THE GROWTH OF AN UNIVERSITY . 



By Julia F. Solly. 



Much has been written and said concerning a teaching 

 University for South Africa, one worthy of our country, properly 

 equipped for scientific research and that shall contibute to those 

 newest sciences, ethnology and anthropology, as only South Africa 

 can ; sciences every day more important now that an awakened 

 European conscience is striving to understand and guide, not 

 merely crush and exploit, races of different civilisations and 

 development from our own. 



In most of the talk, on press, platform, or in council room 

 the demand is largely for money and equipment, the demand fof 

 both being so great that it is stated only one such University can 

 be expected of Government, which is looked on as the propef 

 source of supply. 



It seems to me that money and equipment, though necessary 

 to a University, are not the only or even the main things, and 

 that the two main requirements — teachers and students — have 

 not been sufficiently considered or, rather, hardly even glanced at, 

 and the University we all hope to see is apparently to spring at 

 one bound into full and active complex existence, as Minerva 

 sprang fully armed from the head of Jupiter, if only the 

 Treasurer-General will give public money enough. 



A brief sketch of the growth of a successful modern 

 University, that of Liverpool, might be of service, and if I lay 

 stress on other than pecuniary requirements, it is not because as 

 a member of the paying — though unhappily not of the voting — 

 public, that I deprecate money being spent on a University, but 

 because I do not think a million, or two millions, or three millions 

 will make a University. 



Some time ago the Transvaal Agricultural Journal published 

 views of leading Educationists all over the world as to the aims 

 and ideals of a National College of Agriculture, and a detailed 

 plan for University education was privately circulated, drawn up 

 by one of the most enthusiastic and brilliant of the Liverpool 

 professors. 



Twenty-nine years ago the Committee formed in Liverpool 

 to promote a University, bought a disused lunatic asylum, added 

 one large lecture hall and a few outhouses, and started with seven 

 endowed Chairs and a few lectureships. I was a student there 

 from 1883 to 1890, usually one of a class of two, in two cases a 

 sister was the other one. We were amateur students, i.e. not 

 studying for a degree, but merely in pursuit of knowledge. The 

 financial value of each Chair was ;^400 a year* and half the fees, 

 and the first seven were : Greek, Literature, Philosophy, Physics, 

 Chemistry, Natural History, and Mathematics. Just now it is of 

 interest to note that the Gladstone Chair of Greek was founded by 

 three admirers of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, who was a 

 native of Liverpool and an enthusiastic classical scholar. 



*The minimum is now ;^6oo 



