Our First Half-Century Part 34

What can Thy children bring?

What save the voice to sing "All things are Thine"?-- What to Thy throne convey?

What save the voice to pray "G.o.d bless our land alway, This land of Thine"?

Oh, with Thy mighty hand Guard Thou the Motherland; She, too, is Thine.

Lead her where honour lies, We beneath other skies Still clinging daughterwise, Hers, yet all Thine.

Britons of ev'ry creed, Teuton and Celt agreed, Let us be Thine.

One in all n.o.ble fame, Still be our path the same, Onward in Freedom's name, Upward in Thine!

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW OF DEDICATION CEREMONY]

The last notes had scarcely died away, when the Premier rose to invite His Excellency to a.s.sent to the University Bill of 1909, and to dedicate the building to the University. He prefaced that proceeding by a speech, which summarised the course of progress in Queensland, touched upon the difficulties it had been necessary to overcome, and the achievements in settlement and development which had made this ceremony possible. More than that, it focussed as it were in a few sentences the destined scope of the University, and the liberal provisions by which it was to be made accessible to "all our young people without regard to cla.s.s, or creed, or s.e.x." Twenty foundation scholarships were the generous birthday gift to the University. There was a great outburst of enthusiasm at this announcement, and the applause rang out again with renewed strength when His Excellency stepped forward, and read a congratulatory message from His Majesty the King. This was a fitting prelude to the able and statesmanlike speech which His Excellency made. This over, Mr. Costin presented the University Bill for His Excellency to sign. His Excellency dipped his pen in the ink held by a handsome silver inkstand, and affixed his signature to the charter of the University. Then, pressing an electric b.u.t.ton, he revealed to view a marble tablet--the white stone of which the Premier spoke--designed "to mark this point in our national progress."

The building had now been dedicated, but it yet remained symbolically to hand it over to the people. This was done by His Excellency's presentation to Mr. J. T. Bell of the University Act, and Mr. Bell's acceptance of it on behalf of the people of Queensland. Eloquent speeches from Mr. Bell, Professor David, and Professor Stirling followed, each in his turn drawing from the a.s.semblage the endors.e.m.e.nt of enthusiastic applause. Once more the aid of the children was invoked, and, under the direction of Mr. George Sampson, F.R.C.O., they sang to the music of "The Old Hundredth" "The Children's Ode,"

specially written for the occasion by Mr. W. J. Byram--

Dear land, the queen of all fair climes!

To jewels of thy diadem We add to-day its brightest gem, A guiding star for after-times.

Thy sons shall grow in wisdom's power, Thy daughters win an ampler grace, And both shall mould that higher race Gifted with learning's priceless dower.

Here as the seasons wax and wane May Science still increase her store, And Truth be reverenced more and more, And Tolerance and Justice reign.

Father of all, our effort bless!

Without thy aid we are as nought, We are but children to be taught Thy way that leads to perfectness.

One graceful ceremony remained, and that typical of beauty, life, and growth--the planting of a tree to be known as "The University Tree,"

its destiny to grow with the University, and afford grateful shade to those brought within its wholesome influence. The pleasant duty of planting devolved upon Lady MacGregor, and it was carried out by means of a silver trowel presented to her by the Premier. The business of the afternoon had now concluded; the first step toward the establishment of the University had been taken: its future home had been dedicated.

THE DEDICATION SPEECHES.

The PREMIER (Hon. W. Kidston), in rising to ask His Excellency to dedicate Government House to the purposes of the University, said: Your Excellency and Ladies and Gentlemen,--To-day Queensland completes her first half-century as a self-governing community; and we are met to honour the occasion--to erect a white stone, as it were, to mark this point in our national progress. Fifty years ago a handful of settlers, not quite 24,000 in number, claimed and obtained the right to manage their own affairs; and the British Government, in granting that right, virtually handed over to those few pioneers the ownership of this vast territory now called Queensland--a territory exceeding in area the combined areas of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. If we consider how few they were and the way in which they undertook the work of opening up and civilising this vast territory, we must recognise that our first pioneers were men of enterprise, of self-reliance, and of high courage. (Hear, hear.) Although our population has increased twenty-four times since then, we are still but a handful in this vast land. When we try to compare the Queensland of to-day with the Queensland of fifty years ago--the cities and towns that have been built where then was the untrodden bush; the thousands of miles of railways and the many thousands of miles of roads, like a network all over this great area; the rivers that have been spanned by bridges; the harbours that have been made; the endless miles of telegraph lines that give rapid communication between the townships scattered all over the State--all the things that go to mark a civilised people--when we consider to what extent that work has been carried out by such a mere handful of people, we may well commend the men who have preceded us. (Hear, hear.) And it was not only in the matter of material development that these men did good work. Many years ago they established an educational system which still obtains--a system so effective and comprehensive that all over this vast territory of Queensland wherever ten or a dozen children can be brought together there you will find a State school. (Hear, hear.) And even beyond that, by means of the itinerant teachers, the scattered children of the bush are sought out and have at least the rudiments of education brought to their isolated homes. (Hear, hear.) To-day we seek to commemorate our establishment as a self-governing community, and at the same time to show our appreciation of the excellent work done by our predecessors in opening up this new land and in promoting the civilising and humanising agencies that have made Queensland what she is; and I hold that we can show our appreciation of the good work our predecessors did in no better way than by imitating and continuing that good work. We who have eaten of the fruit of the trees which our predecessors planted; we, the men of to-day, may also seek to plant so that the children of to-morrow may gather the fruit. (Hear, hear.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PREMIER (HON. W. KIDSTON) OPENING THE PROCEEDINGS]

Perhaps, Your Excellency, I am not just the person to discuss educational methods, or to seek here to give instructions to the Senate who will manage this University; but I may express the hope that the University of Queensland will provide for the youth of Queensland the highest culture and the best university training that can be got, at any rate, this side of the line. (Hear, hear.) At the same time I would not have it forgotten that Queensland is a hive of working bees; and all our educational inst.i.tutions, from Kindergarten to University, should keep that fact in view. There is this difference between the youngest University in the Empire and the oldest: Oxford was established by a King; the University of Queensland is established by the People. (Hear, hear.) Queensland is democratic not only in her political inst.i.tutions: she is democratic in heart and sentiment; and the desire of our people for a University is simply the desire that Queensland may be an educated democracy--the safest, the strongest, and the happiest community in which men can live. (Hear, hear.) I would have the Senate always remember that it was the desire of our people that inspired the crowning of our educational system by the establishment of a University, that in very truth the Queensland University is "of the people," and I trust that the Senate will never forget that it should be "for the people." (Hear, hear.) It is not all of us who can go to a University or directly share in its advantages; yet the whole community should, and I hope will, receive a general benefit. I hope that its influence will radiate downwards through all the ranks of our social organism; that those who have the advantage and the privilege of the more liberal education which our University will give will be like the leaven which the woman put in three measures of meal, and will leaven the whole community. (Hear, hear.)

Parliament has made what I think is fairly adequate financial provision for our University. A sum of 50,000 is being set aside from this year's revenue for meeting what may be called the initial cost.

(Hear, hear.) And, besides that, a sum of 10,000 a year is being provided for what may be called the annual working charges. (Hear, hear.) I may also announce to-day that the Cabinet, subject of course to the approval of Parliament, has resolved to inst.i.tute a certain number of foundation scholarships as a step towards equalising educational opportunities for our young people and by way of opening the door to ability and special merit. (Applause.) It has been decided to establish twenty foundation scholarships--(applause)--tenable for three years, each of which will carry free entrance to the University and 26 per year, or, in cases where students, to attend the University, must live away from home, 52 a year. These scholarships will be equally open to all our young people without regard to cla.s.s, or creed, or s.e.x. (Applause.) There will also be a foundation gold medal, carrying a prize of 100 a year for two years, for the purpose of encouraging original chemical research--(applause)--a similar medal and prize of a similar amount, tenable for two years, for engineering--(applause)--and a foundation travelling scholarship of 200 a year, tenable for two years. (Applause.) The scholarships will of course be competed for annually, so that in the third and each succeeding year there will be sixty of these scholarship students at our University. (Applause.)

I now ask Your Excellency, as representing His Majesty, to a.s.sent to the Bill, which has been approved by both Houses of Parliament, for the establishment and endowment of the University of Queensland, and on behalf of our people to dedicate this building, now your home, to the purposes of the University. (Loud applause.)

HIS EXCELLENCY SIR WILLIAM MacGREGOR said: Mr. Kidston, Ladies and Gentlemen,--The first duty I have to perform here to-day is to read to you a telegram which I received this forenoon from the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies. This telegram is dated London, 9th December, at 1.45 p.m., and is addressed "The Governor, Brisbane." The Secretary of State says:--

"I am commanded by His Majesty the King to convey to you the following message:--

"His Majesty the King heartily congratulates the people of Queensland on the completion of fifty years of responsible government. It is the earnest hope of His Majesty the King that the enterprise and loyalty which have marked the first half-century of the State of Queensland may be its abiding heritage and that the prosperity which is evident at the close of this period may be multiplied abundantly in the years to come." "CREWE."

For two reasons I have put in writing what I have to say on the important subject that has brought us here to-day. The first is that I cannot make myself heard by a large audience. The second is that we are a.s.sembled here on the occasion of the Jubilee of Queensland, and that fifty years hence the Jubilee of the University of this State will also be celebrated, and it is desirable that those who partic.i.p.ate in that ceremony should know in what spirit the University is being founded: what are our hopes, our aspirations, what appreciation we have of our duty towards our posterity and the future of the great country we and they have to develop. I trust that for this reason all speeches made here to-day may be carefully recorded, as we now enter upon a new phase of the intellectual life of Queensland, a matter that cannot but be of far-reaching importance to the next and succeeding generations of this State.

I deem it a fortunate circ.u.mstance that, a few days after my arrival in Brisbane, I should have the privilege of partic.i.p.ating in a ceremonial for the establishment of "The University of Queensland," of taking part in a State function of historical and of great social and economic importance.

We live in an age of more rapid progress than any that has ever preceded our own day: and for my part I am prepared to believe that we owe to education the enormous advances in recent years in health, wealth, and in the amenities and comforts of life. It is now well known to us all that the nation that is backward in education is, or soon will be, behind in all that makes a people great and prosperous.

I am aware that these facts were fully recognised by many men in Queensland long years ago, for I well remember the former efforts that were made to found a University here--efforts that failed through causes that happily no longer exist. One of the most noticeable facts in the social and economic life of English-speaking people in recent years is the great impulse that has been given to the development and extension of university teaching. It may with a good show of reason be said that Australasia led up to the great educational revival of the last quarter of a century, by the opening of the now famous Universities, of Sydney in 1852, of Melbourne in 1855, and of Adelaide in 1876. Then followed the University of Tasmania in 1889. The wave of university education has left the United States with 40 universities, 16 of which are very great, and 415 colleges. The movement has been as p.r.o.nounced in Canada, where higher education is receiving great attention, due in a large measure to the splendid liberality of wealthy and patriotic citizens. The same influence has been profoundly felt in the United Kingdom. The Victoria University was founded in 1880, and the London University was reconst.i.tuted in 1900. Birmingham University dates from 1900, Liverpool University from 1903, the University of Wales from 1903, Leeds University from 1904, Sheffield University from 1905, and the two national Universities of Ireland from 1908. To come nearer home, New Zealand has her University and affiliated colleges; and West Australia is at this moment taking active steps for the establishment of her own State University, so that it remains at present doubtful whether Queensland or West Australia is to play the part of the most retiring of this pleiad of Australasian Universities. Hitherto the youth of Queensland has had to go elsewhere for residential university education. Fortunately for Queensland, she has had an active and influential committee for university extension lectures, the members of which have patriotically performed good service to the State by arranging for lectures that have helped to procure from beyond the State university certificates of competence by a considerable number of the youth of this country.

This committee has fortunately been able to do enough to demonstrate how much we need a University of our own. They are ent.i.tled to the warm thanks of the community for what they have done. I have had an opportunity of knowing from the admirable lectures of Professor David, on the 4th and 8th of this month, how interesting, instructive, and valuable those lectures can be. I have said enough to show you that if Queensland did not now, without any further delay, proceed to found her University, this, one of the greatest, most promising, and wealthiest provinces in the Empire, would, as far as education is concerned, occupy a very conspicuous and unenviable position among the great countries of the world; especially would this be the case in regard to the sister States and Dominions.

What is a University? I have seen a University defined as a place at which students from any quarter of the universe could be received to study, irrespective of nationality. What we understand here by a University, and what we aim at, is an inst.i.tution where any person can find the fullest and best instruction of the day in any branch of knowledge. It will be the head corner-stone of the system of education that has been legalised in this State, a school that will be accessible to all, and will afford equal chances and opportunities to rich and poor alike, without reference to s.e.x or religious denomination. I know of no inst.i.tution in modern social life that equals the University in giving a fair chance in life to the youth that is capable and is able and willing to work; although, for my part, I can only regard schools of all grades as only preparatory for the studies that have to be incessantly pursued after one ceases to attend cla.s.ses, if one does not resign oneself to falling behind; thus the primary school prepares for the secondary school, and that school leads to the university, which last furnishes the highest and best intellectual equipment for one's life work, an equipment of such character that it can be obtained and be certified to by the university, and by that alone. It supplies to the bearer the hall-mark of the State that the man or woman that bears it has had the best instruction that the country can supply.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HIS EXCELLENCY SIR W. MACGREGOR ADDRESSING THE AUDIENCE]

What is to be taught in the University? You will find that the University Act makes provision for the establishment of certain faculties in which instruction shall be given; the preamble shows that the University is to provide "a liberal and practical education in the several pursuits and professions of life in Queensland." In no other country can the pursuits and professions of social and economic life be greater than they are, or will be, in Queensland, having regard to the extraordinary multiplicity of its resources. Such a broad purpose as that set out in the University Act leaves little option to the ruling power of the University as to what subjects are to be taught.

That question is determined in a large measure by the work of other universities, for it is a foregone conclusion that the University of Queensland is not to occupy a position in the educational world inferior to that of any sister university in Australasia. We are well aware that their standard is high; and we recognise that we start late, and are therefore behind, and that we have a hard task before us to overtake the other universities; but this has to be done, and will be done. I dwell on this because there should exist no misconception as to the scope of the Queensland University, especially in regard to what is called the cla.s.sical side of instruction, in contradistinction to the scientific or practical. We recognise that the literary records of the world have, in the main, been successively committed to the languages of the Chaldeans, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxons. If those languages are dead, their remains are so constantly brought before us every hour of our lives that acquaintance with those of them that are usually taught in what is called the faculty of arts forms a necessary and indispensable part of the education of every accomplished or finished scholar, and of most professional men or women. At the same time, therefore, that this University will provide the best tuition in the cla.s.sical languages of the past, we cannot but see that times have changed; that, for example, in no country in Europe or America could the Prime Minister now conduct official business in Latin with King or Governor, as was the case in England not very long ago. No Prime Minister could now electrify a drooping Parliament with a Latin quotation, as Pitt did.

So far as I know, the last Parliament in Europe to use Latin as its language ceased to do so some three-score of years ago. The cla.s.sics have come into disfavour owing in a large measure to the fact that they were overdone, that time was wasted on utterly valueless subtleties in learning them. They were a.s.sociated with too much book and too little practical work. Here we shall have a course of cla.s.sics, an arts faculty, equal to that of other universities, but without unduly encroaching on other faculties of more modern development and of more direct utility in the evolution of modern economic life. It would, however, be unreasonable to expect that the University of Queensland could be brought into the world full-grown at its birth. The University of Sydney began with four professors. I am informed by the very distinguished gentleman who is Chancellor of the University of Adelaide that the now great University of that city entered on its career, in rented premises, thirty-four years ago, with three chairs--cla.s.sics, mathematics, and natural science. Now it has faculties of arts, science, law, medicine, electrical, mining, civil engineering, commerce, and music; and it has ranked, by letters patent, for the last twenty-eight years, with the old universities of the United Kingdom. The Adelaide University now has eleven professors and twenty-six lecturers. It supplies to us a splendid example of courage, of energy, and of perseverance, and that example we mean to follow. (Applause.) Our late start is not without some compensation, for not only are we able to profit from the experience of others, but, what is equally important, we can adapt our University courses to the needs of the country untrammelled by the vested interests and the threadbare traditions that make it so difficult for old universities to adapt themselves to the exigencies of modern educational requirements. If one thinks of Queensland as she was this day fifty years ago, and as she is to-day, it can be seen that he would be a bold man that would predict what faculties, what tuition, may be required, and may be given, in the Queensland University half a century from now. The moral to be drawn from this is, to make a start on an elastic plan that may admit of indefinite expansion. We require a broad and strong foundation, able to carry a great edifice, sufficient to provide the most comprehensive tuition, not only in what is known, but also to facilitate and encourage original research and invention, as set out in the Act. Even sport will not be forgotten, for it is an important consideration, in a non-residential university, to foster that feeling and regard for a bountiful mother that should animate the students of every great University. One thing is abundantly clear: that because we are determined to have a university equal to the needs of this great State, a university that shall stimulate those of the sister States, and because we start at so late a date, we must begin with the very best teachers that can be procured, the most learned and enthusiastic men in their several departments. On those men will in a large measure depend the future character and standing of our University. The best men will be the cheapest. Queensland can afford to employ them, and we know they will be a profitable investment. (Applause.) A university costs money, much money, especially in the technical departments, such as engineering, mining, and agriculture. The endowment of universities has been recognised in recent years as having such strong claims on public funds that they cannot be overlooked. That principle is accepted here.

Our nearest neighbours have conferred valuable land areas on their universities; and they have been very liberal to them in money grants.

In this respect the oldest of our Universities, that of Sydney, led the way with wisdom and a liberal hand, and to-day New South Wales reaps her reward. It may safely be a.s.sumed that the Parliament and Government of Queensland will be equally liberal and far-seeing.

But the different Universities have in recent years profited in an extraordinary manner from the munificence of private citizens. In ten years the technical schools, colleges, and universities of the United States received in that way 23,000,000. Perhaps the largest amount of such gifts in any one year was in 1903, when they received 3,350,000.

It appears that in 1907 nearly 300,000 was bequeathed to universities and colleges in the United Kingdom. It has become a common practice for private citizens to found a university chair to bear the name of a person whose memory it is desired to preserve and to honour. Others that are not in a position to do so much as that have very frequently established a bursary or scholarship, sometimes sufficiently large to maintain a student at the university, or to partly do so. The bursaries that produce the best results are those that are given by open compet.i.tion. But others that are limited to a specified name or locality, according to the desire of the donors, are very useful. Some men of good will are not permitted by their means to do more than to found a prize for proficiency in some branch taught in the university.

This State possesses an enormous area; the productions are varied in a very unusual degree, and they are of enormous value present and prospective; and there can be no reason to suppose that Queenslanders are to be less generous and patriotic towards their University than our neighbours have been towards theirs. I shall be satisfied if we have citizens here as generous as Russell in Sydney, as Ormond in Melbourne, and Elder and Hughes in Adelaide. I think that no more patriotic nor useful disposition of one's money could be made. We start under the best auspices, for we have before us now a most gracious message of congratulation and good wishes from His Majesty the King, whose life is devoted to the welfare of his subjects, and there are with us to-day representatives from the great Universities of Sydney and Adelaide. Each of these Universities has sent us a man of world-wide reputation. I know well what I am saying when I tell you that the names of Professors David and Stirling are as well known, and are as highly honoured, by the learned men and women of Europe and America as by the people of Australia. (Applause.) It is a great honour to us to have such representatives here to-day, and for their presence we owe hearty thanks to their respective Universities, and I bid them a hearty and appreciative welcome to Brisbane, for I feel sure that they and the Universities they represent will always extend to us sympathy, good advice, and an excellent example; and I am certain that they will be delighted to see us here in a position to offer them that healthful emulation that cannot but be advantageous to all concerned. I now, ladies and gentlemen, take the first practical step towards the founding of the University of Queensland by complying with the request of the Hon. William Kidston, Premier of the State, to a.s.sent to the University Bill of 1909; and I shall thereafter, in your presence, deliver this copy of the Act to the Hon. Joshua Thomas Bell, who will receive it on behalf of the people of Queensland; and, this done, I shall, by unveiling a commemorative tablet, dedicate this building to the purposes of the University of Queensland. (Loud applause.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: HIS EXCELLENCY UNVEILING THE DEDICATION TABLET]

HIS EXCELLENCY, having signed the University Bill, and a.s.sented to it on behalf of His Majesty the King, handed a copy to Mr. Bell, Speaker of the Legislative a.s.sembly, saying: It is with profound pleasure and great hope that I present this Act to you on behalf of the people of Queensland. (Applause.)

HIS EXCELLENCY: I now proceed to unveil the commemorative tablet which dedicates this house to the University of Queensland.

By pressing a b.u.t.ton, His Excellency unveiled a tablet bearing the following inscription:--

DEDICATED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR, SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR, G.C.M.G., ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE OF QUEENSLAND, ON 10TH DECEMBER, 1909, THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN QUEENSLAND.

W. KIDSTON,

CHIEF SECRETARY.

The HON. J. T. BELL (_Speaker of the Legislative a.s.sembly_) said: Your Excellency, Mr. Kidston, Your Grace, Ladies and Gentlemen,--If I may for a second, before uttering the few sentences I propose to do, mention a personal matter in regard to His Excellency, I should like to do it, and that is to express the consternation I felt at the announcement which His Excellency made that in his opinion all the speeches that are delivered upon this occasion should be of such a character that they may be perused with pleasure and with instruction by those who are celebrating the jubilee of this inst.i.tution fifty years hence. May I say that I find it sufficiently difficult to cope with my contemporaries without having to make in addition provision for posterity? I listened to His Excellency's address with the greatest satisfaction, as everyone did who heard it, because it was felt to be a fitting deliverance for such an occasion as this. Whether now, or five years hence, or ten years hence, or when the jubilee of this inst.i.tution is celebrated--as it will be celebrated--anyone who wants authoritative information concerning the present education systems of the world, of the Empire, and particularly of Australia and in regard to this University, can turn to His Excellency's deliverance with the knowledge that he can get all the information there. (Hear, hear.) I at least feel--and so does everyone who has any acquaintance with the fact--sympathy with the allusion which His Excellency made during his remarks to that body of men who are known as the University Extension Council. I do not know how far back their labours began--it was certainly more than ten years--but these men, free from any instinct of self-advertis.e.m.e.nt, and prompted only by influences that were unselfish, did their very best in our small community years ago, and year after year, to lay the foundations of a university. (Hear, hear.) I am of opinion, although these things are difficult to trace, that it was the labour of these men of the University Extension Council, and their influence upon the public and upon the men in public life, which really laid the foundations of this gathering, and caused the Government of the day to inst.i.tute the University. I say all honour to those men, and I hope that their names will be perpetuated somewhere or other. (Hear, hear.) I should like to say that in dedicating this building to the purposes of a University, those of us who are Queenslanders born and bred, not of the first but even of the second generation, must feel some interest in the transformation that such an edifice undergoes. I can only hope that it will play its part as well as a University edifice as it did as a Government House. Ever since, I suppose, 1861 or 1862, it has been the home of Her Majesty's or His Majesty's representative in this State.

It was the headquarters of the social and political life of the State, and it has, through its various inhabitants, performed its duties well. There is this to be said, that it has housed in the past men of the character that it will house in the future--men who possessed qualifications that equally adapted them to live in this building in the future, and within its new surroundings, as they were qualified to inhabit it in the past. Let us think for a moment of some of the men who have made this building historical. Let us think of Sir George Bowen, our first Governor, a man who, before he became private secretary to Mr. Gladstone, was the representative of the Crown in the Ionian Isles, was an Oxford don, a fellow of his college, and a man with an academic reputation. He came out here and lived with us, and in one way at least his cla.s.sical impulses have left their impression on the community in the nomenclature of a number of creeks and hills in Southern Queensland. (Hear, hear.) Then we had Lord Lamington, a man of some academic pretensions; but, greatest of all from a university standpoint, we had Lord Chelmsford, a man who was an honour to his college, his university, and to the State which he governed.

(Hear, hear.) He was one of the very few men in the public service of Great Britain who had ever come south of the line who were able to say they were fellows of All Souls--(applause)--which represents in university distinction what the V.C. means in the military field.

(Applause.) He was a man of qualifications that we were proud to have in our Governor, and I know that when the proposal was made to him that this building which he inhabited should be converted into a university he was one of the first and most enthusiastic advocates of the proposal. (Applause.) Lastly, we come to the last occupant of the building, our present Governor, Sir William MacGregor, and no happier instance can be found of what a university education can do to produce an Empire builder and a stern man of the world than is to be found in the person of His Excellency. Whatever may be the cla.s.s of inhabitants who are going to labour within these walls in the future, they have had forerunners of whom they have no reason to be ashamed. Just let me add a few sentences more. This building has some distinct advantages from a university point of view. The sole object of a university is not to instruct men to pa.s.s examinations; it has a wider sphere than that. There was a time--it existed through ages--when the conception of a university was an inst.i.tution that turned out scholars. To-day, I venture to say, it has become recognised that the duty and the object of a university is the production of citizens. (Applause.) And you will not produce citizens merely by making them go to lectures and periodically answer questions in an examination. In the university life one of the chief and most valuable features is the comradeship, the common citizenship with the other members of the university, the partic.i.p.ation in athletic sports, the _esprit de corps_ that comes from belonging to such an inst.i.tution. And from that aspect I look with pleasure upon the Brisbane River, only a few yards away, where we shall find in the future, I hope, a university boat club, which club has always been a prominent feature of universities in Great Britain, as it is now becoming in Germany. And in connection with athletics, and especially aquatic athletics, you will find the students of this University will uphold the reputation of British students. (Applause.) I do not propose to speak at any greater length. I am convinced that after the liberal and, as far as we can see at the present time, adequate provision that has been made by the Government of the day for the management of this University, you will see men attending it who will make their mark upon the community. (Hear, hear.) I repeat that I hope that the test of the success of this University is not going to be purely a literary test, though let it be tested in that way too.

I am convinced that those who look at the University from the broader standpoint feel confident that this University is not going to turn out merely scholars--merely men who can pa.s.s examinations--but is going to turn out men of the world, and is going to have a striking effect upon the tone of our citizenship. (Hear, hear.) I hope that not merely morals, but, in some degree at all events, manners, will be cultivated in this University; and we, a handful of people, who spend comparatively enormous sums every year on primary and secondary education, shall have additional reason to be proud when we see the effects of the University now inaugurating being spread throughout the land. (Applause.) I thank Your Excellency for dedicating this building to the purposes of a University, and I rejoice that we have a man of your character performing such a ceremony. (Applause.)