Frazer. — On University Education. 167 



In making such a summary as has now been given, it will be understood 

 that students will require to devote well nigh as much time to preparation for 

 their classes and revisal of their notes as they spend within the class-rooms. 

 Without such continuous exertion their progress is not likely to be very 

 marked. But ardent study to this extent requires a reasonable limit to the 

 time devoted to it, hence the necessity for one rather long vacation for the 

 sake of both professors and students. Although somewhat diffident as to 

 giving a decided opinion upon the subject, I believe that two terms in the 

 year would be preferable to three, and certainly more advantageous than one 

 term or session according to the system of the Scotch colleges. 



I submit these views as a contribution to the discussion of an important 

 subject. It is especially desirable in view of the arrival of two additional 

 professors to the staff of the Canterbury College that we should be prepared 

 to give an impartial and dispassionate consideration to the claims of the 

 subjects they are specially engaged to teach ; and also, that they should be 

 aware to some extent of the views entertained by those who possess at least 

 the advantage of some colonial experience. A certain adaptation to 

 circumstances is essentially requisite. In an age when every department of 

 human thought is making such rapid advances, the method of instruction 

 becomes itself a science, and is deserving of careful study in all its branches, 

 from the most elementary to the highest. The aim of our colonial college is to 

 place the highest education within the reach of all those minds which are best 

 qualified to profit by it. And while we labour to make the general education 

 of the mass of society as sound and as good as we can, we shall never more 

 truly promote the interests of the human family than when we afford to the 

 men of brightest intellect and most solid mental power, quite irrespective of 

 class, rank, or wealth, the means of developing their faculties, and of 

 accomplishing those higher ends which they only can reach. 



At a late meeting of the Social Science Association in Glasgow the Earl 

 of Rosebery complained that with all the talk there was about technical 

 education no proposals were made to provide technical education for their 

 rulers. He meant that the science of Government and the great questions of 

 social well-being were not made so prominent as they ought to be. What he 

 thus desires for Great Britain is still more necessary here, for the whole 

 community are our governors. The strong active intellects, come from what 

 class they may, are sure to be the leaders in such a land as ours. To provide 

 for such intellects the soundest information and the best mental discipline is 

 the surest means to preserve the liberties of the country from the attacks alike 

 of the demagogue and the despot, and to promote throughout future ages the 

 moral and material progress of its inhabitants. 



