6 president's address. 



tion results, so that it is a typical story wliich is told in a South 

 African novel of a spectator at a football match to whom a 

 friend points out one of the players and says most impressively, 

 " You see that man, he's a B.A." 



As far as regards the scheme which has been adopted, one 

 federal and two single-college universities. I do not propose 

 to say anything. There are man}- who say that' a federal uni- 

 versity is unworkable ; there are many who consider that it 

 answers the needs of this country, that it lifts uji the small col- 

 leges to the level of the larger colleges, and thai it will prove a 

 real success. Time will solve that question, and alsd the ques- 

 tion whether the South African College and the N'ictoria College 

 are sufficiently developed to become universities of good name 

 and world-wide respect. The settlement of the university ques- 

 tion has aroused this year such controversy that it is best left 

 alone till feelings are not so acute. 



The interest shown in the university question natiu"illy 

 leads to an in(|uiry into what South Africa expects from its 

 universities, wliat advantages are to accrue to .South Africa, 

 some at least in larger measure, from the new" Universities? I 

 ])ropose to speak only on three — training in character for the 

 ^•outh of the country, encouragement of the studv of science, 

 furthering of research, two of which will aij])eal more especially 

 t(t members of an Association such as ours. 



A university should claim this ideal: " l^\er\ >tudeiU owes 

 to the ))ublic, in the form of superior usefulness to it. ])Oth while 

 in the institution and afterwards, a full e(|uivaleiu for its ex- 

 penditure in his behalf." 



TraiiiiiKj in Character. — The American ph.iloso])her. Pro- 

 fessor William James, says that the pithiest reply he can give to 

 the question, " Of \vhat use is a college training?"' is " It should 

 help you to know a good man when you see him." He points 

 out how the narrowest trade training tells a man of good work 

 in one line, which may suggest that in everything there is good 

 and bad work, and he says that at college there should be 

 obtained a general sense of what, under various disguises, supe- 

 riority has always signified and ma\' still signify. A college (or 

 university) training ought to give itN members this sense of 

 human superiority and to light u]) in them a lasting preference 

 for the better kind of man. lie goes on to speak of the import- 

 ant function of an educated class in a democratic communit}' 

 like that in America. A convinced democrat himself, with the 

 ■' \ision of a democracy stumbling througli every error till its 

 institutions glow with justice and its customs shine with beauty." 

 he recognises that democracy is still on its trial, and that its 

 future depends on its ca])acity for choosing its leaders. Its 

 critics say th.at its preferences are invariably for the inferior. 

 In these circumstances it is the function of the " college-bred " 

 to di\-ine the worthier ;md bet lei- leaders, and to follow them 

 and to inipress the democrai\\- with their own higher prefer- 

 ences. While South Africa is not exacth' a democratic com- 



