For two reasons I have put in writing what I have to say on the important subject that has brought us here to-day. The first is that I cannot make myself heard by a large audience. The second is that we are assembled here on the occasion of the Jubilee of Queensland, and that fifty years hence the Jubilee of the University of this State will also be celebrated, and it is desirable that those who participate in that ceremony should know in what spirit the University is being founded: what are our hopes, our aspirations, what appreciation we have of our duty towards our posterity and the future of the great country we and they have to develop. I trust that for this reason all speeches made here to-day may be carefully recorded, as we now enter upon a new phase of the intellectual life of Queensland, a matter that cannot but be of far-reaching importance to the next and succeeding generations of this State.
I deem it a fortunate circumstance that, a few days after my arrival in Brisbane, I should have the privilege of participating in a ceremonial for the establishment of "The University of Queensland," of taking part in a State function of historical and of great social and economic importance.
We live in an age of more rapid progress than any that has ever preceded our own day: and for my part I am prepared to believe that we owe to education the enormous advances in recent years in health, wealth, and in the amenities and comforts of life. It is now well known to us all that the nation that is backward in education is, or soon will be, behind in all that makes a people great and prosperous.
I am aware that these facts were fully recognised by many men in Queensland long years ago, for I well remember the former efforts that were made to found a University here—efforts that failed through causes that happily no longer exist. One of the most noticeable facts in the social and economic life of English-speaking people in recent years is the great impulse that has been given to the development and extension of university teaching. It may with a good show of reason be said that Australasia led up to the great educational revival of the last quarter of a century, by the opening of the now famous Universities, of Sydney in 1852, of Melbourne in 1855, and of Adelaide in 1876. Then followed the University of Tasmania in 1889. The wave of university education has left the United States with 40 universities, 16 of which are very great, and 415 colleges. The movement has been as pronounced in Canada, where higher education is receiving great attention, due in a large measure to the splendid liberality of wealthy and patriotic citizens. The same influence has been profoundly felt in the United Kingdom. The Victoria University was founded in 1880, and the London University was reconstituted in 1900. Birmingham University dates from 1900, Liverpool University from 1903, the University of Wales from 1903, Leeds University from 1904, Sheffield University from 1905, and the two national Universities of Ireland from 1908. To come nearer home, New Zealand has her University and affiliated colleges; and West Australia is at this moment taking active steps for the establishment of her own State University, so that it remains at present doubtful whether Queensland or West Australia is to play the part of the most retiring of this pleiad of Australasian Universities. Hitherto the youth of Queensland has had to go elsewhere for residential university education. Fortunately for Queensland, she has had an active and influential committee for university extension lectures, the members of which have patriotically performed good service to the State by arranging for lectures that have helped to procure from beyond the State university certificates of competence by a considerable number of the youth of this country. This committee has fortunately been able to do enough to demonstrate how much we need a University of our own. They are entitled to the warm thanks of the community for what they have done. I have had an opportunity of knowing from the admirable lectures of Professor David, on the 4th and 8th of this month, how interesting, instructive, and valuable those lectures can be. I have said enough to show you that if Queensland did not now, without any further delay, proceed to found her University, this, one of the greatest, most promising, and wealthiest provinces in the Empire, would, as far as education is concerned, occupy a very conspicuous and unenviable position among the great countries of the world; especially would this be the case in regard to the sister States and Dominions.
What is a University? I have seen a University defined as a place at which students from any quarter of the universe could be received to study, irrespective of nationality. What we understand here by a University, and what we aim at, is an institution where any person can find the fullest and best instruction of the day in any branch of knowledge. It will be the head corner-stone of the system of education that has been legalised in this State, a school that will be accessible to all, and will afford equal chances and opportunities to rich and poor alike, without reference to sex or religious denomination. I know of no institution in modern social life that equals the University in giving a fair chance in life to the youth that is capable and is able and willing to work; although, for my part, I can only regard schools of all grades as only preparatory for the studies that have to be incessantly pursued after one ceases to attend classes, if one does not resign oneself to falling behind; thus the primary school prepares for the secondary school, and that school leads to the university, which last furnishes the highest and best intellectual equipment for one's life work, an equipment of such character that it can be obtained and be certified to by the university, and by that alone. It supplies to the bearer the hall-mark of the State that the man or woman that bears it has had the best instruction that the country can supply.
HIS EXCELLENCY SIR W. MacGREGOR ADDRESSING THE AUDIENCE
What is to be taught in the University? You will find that the University Act makes provision for the establishment of certain faculties in which instruction shall be given; the preamble shows that the University is to provide "a liberal and practical education in the several pursuits and professions of life in Queensland." In no other country can the pursuits and professions of social and economic life be greater than they are, or will be, in Queensland, having regard to the extraordinary multiplicity of its resources. Such a broad purpose as that set out in the University Act leaves little option to the ruling power of the University as to what subjects are to be taught. That question is determined in a large measure by the work of other universities, for it is a foregone conclusion that the University of Queensland is not to occupy a position in the educational world inferior to that of any sister university in Australasia. We are well aware that their standard is high; and we recognise that we start late, and are therefore behind, and that we have a hard task before us to overtake the other universities; but this has to be done, and will be done. I dwell on this because there should exist no misconception as to the scope of the Queensland University, especially in regard to what is called the classical side of instruction, in contradistinction to the scientific or practical. We recognise that the literary records of the world have, in the main, been successively committed to the languages of the Chaldeans, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxons. If those languages are dead, their remains are so constantly brought before us every hour of our lives that acquaintance with those of them that are usually taught in what is called the faculty of arts forms a necessary and indispensable part of the education of every accomplished or finished scholar, and of most professional men or women. At the same time, therefore, that this University will provide the best tuition in the classical languages of the past, we cannot but see that times have changed; that, for example, in no country in Europe or America could the Prime Minister now conduct official business in Latin with King or Governor, as was the case in England not very long ago. No Prime Minister could now electrify a drooping Parliament with a Latin quotation, as Pitt did. So far as I know, the last Parliament in Europe to use Latin as its language ceased to do so some three-score of years ago. The classics have come into disfavour owing in a large measure to the fact that they were overdone, that time was wasted on utterly valueless subtleties in learning them. They were associated with too much book and too little practical work. Here we shall have a course of classics, an arts faculty, equal to that of other universities, but without unduly encroaching on other faculties of more modern development and of more direct utility in the evolution of modern economic life. It would, however, be unreasonable to expect that the University of Queensland could be brought into the world full-grown at its birth. The University of Sydney began with four professors. I am informed by the very distinguished gentleman who is Chancellor of the University of Adelaide that the now great University of that city entered on its career, in rented premises, thirty-four years ago, with three chairs—classics, mathematics, and natural science. Now it has faculties of arts, science, law, medicine, electrical, mining, civil engineering, commerce, and music; and it has ranked, by letters patent, for the last twenty-eight years, with the old universities of the United Kingdom. The Adelaide University now has eleven professors and twenty-six lecturers. It supplies to us a splendid example of courage, of energy, and of perseverance, and that example we mean to follow. (Applause.) Our late start is not without some compensation, for not only are we able to profit from the experience of others, but, what is equally important, we can adapt our University courses to the needs of the country untrammelled by the vested interests and the threadbare traditions that make it so difficult for old universities to adapt themselves to the exigencies of modern educational requirements. If one thinks of Queensland as she was this day fifty years ago, and as she is to-day, it can be seen that he would be a bold man that would predict what faculties, what tuition, may be required, and may be given, in the Queensland University half a century from now. The moral to be drawn from this is, to make a start on an elastic plan that may admit of indefinite expansion. We require a broad and strong foundation, able to carry a great edifice, sufficient to provide the most comprehensive tuition, not only in what is known, but also to facilitate and encourage original research and invention, as set out in the Act. Even sport will not be forgotten, for it is an important consideration, in a non-residential university, to foster that feeling and regard for a bountiful mother that should animate the students of every great University. One thing is abundantly clear: that because we are determined to have a university equal to the needs of this great State, a university that shall stimulate those of the sister States, and because we start at so late a date, we must begin with the very best teachers that can be procured, the most learned and enthusiastic men in their several departments. On those men will in a large measure depend the future character and standing of our University. The best men will be the cheapest. Queensland can afford to employ them, and we know they will be a profitable investment. (Applause.) A university costs money, much money, especially in the technical departments, such as engineering, mining, and agriculture. The endowment of universities has been recognised in recent years as having such strong claims on public funds that they cannot be overlooked. That principle is accepted here. Our nearest neighbours have conferred valuable land areas on their universities; and they have been very liberal to them in money grants. In this respect the oldest of our Universities, that of Sydney, led the way with wisdom and a liberal hand, and to-day New South Wales reaps her reward. It may safely be assumed that the Parliament and Government of Queensland will be equally liberal and far-seeing. But the different Universities have in recent years profited in an extraordinary manner from the munificence of private citizens. In ten years the technical schools, colleges, and universities of the United States received in that way £23,000,000. Perhaps the largest amount of such gifts in any one year was in 1903, when they received £3,350,000. It appears that in 1907 nearly £300,000 was bequeathed to universities and colleges in the United Kingdom. It has become a common practice for private citizens to found a university chair to bear the name of a person whose memory it is desired to preserve and to honour. Others that are not in a position to do so much as that have very frequently established a bursary or scholarship, sometimes sufficiently large to maintain a student at the university, or to partly do so. The bursaries that produce the best results are those that are given by open competition. But others that are limited to a specified name or locality, according to the desire of the donors, are very useful. Some men of good will are not permitted by their means to do more than to found a prize for proficiency in some branch taught in the university. This State possesses an enormous area; the productions are varied in a very unusual degree, and they are of enormous value present and prospective; and there can be no reason to suppose that Queenslanders are to be less generous and patriotic towards their University than our neighbours have been towards theirs. I shall be satisfied if we have citizens here as generous as Russell in Sydney, as Ormond in Melbourne, and Elder and Hughes in Adelaide. I think that no more patriotic nor useful disposition of one's money could be made. We start under the best auspices, for we have before us now a most gracious message of congratulation and good wishes from His Majesty the King, whose life is devoted to the welfare of his subjects, and there are with us to-day representatives from the great Universities of Sydney and Adelaide. Each of these Universities has sent us a man of world-wide reputation. I know well what I am saying when I tell you that the names of Professors David and Stirling are as well known, and are as highly honoured, by the learned men and women of Europe and America as by the people of Australia. (Applause.) It is a great honour to us to have such representatives here to-day, and for their presence we owe hearty thanks to their respective Universities, and I bid them a hearty and appreciative welcome to Brisbane, for I feel sure that they and the Universities they represent will always extend to us sympathy, good advice, and an excellent example; and I am certain that they will be delighted to see us here in a position to offer them that healthful emulation that cannot but be advantageous to all concerned. I now, ladies and gentlemen, take the first practical step towards the founding of the University of Queensland by complying with the request of the Hon. William Kidston, Premier of the State, to assent to the University Bill of 1909; and I shall thereafter, in your presence, deliver this copy of the Act to the Hon. Joshua Thomas Bell, who will receive it on behalf of the people of Queensland; and, this done, I shall, by unveiling a commemorative tablet, dedicate this building to the purposes of the University of Queensland. (Loud applause.)
