BY J. BROWNLIE HENDERSON. XXV. 
will never be made compulsory. A University for a 
new country with no leisured class who have little else to 
do than amuse themselves, should give a distinctly practical 
bent to education. The technical side of higher education, 
such as medicine and surgery, engineering subjects, 
chemistry in its application to agriculture, mining, metal- 
lurgy, etc., and those other branches of knowledge of 
natural science the application of which tends to the better- 
ment of our people, will I trust take first place. 
The cost of starting a University here has often been 
much over-estimated. Undoubtedly £200,000 could be 
spent on buildings and fittings without wasting a penny. 
But a start could be made without other buildings than we 
have at present. The Wellington branch of the New 
Zealand University when I was in Wellington two years 
ago, consisted of the teaching staff. They had no buildings, 
though these were approved and the site cleared for their 
erection. Buta first-class teaching staff had been appointed, 
and the classes met where rooms were available—which 
meant in different quarters of the town. The chemistry 
was taught by arrangement with the local Technical College 
in their Laboratory, and though the Laboratory could not 
be called a first-class one, and the equipment was inexpen- 
sive, some of the most striking recent contributions to 
chemical science have come from there in the last few years. 
The appointment of say four first-class men, with a few 
assistants and a comparatively small initial outlay for 
apparatus for physical and chemical laboratories would 
start a Univeristy in Brisbane. We do not require a great 
outlay on buildmgs at the beginning, but we want the 
teaching to be the best obtainable. 
And look at the advantages to be gained from a com- 
mercial standpoint—for that is evidently the view that 
will be taken by those who supply the funds. At present 
if a scientific man is required in Queensland we instantly 
send elsewhere for one. It is not because the young Queens- 
lander is less capable than the young Englishman. So far 
as my observation goes the average boy here is smarter 
and quicker, if perhaps a little less tenacious, than the boy in 
the Old Country. It is merely that the young Queens- 
lander has never had a chance. I have known boys here 
