370 president's address — section e. 



be reasonably regarded as distinct in quality from that which is 

 done by the pass or honors student. 



There is another argument in favour of research which is 

 important enough to justify the emphasis of special consideration. 

 Historical research, in common with all other forms of original 

 research, exerts a quickening influence on what might be called 

 " The vital quality of the soul." It is impossible to indicate the 

 precise significance of such a statement as this, but some suggestion 

 by way of analogy may be offered. The research student is a 

 discoverer as well as an explorer ; he seeks his way through dense 

 woods and tangled forests of fact hitherto untrodden, and in his 

 more ambitious undertakings, " voyages through strange seas of 

 thought alone." His trail is the lone trail, and the more genuine 

 his research the more lonely the trail is and the greater the oppor- 

 tunity of extending the boundaries of knowledge. There is a 

 peculiar fascination about the work of a discoverer, a kind of gleam 

 on the distant horizon which illumines his path with romantic 

 splendour. And once having caught sight of the gleam he is eager 

 to follow, follow, follow. Rudyard Kipling in " The Explorer," 

 and Robert Service in the " Call of the Wild " from the Songs of a 

 Sourdough, have written in powerful verse of the fine impassioned 

 fervour of the discoverer which transmutes danger and difficulty 

 into golden opportunity. Of such fervour the research student has 

 his share — less ecstatic it may be than the discoverer, but genuine 

 and intense notwithstanding, and that fervour or enthusiasm has 

 high educational value. It is the man who lives on the borderland 

 of his subject who not only preserves a keen and stirring interest 

 in his work, but is able also to arouse a similar interest in those 

 whose training may be committed to his care. Public opinion in 

 Australia demands that the leading men in our Universities shall 

 devote a large proportion of their time to teaching. The value of 

 research work as a means of inspiration to the teacher, and therefore 

 indirectly to the students, is all too likely to be overlooked. Re- 

 search is the best and most important work that can be done in a 

 University, and a University in which the teachers and picked 

 students have no time or opportunity for undertaking it is a 

 University without the chance of inhaling the bracing air of the 

 mountain tops. Its pulsations are likely to become slower and 

 fainter, and it may even become dead at heart. This is the last and 

 most important reason why original research in one form or another 

 should be regarded as the fulfilment and consummation of the study 

 of general history in " pass " work and " honors " work of our 

 Universities. 



If so much be allowed the practical question at once arises — 

 Have we the men and the material to do this work ? I think so. 



Among the courses offered for honours in history there might 

 be one in which the student presents himself for examination in 

 General Imperial and Colonial History, and prepares a thesis on a 

 period or special subject in the history of the State to which he 

 belongs. Of such a course the thesis would be the most important 



