HUMANISM AND REALISM. 539 
HUMANISM AND REALISM IN THEIR RELATIONS 
2 OP nIGILER EDUCATION: 
AN INAUGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE CANTERBURY 
COLLEGE DIALECTIC ‘SOCIETY, AT THE COMMENCEMENT 
"OE THE SECOND TERM OF 1883. 
SIN Lo) 
BY, ORS J. MON ELAAST, C:M.G. 
etcne tee PEE 
Having had to deliver the opening address of Canter- 
bury College for the Season 1833. you have kindly al- 
lowed me to postpone the address to your Society as its 
Honorary President for the year 1883, to the opening of 
the second term, and in fulfilling the honorable task im- 
posed upon me, I wish to claim your kind indulgence, if my 
delivery should not come up to the accustomed standard. 
For my theme I have chosen a subject foremost in the mind 
of every earnest thinker, who has the advancement of our rising 
nation as well as our Alma Mater at heart : Humanism and 
Realism, the great question in modern higher education. 
If, by giving my views on the subject fearlessly, I should 
hurt the settled or preconceived ideas of some of my hearers, 
who regard any thorough reform in the curriculum of our higher 
schools as exceedingly dangerous and objectionable, I trust they 
will remember that no great change for the better has been 
accomplished in any human organisation without giving offence 
to someone, or interfering with the time-honoured privileges of 
at least one section of the community—the conservative and 
antiquated. 
Objection to my speaking on the subject I have chosen may 
be taken on two accounts, to which before proceeding I wish to 
allude. In the first place it may be said, and with truth, that this 
question has been already ventilated in all its bearings by men 
eminently fitted to have an opinion on the subject ; and se- 
condly, that being a foreigner, unacquainted to at least some 
degree with the English character or English requirements, 
it ill becomes me to find fault or to propose remedies. 
Having lived now a quarter of a century in New Zealand, I 
have had the privilege of standing at the cradle of some of our 
ereatest educational institutions, and watching their wants, re- 
quirements, and success ; and on the other hand, not being born 
a British subject, I may claim that Iam quite unbiassed, and that 
I might perhaps more easily point out where changes and im- 
provements are urgently required, which to an Englishman, born 
and educated in the atmosphere of some great English Univer- 
sity, appear if not necessary, at least premature. Moreover I 
shall venture to doso only in an indirect way, my principal 
observations in many instances referring only to Germany, or 
to the Teutonic race in general. 
