jects except drawing were already taught, so it was cheap. The Institute of Architects supported the project, Council agreed, and a Drawing Master was appointed. He was James G. Trevithick, allegedly a 'mechanical engineer', who had been in charge of carpentry and other technical classes at the boys' Grammar School. In England he had been chief draughtsman for a ship-building firm. Students completing the course were to receive a certificate. [n 1888 there were twenty-two in the drawing class, but the so-called 'school' was not a success. In 1892, when Council was considering discontinuing the music classes, it did terminate the drawing classes and no more was heard of the school. 85 In addition to these grandiose schemes, at various times in the eighties the Council or the Board also discussed teaching mental science, education, and 'military educa­ tion'-preparing young men for Woolwich or Sandhurst. In 1887 military cadetships at Sandhurst were advertised in the Calendar. But poverty prevented such expan­ sion-or dissipation-of effort. It took the College until 1890 to establish a library-before that books were dispersed in several buildings. In 1883 the professors had asked Council to set aside £200 a yenr for books, but nothing was done. [n 1890 a room was set aside in the Old Parliament Building and £100 was set aside for books. The Registrar became the librarian.86

Although the College was small, its impact on the community was much greater than might seem likely. It generated all sorts of activities, discussions, studies which were scarcely possible before the tiny band of academic missionaries arrived. Moreover, from the fi rst, most of the professors sought and welcomed opportunities of reaching

38 ESTABLISHING THE COLLEGE out to the community. As Professor Brown put it, he wanted 'to render this College useful to as large a portion of the community as possible'.87 Professor Thomas said that when he was interviewed in London the Agent-General, Francis Oillon Bell, had told him that he would have to popularize the College and he set out to do that.88 The College was certainly not, to start with, an 'ivory tower': indeed it had no tower of any sort. The fi rst professors were pioneers who 'professed' their subjects to everyone who would listen. Professor Thomas had been a student at Balliol, and one of his referees was the great Jowett, who had shown a sympathetic interest in Toynbee Hall, the University settlement in the East End of London, which aimed at civilizing and Christianizing the working classes.89 Thomas certainly knew of and was perhaps inspired by that example. Jowett described him as 'a man of considerable ability, high character and gentlemanlike manners.' The range of 'external' activities was impressive. In 1885 the Government set aside £1,750 for lectures to miners. In the Auckland Province Brown and Thomas gave some lectures in Thames and in some smaller towns.90 Their knowledge of geology made them much in demand in a country where gold-mining was a big industry. From 1884 onwards on Saturdays Brown delivered lectures on chemistry incended chiefly for artisans. So many people came that he needed a lab. boy as well as an assistant. In 1888 there was a request fromteachers for lectures in elementary science, as applied to agriculture. Brown and Thomas provided these too, again on Saturday. In 1890 147 people were attending. When the Railway Commissioners put up the special teachers' fares fo r travel into the city from £1 to £3 in 1893 Brown complained that there had been a decrease in enrolments which would greatly hinder the spread of scientific education.91 Although there was little general understanding of the fu nctions of higher educa­ tion if we judge from newspaper comment, there was, among a population not greatly educated, n widespread respect for learning, probably more so than a century later. At least it is clear that the professors did not feel unwanted. After the Tarawera eruptions, the Government asked Brown and Thomns to visit the area and report. Thomas published a Report on the Eruption of Tarawera and Rotomahana in 1888. In 1889 he gave some lectures in Cambridge at the request of the Waikato Farmers' Club.92 Aldis gave popular lectures on geometrical astronomy; Thomas in geology and mineralogy and gold deposits. The scientists were in greater demand but in 1884 Tucker gave twelve lectures on English literature, and attracted sixty people-an audience probably not very much smaller than would come to similar lectures in 1983. One way in which the College sought to communicate with the community at large in its very early years was by holding annual meetings on a day near the anniversary of 'opening day' in 1883. In 1885 Professor Tucker and Sir George Grey spoke to a very large audience about the relationship between the university and the community.93 Tucker argued that an educated citizen was 'all the better able to exer­ cise his vote, all the better able to escape imposition and prejudice'. In answer to the criticism that 'the University is fo r a class-the rich', he pointed out that most of the students were, in fact, earning their living, fo r which reason most of the lectures were put on late. The only people who would suffer from the abolition of the university, he

3 9 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND argued, were the poor. He was defending the university against su pposed criticisms, but Sir George Grey occupied altogether higher ground. He was one of the greatest British colonial governors of the greatest imperial century, as well as a fo rmer New Zealand premier. At his worst he could utter cloudy grandiloquence, but on this occasion he was at his best. ln a very st riking speech he urged that the Maori language should be taught at the College, as well as its relationship to other Polyne­ sian languages. (He spoke sixty-fi ve years too soon.) The purpose of the university he related to the people's chief task: 'Two questions must occupy us absolutely. The one is fo unding a nation, or consolidating a nation, because it is already thoroughly fo unded' and the other was 'the consolidation of a great Empire'.

You believe that anyone who distinguishes himself in New Zealand as a fo under of this country-you believe that all the men who are concerned in doing rhat will go down to posterity as very great benefactors indeed of their kind. There arc as yet no great names in this country. If you look at any nation, it traces back its origin and its foundation to some great names, and those names do not die out for centuries, and those names are yet to be found in New Zealand; amongst those who hear me must be some of them, and they can only attain to that honour by having first of all obtained an education which will enable them to under­ stand and grapple with the difficult questions that will come before them. (Cheers.)

40