Our First Half-Century Part 35

THE HON. W. KIDSTON: I have here apologies from the Chancellors of the Universities of Melbourne and Tasmania, regretting their inability to be present with us to-day. One of the pleasing features of this celebration is the kindly and friendly way in which the Universities of sister States have received the advent of their younger sister, the University of Queensland. (Hear, hear.) But the Universities of Sydney and Adelaide have done more: they have sent Professor David and Professor Stirling respectively to say a few words to us on this occasion and to wish us G.o.dspeed. I now ask Professor David to speak.

(Applause.)

PROFESSOR DAVID (_Sydney University_) said: Your Excellency, Mr.

Kidston, Your Grace, and Ladies and Gentlemen,--It is a great honour for me, as representing the elder sister amongst the Universities of Australia, to bring a message of goodwill to our young University--the University of Queensland. (Applause.) It is under happy auspices that this young University is having this grand building, with such fine memories of the past, dedicated to its uses. We have in our present representative of His Majesty a gentleman of ripe scholarship and learning, one who has been throughout his whole life, as he is now and as he long will be too, a great power for good, a great power for all that is uplifting and enn.o.bling to the British Empire--Sir William MacGregor. (Applause.) We have, too, this dedication ceremony performed in the presence of a representative of the Government who has shown that he has the greatest possible grip of all that is needed to make a university such as this young University a People's University; one, too, who has at heart, I know, the good and prosperity of his country--the Honourable the Premier, Mr. Kidston.

(Applause.) The present Ministry, with great foresight, have resolved to make this University not merely a University of Brisbane, but the University of Queensland. (Hear, hear.) And it seems to me, as one who has studied university matters for some years in the past, that it is an act of great wisdom on the part of those who have controlled the inception of this movement that they have decided to a.s.sociate here together the Technical College and the University. (Applause.) I feel sure that the a.s.sociation will make for the good of both these inst.i.tutions, which never should be divorced from one another, and between which there should be nothing more than friendly rivalry, and always an interchange of courtesy, of hospitality, and of confidence.

(Applause.) Another point, and a very important one, which I was delighted to hear from the lips of Mr. Kidston, is that this University is to be able to appeal to the farthest boundaries of this great State, by virtue of these sixty splendid scholarships which the Government have decided to endow--(applause)--that will bring in many boys and girls who otherwise, through remoteness or want of means, would have been unable to avail themselves of this University education. Thus I am sure that, although this University will start, no doubt, with but a small number of students, even amongst the small group of students who may come first to this University the nation will reap no less rich reward than did the University of Sydney when it started with a mere handful of students. That University celebrated its Jubilee only in 1902, and amongst its first handful of students was no less a man than he who was the honoured Chancellor of our University, Sir William Windeyer; than he who did so much not only for New South Wales but Australian science, our late Government Astronomer, Mr. H. C. Russell; than he who is now an ornament to the Bar, an honour to his University, and a great honour to this State and to the whole of this Commonwealth, Sir Samuel Griffith. (Applause.) Certainly it will not be for want of plenty of good material that this University will not flourish, for we in Sydney know of what splendid materials your grammar schools, both for boys and girls, are made, as well as many of your other schools. We know it right well in Sydney, for there, many a time and oft, your boys and girls take prizes over the heads of our own. (Applause.) Then a word in conclusion, and that is this, Your Excellency, and ladies and gentlemen: That, just as in medieval times when the universities were started, Feudalism, which made for isolation and all that was selfish, was broken down chiefly by the University influence, which gathered the people and drew them together in that great bond of brotherhood and learning, so in these troublous times, when cla.s.s is ranged against cla.s.s, and when Labour is pitted against Capital, surely we need the levelling influence of a University--not an influence to level down but an influence to level up in a n.o.ble, common brotherhood. (Applause.) We need universities as well as we need "Dreadnoughts" and Kitcheners--as we do need them to keep our country foremost in the arts, not only of war--even in war a university may do much; we have a Director of Military Studies at our University at Sydney, and I trust you will have one here--but to keep us foremost in the arts of peace. In the matter of the foundation of the universities of the Old World, you will remember that it was through the Crusaders that those universities were founded. It was the fiery zeal for Faith that started those universities. The Crusaders were brought into contact with the learning of the Eastern World, and so Learning and Faith were brought together in the foundations of those old Universities of Paris and Oxford. Sometimes Learning only flourished: sometimes only Faith: sometimes Reverence only, sometimes Faith. May it be our fervent prayer that in this n.o.ble hall both Reverence and Learning shall for ever dwell together in sweet harmony.

(Applause.) As representing the older sister University of Sydney, from the bottom of my heart I wish to our young sister University on this historic occasion all goodwill--a message of goodwill, a message of G.o.dspeed. (Applause.)

PROFESSOR STIRLING (_Adelaide University_) said: Your Excellency, Mr.

Premier, and Ladies and Gentlemen,--My first duty is to present to the Government of Queensland, on behalf of the University of Adelaide, its very cordial thanks for the invitation so courteously extended to it that it should be represented on an occasion which will a.s.suredly be a memorable episode in the annals of this great and prospering State.

And in this connection I am desired by our Chancellor, Sir Samuel Way, to convey to this gathering his great regret that his judicial duties, now of a very exacting kind, have prevented his acceptance of the invitation extended to him in the first place as our chief official, and of doing honour to the event that is being celebrated. My second and princ.i.p.al duty is to offer the cordial congratulations of the University I represent to the Government of Queensland, and through it to its whole people, that now at last, after many years, the keystone is being placed upon the arch of the educational edifice of this State. (Hear, hear, and applause.) I have had the honour of being connected with the University of Adelaide ever since its foundation, now thirty-four years ago. I can well remember its early struggles, its efforts to take a fitting place in our national life, and I am glad to have lived long enough to see many of its aspirations fulfilled--(hear, hear)--aspirations that have been fulfilled in spite of what has not always been a very whole-hearted support either on the parts of successive Governments or of the people for whose benefit it was intended. But I think it is now well recognised that the University is playing a useful and essential part in the intellectual life of the community, and that any arrest to its progress would be nothing short of national disaster. These recollections of our early struggles lead me to say that it will now be very interesting to us, as onlookers, to see whether this last-born of the great educational centres of Australia--founded as it has been by a Government that claims to be at least as democratic as the Governments of its sister States--will escape the criticisms, sometimes quite undeserved, that have at one time or another been directed, certainly against my own University, and, as I think I may say also, against its sister inst.i.tutions. Then, too, in the adjustment of the work of the University there will no doubt recur the perennial discussion--indeed it has already been initiated to-day by His Excellency--as to the relative importance in an educational system of culture as opposed to material science. I am glad that I am not called upon to enter into that question to-day. But, speaking now from a point of view which concerns literature no less than science, I may be permitted to say that it is gratifying to hear the announcement of the Honourable the Premier that the claims of original research will be brought within the scope of the inst.i.tution which takes its origin to-day.

(Applause.) Surely it is a desirable, even a necessary, function of the chief seat of learning of a State that its professors and teachers should not only teach that which is known, but that they should themselves be contributors to the sum of human knowledge. There can be no doubt that the prestige of a university depends far more upon the extent to which its teachers are known as originators of knowledge than upon their daily routine lectures, however honestly or however ably these may be delivered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LADY MacGREGOR PLANTING THE UNIVERSITY TREE]

Every professor worthy the name will admit that the burden of teaching, unrelieved and uninspired by the stimulus of independent work and thought, may indeed become destructive of the intellectual energies. This infant University, launched as it is upon its career with the goodwill of a prudent Government and with, I believe, to an unusual degree the good wishes and support of the people, has the great advantage that it may profit by the example of the inst.i.tutions that have preceded it; and fortunate will be the University of Queensland if, by adopting the good that may be discerned in its sister inst.i.tutions, and by avoiding their mistakes, if such have been made, it shall enter upon and pursue a blameless career of which all men shall speak well. Even in their relatively short careers, as time goes for States and inst.i.tutions, it can be perceived that the Australian Universities have to some extent developed individualities of their own, and this is just what is to be desired. A Minister of France under the Third Empire once made it his boast that on the same day and at the same hour every corresponding cla.s.s in every Lycee throughout the length and breadth of the land was performing the same allotted task. That boast bespoke an undesirable uniformity which is not likely to find favour in British communities, least of all in these States, where we have become accustomed to strike out new lines in education for ourselves. Therefore, it is to be desired that the University of Queensland will in its turn, evolve an individuality of its own, that it will be inspired by the particular requirements of the State whose interests it serves; and, further, may I express the hope that the fact will become recognised, which has not easily gained recognition in the Australian communities--namely, that a well-founded and well-equipped university may be one of the best a.s.sets, material as well as intellectual, that can be possessed by any State or Nation. Your Excellency, I have been ordered to be brief in my remarks, and, interesting as are many of the thoughts that arise on such an exceptional occasion, I must conclude by expressing once more, on behalf of the University I have the honour to represent, and with all earnestness and sincerity, our fervent hope that this University of Queensland, so auspiciously inaugurated, will prosper to the uttermost, and that it will grow in usefulness and dignity as it grows in years, and that at length it will stand forth as a n.o.ble monument to the great State whose far-seeing Government and whose public-spirited citizens have this day launched it on its career of promise. (Applause.)

THE HON. W. KIDSTON: I have now to invite Her Excellency, Lady MacGregor, to plant a "University tree," which I hope will grow and flourish as we expect the University to do, and that in the years to come, when many who are here to-day have pa.s.sed away, the tree will be known as "Lady MacGregor's tree."

On a spot in front of the dais, Her Excellency planted a tree with a silver trowel on which was inscribed: "To Lady MacGregor, from the Chief Secretary of Queensland, Hon. W. Kidston, 10th December, 1909."

Lady MacGregor then declared the tree well and truly planted.